Room with a View

Time to hand back our trusty steed. The little Toyota Yaris has served us well, with just one slow puncture sneakily topped up, and two full tanks of fuel. Truth be told I've gained no affection for the anonymous motor, which lacked the guts for the climbs, and everything just felt too light compared to my own car, but hey, it did the job. And with two nights to be spent in Athens, that's one metropolis in which I want to avoid dealing with the erratic Greek roadcraft.

There's a stop en route to view the Corinth Canal, which manages at once to be mightily impressive and decidedly dull, but little else to break the trip, to make sure the 1pm deadline for return is met. And then, no matter how much I think I've experienced Greek driving from behind my own wheel, the taxi journey into the city is one of breakneck speed, phonecalls, lane changes, horns, scooters and trucks. In short it's nothing other than terrifying.

Our hotel looks out on the Acropolis, the bulk of the Parthenon mainly obscured by the hill-ringing wall from which the heads of tourists can be seen peering down. Sadly our room actually points the other way, into the one-way street to the front, which serves as the main route for numerous tour coaches to carry their loads as far up the hill as they car reach. The hill awaits us tomorrow, and instead the new Acropolis Museum lies virtually next door, will be air-conditioned, and has a sustenance promising café.

The museum itself was created partly to show the British (and the world lest they wish to put pressure on the British) that Greece could safely house the Elgin Marbles. The case is made utterly convincingly, and for the British visitor who knows the history it brings a certain amount of embarrassment. They don't make a big thing of there being swathes of carving held prisoner in the British Museum, but every plaster cast replica piece is something the Greeks aren't allowed to look after themselves, and they soon add up.

Of course it's certainly the case that without the theft by Elgin (for that's what it amounts to, he bribed the Turkish garrisons to make off with them by boat unhindered) the pieces may have suffered from Venetian bombardment or Turkish negligence or environmental impact and so they are undoubtedly in better condition now than if left in situ. But logic moves on, and the new museum in Athens is the place the original should be, with copies on show in London, not the other way round.

* * *

More strange rules come to light on the visit, where photography is not permitted in some areas, but allowed in others. Some of the areas that allow photos to be taken overlook those where it is not allowed, but you're not allowed to take a photo from the permitted area of the non-permitted area. But the flipside, however, doesn't hold true, so you're also not allowed to take a picture of the permitted area from the non-permitted. The difference in exhibits in the areas? A few more statues and pots, perhaps, in the non-permitted area, but not much else to delineate. Even so, guards in suits and ties are on hand to shout at any transgressor (including a girl taking a photo of her feet over the glass floor with an excavated wall underneath - the same excavation which is partly under glass and partly in the open, outside the museum which, yes, you're perfectly free to take photos of...).

* * *

In the evening we take to the Roof Garden of the hotel for the lit view of the Acