Tales from the Road

Driving in Greece can be quite interesting, as one never quite knows what is coming up next.  For example, you might have one of these in front of you.  Do you pass?  Not pass? What happens either way?



Ultimately, total belief in ones' navigator is essential.  It's also important to realize that while the Greeks have built the US equivalent of interstates, there is still a very strong regional - or even, might I suggest - city-state aspect to Greek life. Signage on the interstates (aka 'national roads') is in uniform colors, but the signs vary hugely.  It's rarely clear what the exit number is, how far an exit might be from any given location, or how much a toll might be from place to place.  Some exits are even forbidden, for reasons neither of us could figure out as the road seemed perfectly clear to both of us.



Don't be fooled by the cement dispenser to the right.  The exit was perfectly functional and we saw cars on it.  But whatever this place is, it's not to be accessed by this exit -- which, by the way, has no number.  There were also a number of places that were outright dangerous; can you think of any US highway with this much protection from random rocks falling down? I can't.



Once you got off the interstate, the local roads could be, well, interesting.  Here's an idea of what local upkeep is like when they think nobody cares about the road (ie, it only leads to archaeological sites and churches):



Overall, though, driving in Greece (as long as you stay off the Chromatodromos), isn't so bad. The speed limits are laughably low (in many places they are 20-30 mph, when in the US they'd be 50), but the Greeks make up for it by ignoring them.  There are speed cameras everywhere, but as best I can tell they were bought and installed in the early 2000's -- ie, if they still work they use film and they only bother to cite people traveling at insane speeds.  I can testify that actual Greeks ignore them.

One site I found listed a bunch of rules for driving in Greece, and I can definitely confirm one of them (#13):

When asking directions expect to hear something like: Go about 3 kilometers, take a right at the traffic light and ask someone else. Directions, no matter how precise always include asking someone else, thus increasing the possibility of being given the wrong directions. Make sure you have a map. A compass is not a bad idea either.

When we went to the winery, our host, Christos, was very clearly using this method and it worked perfectly well.  Of course, you have to speak more Greek than we do now to make it work.  But it's far from out of the ordinary - nobody he asked felt at all put out about the question of where is place X.

As a male US-trained driver, I'll note that one aspect of Greek driving is remarkably calming.  Passing is not a challenge to ones' masculinity.  Most roads are two lane, and everyone expects that there will be people who need or want to go faster than other people.  If you feel like going slow (and there is someone gaining on you), you just hug the side of the road.  They'll pass, and it's over.  Sometimes you're in a hurry, sometimes you're not. Everyone understands.  In the US, the whole issue brims with testosterone and passing is a huge thing.  In Greece, well, it just doesn't matter.  You'll pass some folks.  You'll get passed by other folks.  Either way, it's OK.  At times, I felt the whole thing was symbolic, but in the end decided it's really just about getting to where you're going at a speed you feel comfortable with.  In a country with roads of highly variable quality, this is a joy.

Car Stats

During the 18 days that we had a car, we drove 3,600km (631km with the SEAT Toledo, and 2,969 with the VW Passat), which was nearly 600km longer than we drove last trip, even thought there was an entire day in Nafplio when we didn't go anywhere!  This translates to 2,237 miles, which is nearly the distance from Boston to Albuquerque, NM, by plane.  There were fortunately more highways and fewer mountain passes this time, but we did drive almost to Turkey in the panhandle of northern Greece.

On our travels, we spent 96.05 euros in tolls!!!  The Peleponnesse has built a beautiful new 6-lane highway, but they charge a random amount about every 20km (and don't post the toll until about 100m before the toll booths which often left me holding a random assortment of coins which could produce the most variety of combinations, since tolls ranged from 1.20 to 3.90 euros).  On our day-trip adventures, we happily paid for the privilege of getting to the archaeological sites more comfortably (and quickly).  The drive from Athens to Korinthos was also getting pretty irritating with the most expensive tolls every 10 min, until we accidentally got on the no-toll road at Megara. Under the pretext that this was the more scenic route from which I would want pictures, and it was the only road accessible to the pedestrian bridge across the Isthmus, we took this coming back all the way to Athens!  We have the flyer to get an electronic toll transponder (there are 4 companies which provide these), and maybe next trip we will.  

We filled up the tank about 2.5 times (we were driving a diesel engine for most of the trip).  I'll do separate analyses for the cars:

Toledo - unleaded

38.77L at a cost of 58.50 euros 

10.25 gal at a cost of $65.50 ($6.39/gal)

Total MPG = 38.25

Passat - diesel

132.33L at a cost of 163.75 euros

35 gal at a cost of $183.40 ($5.24/gal)

Total MPG =52.71

So, even with some mountain driving and a couple of chromatodromoses, diesel fuel was the clear winner, and we still enthusiastically endorse the VW Passat automatic transmission.  We didn't quite put it through the battery of tests that we did last time, but it still got a good workout.

Returning the car in Athens, we didn't bother trying to fill it up (much to the Hertz agent's surprise) largely because navigating in Athens was probably one of the scariest things I have ever done, and I didn't want to spend any more time trying to find a gas station, and we had stopped caring about dirt or bugs after we arrived in Nafplio, so a car wash or even a windshield wash was right out.  We had carefully noted scratches on all sides/hood/bumpers of the car, so "damage" was irrelevant.  Even though we arrived well before the drop off time, the Hertz agent was anxious to get the car, did a cursory scan before signing off, and probably flipped it within the hour.

Overall, the Hertz rental was a good choice, rather than a cheaper Greek or EU (Sixt?) company, but we were supposed to get a Mercedes A4, got pawned the SEAT Toledo until the flat tire incident, and finally ended up with a car that we knew and knew would serve us properly for what we wanted to do.  A car which does as well on the dirt roads in between olive groves as it does on newly tarred surfaces of the A7!  Accept no substitutes.

Best and Worst

Best and Worst of this Trip

Most Organized Site – Dion

Most Confusing Site – Korinthos – just too much going on there to process

            Runner up – Isthmia

Most Unexpectedly Fantastic Site – Heraeon of Argos

            Runner up – Lykosura

Worst Maintained Site – Piraeus.  Everything was behind an iron fence, overgrown not just with weeds but volunteer trees!

            Runner up – too many to name

Best Archaeological Site Staff – Amphipolis.  We would never have found the site under the museum or elsewhere in town if our friend hadn’t guided us and/or pointed us in the right direction

            Runner up – Piraeus.  Not sure if the person we spoke with actually worked for the site or the exhibit, but he was friendly and fascinating, and we could have chatted with him for another hour.

Worst Archaeological Site Staff – Sikyonas.  Closed due to understaffing, but the one person who was working there came out only to tell us that the site was closed.  Surely, he must have had the keys just to let us into the site; we didn’t want to see the museum.   

Best Archaeological Museum – Isthmia (in a stunning contrast to the organization of its site!)

            Runner up – Piraeus exhibit on “Unearthed”

Worst Archaeological Museum – Avdira, because I so enjoyed being told that I was “confused” because the label was wrong, but no one was ever going to do anything about it.

Best Tale About (Not) Getting In – Amycles

            Runner up – Lykosura

Most Dangerous Thing We Did – Climbing a volcano

            Runner up – Changing a tire on the side of a Greek highway.  Even on a 3-lane highway, the breakdown lane is still active for driving.

Worst Injury to Lauren – Phillipoi, when I heard my ankle pop as I slipped on the descent

            Runner up – Amycles, for what I didn’t do to my left hand.

Weirdest thing we saw:  

            L – hedgehog

            R – marble catapult balls

Worst Google misdirect – the start of the trail for the volcano at Methana is not easily identifiable on Google maps, but there is a “location” that when you arrive you can see the only sign for the volcano indicating that it is 5km off in another direction.  If you count exactly 5km, and make all the right choices at the various Y-splits all on narrow mountain roads, then you come to the trail. 

Worst Error between Google Maps and Waze – not realizing I had “no tolls” toggled on Waze as we were returning home from Sparta, at 8:00pm, now through the winding mountain passes…

Best Drop In Café – Phidaraki, Kavala--chef/owner made everything fresh, especially the seafood

            Runner up – To Tavernaki Tou Gamprou, Korinthos (server there is from Toronto!)

Best Food Discovery – Pistitso (Greek lasagna!)

Most Useful Item Brought (Other Than Technology) – Excerpts of the Atlas.  Cringe if you must, but I took the book apart at the binding and only brought the relevant maps.

            Runner up – Wegmans Baby Broad Spectrum SPF 60.  It has an applicator like miniature stick deodorant, and was, therefore, SO easy to apply and carry in my pocket.

Most Useless Item Brought – the MyFi.  In a staggering fall from “best” last trip, this piece of equipment proved utterly useless to us, and we won’t be using it again

            Runner up:

                   R, a long-sleeved Orvis shirt, which proved too thick

                   L, the V-neck shift dress I brought last time that I also didn’t wear last time because of the tan line I got in the first 2 days.

Most Annoying Question We Were Asked – in a surprising revelation, the same question was asked by everyone regardless of nationality.  “What islands did you visit?”  The question would be asked even if we tried to pre-empt the question by saying we had visited no islands, because the question is so routine that no conversation is complete without asking.  Kind of like saying “how are you?”  You don’t care about the answer, but you have to ask, and the answer should always be “fine” or some equally innocuous variant.  Here, the answer is “Mykonos and Santorini”.  Anything else just confuses people.

Most Interesting Greek Word We Learned: 

       R, Iphaistos for volcano, derived directly from the God’s name

       L, Ilithios for idiot/stupid.  I got to use it on a shop girl who didn’t want to work, barely helping the customers before us before they left, and dropped the ceramic ornament I was going to purchase and then tried to explain that because of some firing process that it couldn’t possibly be damaged.  When I tried to tell her the English words (fired, kiln), she became annoyed at me.  I told her I was only trying to help her so that she could try to explain to the next customer why the thing she dropped wasn’t damaged.  At the point when I didn’t want to buy the thing anyway just because of her, she claimed she didn’t want to sell it to me anyway.  After Randall had already left the store, I turned around and called her “ilithios”.  Her jaw dropped that I even knew the word, and she protested in Greek and English that it was not her but me…  Whatever.  I bought the ceramic the next day from the owner, who didn’t drop it and actually wrapped it properly in bubble wrap.

Most Underestimated Hub – Sparta.  Who would have expected a centrally-located military power might be a good place to use as base camp for exploration?  Not sure about accommodations (a 5-star hotel in Sparta would be anathema), but the suburbs could be nice for future visits.

Most Unexpected Change from Last Trip – More dogs, fewer cats.

Best Cat – the girl outside the Temple of Zeus in Athens.  Even got a flop from her!

Most Unexpected Change from US Life – We never turned on the TV!

The Never-Ending Return

Owing to the fact that we had a 9:00 a.m. flight from Athens to Rome on Saturday morning, we opted to stay at the airport the night before.  This was incredibly prescient since as we learned on the inbound, the line to check bags before the flight is lengthy and starts to queue even before the max 2 hour window.  So, arising at 6:00 a.m., and finishing the pack of 15 bottles of alcohol, as well as the LV purchases, we set out for the airport, which was walking distance.  The bags weighed 20kg and 18kg, plus the smaller one which was almost 16kg, and our carry on luggage was packed with computers, which seemed to increase in weight over the course of the day.

The flight to Rome was perfect, and upon deplaning and going through one of the most lax immigration checks (two customs agents waving the passengers through as they cursorily showed that they had something resembling a passport, after all this was a domestic EU flight), I was immediately confronted with the VAT refund counters, and decided that I should try to do this now, rather than wait.  After all, I don't know where the VAT refund offices are in Fiumicino Airport, nor do I know if I will find one outside of security.  Now, I don't actually have the items for which I am collecting the VAT refund, but since it was all LV, I was prepared to show any combination of things I had on me, if necessary.  Also, I don't have my boarding pass since I only have the electronic reservation, but the customs agent didn't ask for the goods, and when I started to show him my iPhone for my boarding pass, he just wanted to know where I was going, and then stamped my form. Since the lines for VAT were terrible, Randall had gone down to baggage claim and dutifully retrieved our bags.

Again, having learned from the inbound, we left the security area, and proceeded to British Airways to check in for our flight to Heathrow and ultimately to Boston.  The lines to check in, however, were long, and unusually slow.  We were in the one for "Bag Drop Off Only" presuming we had done online check in, and as we crawled to the front of the line, Randall tried, but kept getting an error from the BA server.  Turns out which line we were in didn't matter.  The counter agent averred that her computer was out and she was having to input information manually.  She printed our bag tags and boarding passes, and off we went through security.

We had just about a 3-hour layover in Rome for our 12:55 p.m. flight, and these transactions had eaten up over 2 hours of it, so with the knowledge that the flight would board 30 min before departure, we simply headed to the gate.  The flight was immediately delayed by 10 min, then 45 min, but even before the 45 min delay had elapsed, there was an announcement that the flight was being delayed further but of unknown duration.  At this point, we went to the lounge, since that would be an easier place to wait, and we would likely get clearer information there.

So, we found a place to nest, and started our wait, casually chatting with others similarly delayed.  More people crowded the lounge, and a family of 4 joined our corner.  The mood was getting restless since EU law automatically provides reimbursement for certain distances and delays/cancellations, and we were getting into that target range (3 hours for flights between 1500-3500km).  It was around 3:30pm that the start of the real adventure would begin.  BA finally announced that its computer systems were down world wide, and it was cancelling all flights before 6:00pm GMT.  BA flight crews are reported as saying the event is "catastrophic".  Now, our connecting flight out of Heathrow was not until 6:20pm, but we were never going to get there.  Our boarding passes now functioned as vouchers for a sandwich and a drink at the food court.  And shortly thereafter, all flights for the day were cancelled, and representatives were telling us which carousels would have our bags.  You can now imagine the situation.  Everyone is trying to get information about other flights, rebooking, vouchers and hotel rooms and generally, what to do, since this isn't weather related or an act of God, but rather the 6th time that BA has had computer problems, and we learned that several months ago, BA eliminated any airline specific customer service in Rome, but now has outsourced the problem through Avia Partners, and fundamentally, there are no answers since everything is computer dependent and all system is down.  Randall and I waited out the masses by calling American Airlines to rebook us, since fortunately, our flights were done through AA co-chairing on BA.  That took a while, and rather than lose the telephone connection, I then went to retrieve our bags, while Randall finished the transaction with AA, which meant going back through immigration, which was more interesting this time coming into the international terminal.

As I evaluated the chaos between carousels 10 and 11, the line for the hotel information was short, and my bags, if they were even on the belt yet, were going nowhere, so I got that piece of the puzzle--a one page apology for the inconvenience and a standard form for maximum reimbursement and where to send the information.  By then, Randall had arrived to help me retrieve 50+kg of luggage onto a free airport trolley.  As the line for voucher information was now 20 deep, and the line for taxis was similarly growing, we found a quiet bank of seats, and I started on Expedia and Travelocity, while Randall put in a search for "airport hotels", and eventually we secured a reservation for the Hilton at the airport, which was only a long walk with the ever-increasingly heavy luggage, especially after we had to abandon the trolley before we got the hotel.  Sure, we could have stayed in Rome, which was about an hour commute, or Fiumicino, which was 30 min, but we were now on a 9:30 a.m. fight to JFK, and we wanted to get there 2 hours in advance to deal with any other issues, and we were were, to say the least, tired.  Personally, I just wanted to eat, shower, and go to bed, disturbing the least amount of my tightly-packed suitcases as possible.

The large glasses of Sangiovese at dinner were great, and the scotch that I poured into an empty water bottle before we left the first class lounge made sure we crashed at 10:00 p.m., but still that alarm was harrowing at 6:00 a.m., and back to the airport we went.

Checking into American Airlines was pleasant, and seemingly uneventful, and even though we were a little over the checked baggage weight allowance, the desk agent let it slide.  She knew we were part of the BA debacle, and took pity on us.  She did ask if we had packed a dead body.  I shrugged.  What was I going to tell her?  No, that weight is the 15 bottles of alcohol that I'm not telling you about because then you won't take my luggage???  And now off to the AA lounge, shared with a dozen other smaller airline presences, but also serving the same awful catered food.  We boarded as soon as we were able, bypassing the random search of bags and person--at this point, I don't even know what is in my carry on (a plastic container of cashews from Greece, a ceramic nick nack, my jewelry???) and I start nesting.  For some reason, the airlines guard the headphones like gold ingots, so I just got out my ear buds and started my in-flight entertainment.  My goals were simple:  watch as many movies as possible during a 8.5 hours flight and drink, heavily.  Now, I have also been told that when you are on a long international flight, you should try to act like the time zone you are going to in order to get acclimated more quickly.  At 9:30 a.m., however, I couldn't figure out what time zone would be appropriate for drinking, so I gave up.  Four movies, a bottle of Italian white, and a glass of Italian red (they were out of my white), we landed.

Now, because of the rebooked BA passengers, there were some tight connections, and the family we met in the lounge the previous day was also on this flight, trying to get to DC, who were given a red card to facilitate their customs/immigration.  With Global Entry, however, Randall and I got off the plane well after the rest of business class, got through immigration, got our luggage (again!) and got through customs before this family.  Then we dragged the heavy, and slightly-more-compressed-than-I-was-comfortable-with-but-what-can-I-do-now bags to be rechecked, left security once more and went back through domestic security.  It's about 12:30pm, and our shuttle to Boston is not due to depart until 3:30pm (boarding at 3:00pm), so we immediately go to the lounge.  And begin our wait.  Wine, Randall has some soup, I try cheese cubes, more wine.  We are becoming more facile at old NYT Friday crossword puzzles.  The flight is delayed to 3:50pm, then 4:15, then 4:45...at this point, I'm not really keeping up with the delays.  They are coming fast and furious, stretching out this return to interminable lengths.  I'm now trying to calculate the minimum I am going to do when I get home before I get the girls.  Dismantle luggage to check status of alcohol, start a load of laundry, shower, just becomes grab gift bottles and leave.  Randall has valiantly gone to get real food, which we will bill to BA under our L25 per day per adult meal allowance.  When the 6:15 pm delay went to 6:55pm, Randall and I decided to trek to the other lounge which is closer to Gate 39, and which is half an airport away, down, under, shuttle, up and over there, and that is when we experience the moving sidewalks that are slipping from side to side further adding to insult to injury.  We never even make it to the other lounge as we see the inbound flight deplaning, and the announcement that the turnaround will be a quick as possible.

I think I got on the flight just around 6:50pm, and promptly started another movie.  This flight is only supposed to be 45 min, but with a few extra minutes on the ground on either end, I might get through half of it of my 95-min movie.  Everyone is on, but we're not leaving, though, because some woman in coach is insisting that she has to be seated in first-class, and there are no seats, and she won't even sit down in her coach seat, which she knew was an issue before she got on the flight.  And the 8:00pm shuttle, which has been delayed to at least 9:30pm, has first class available for her, but she doesn't want to wait.  There is now about half an hour of various AA personal from what appear to be uniformed flight crew and customer service representatives, to upper management, tromping down the aisle to reason with her, finally with success, and we can now actually leave the gate.

Airborne, and landing by 8:00pm, we get the luggage one last time,  and call an Uber, and even though the driver missed turns twice, we were home by 8:20pm, and I was out the door to get my girls.  Back home by 10:00pm, everyone is nominally unpacked, second load of laundry is in the wash, shower removed the stain of the day, and I am asleep in less than 15 minutes.

The universe may have been telling us that we needed a little extra vacation, but it didn't all need to be at an airport, did it?

Our last day

It's always difficult to end a vacation, especially for us one as extraordinary as this one was.  We never had a set itinerary, and although I tried to plan sites and activities into a day, we always remained flexible.

Today was the Numismatic Museum, which was interesting, but not well organized or documented.  With 2500 years' worth of coins just from Greece, and then a desire to compare currency from other countries randomly across centuries, it was also a bit of jumbled mess.  And the museum was hot, with AC units well located behind glass display cases.  Ilithios.  At least it was free.

A quick trip to Louis Vuitton and then back to the apartment to stash purchases before we went to the Acropolis Museum, which couldn't have been more perfectly timed.  The museum was open late, and we were in no real hurry, so we wandered through the exhibits.  Now, since this museum is exclusively dedicated to the Acropolis and the findings on the Acropolis, we didn't expect to see anything new.  The British Museum still has not returned the Parthenon friezes and there is no new excavation (nor construction) going on in the area, so everything should have been the same as 2012.  However, there was a new exhibit about color on statues and buildings, and if only this museum allowed visitors to take photos...

With no particular plan for dinner, we ate at the museum, outside, with a view of the Acropolis as the sun set.

And for amusement, there is now a Lego mock up of the Acropolis!!!

Pireaus

On our penultimate date in Greece, we decided to visit the waterfront.  We had been there very briefly the last trip to take a ferry to Aigina, but that was just the commercial harbor.  This time, owing to an 8:00pm dinner reservation, we gave ourselves some time to really explore Piraeus.

We started at the Archaeological Museum, which also included the Zeas Ampitheatre.  The site wasn't much to look at being poorly maintained, and with neither distance nor elevation to get a sense of the structure, but as has been demonstrated repeatedly to use over the course of this trip, that is the norm for less touristy sites.

The more amusing thing about this photo is that they kept part of the collection outside along the left side covered walkway.

The museum itself was well organized, and had some interesting exhibits inasmuch as they had 2 or more of the same type of thing and placed them next to each other so you could compare and contrast, and they set up one room as the interior of a temple (not to scale).

Representation of the interior of a Temple of the Mother of the Gods

It also contained a lot of other detailed information about the history of Piraeus as a shipyard and fortress site, but that was discussed at other sites.

From there, we wandered a couple of blocks away to see the city center, but this was a bust for the weeds and trees.  Then another couple of blocks away to see one of three gates to the city.  Just for geographical and historical context, Athens is about 7km away from the harbor, so sometime in the 5th c. BC, two long walls were built to defend access from the city to the harbor.  

As typically happened during the intervening time, the walls were destroyed by a war (with the Persians in c. 480 BC) and then rebuilt, better and stronger, and later a third wall was constructed as well an another gate.  Well, here is what remains of one of the gates:

From the ground these were nearly impossible to parse, and even from the 2nd floor of the adjacent building it is still a mess.  This is what this is supposed to look like:

Still doesn't parse very well, but fortunately, there was an exhibit called "Unearthed" which discussed the archaeological find which had only been discovered during the expansion of the metro line to Piraeus.  The construction has been delayed while the excavation work is completed, and this causes a lot of annoyance with Greek citizens, not just in and around Athens but anywhere in the country as whenever there is a finding which might be archaeologically significant, construction must stop for "rescue excavation".  We got to chat with someone from the exhibit who told us about people trying to build houses and if they found something, then would try to cover it up and then build the house faster overnight so no one would know.  I would liken this in Massachusetts to finding colonial or Native American artifacts especially during the Big Dig, or to some developers desire to tear down potentially historic structures before they can be registered.  Regardless, since basically the entire country is an archeological site, it is a difficult balance between recognizing and preserving their history and culture, while trying to function in the modern era.  And just to give you an idea of how long it will likely be before the metro line is finished, this is just a sample of what the are sorting, with more in the basement and still to be unearthed:

My eyes lit up at the challenge of this 3D puzzle...

But Piraeus was and still is the main port, with several harbors.  In my research, I read that the dockyards had been discovered in the late 80's while someone was trying to dig an underground parking garage (seriously?  did they not think they would hit ruins?) but couldn't find anything about an archaeological site.  Dutifully, we walked Zea Harbor, to the block indicated, and found this:

Unfortunately, these we could only view through windows into the basement, and even for the signs with drawings and blueprints, it is difficult to grasp what you are seeing.  But in all fairness, I'm not sure that even were I to wander through them, I would understand the configuration, much less the scale, since these shipyards were 10-20m tall and 30m deep, not constrained in a small basement crawlspace.

The waterfront was not something we had time to explore last trip, and besides the archaeological significance, Piraeus was something of an thriving metropolitan suburb on Athens, and since it was boasted the waterfront, it felt very much like Palm Beach/West Palm Beach.  And after 7 hours of wandering through Piraeus entirely on foot, we ended our night with a beautiful meal at Varoulko Seaside a 1-star Michelin restaurant which chef/owner opened after he closed the one we visited on our first trip with the Acropolis view.

And now for something completely different...the Acropolis

Acropolis from Aeropagos

Propylea

Temple of Athena Nike

South side

East and South sides (before photoshop)

Erechtheum and sacred olive tree.

Karyatids of the Erechtheum balcony

Replacement wall photo that won't require hours to get rid of the scaffolding or fix the bad pruning

Unflattering photo of the West side.  But they are doing amazing reconstruction!!!

At twilight

New sign on the acropolis announcing that "the most severe damage" was done by Lord Elgin, not the cannonball which blew up the gunpowder stored there 150 years earlier...

Acropolis Museum (not longer "New").  Fourth floor has the full scale mock up for the Parthenon frieze marbles.  The blinds are drawn on the windows of the ones they don't have, and since 80m are in possession of the British Museum as compared to Greece's 50m, this is definitely a message.

Stairs!!! presumably leading to a cistern.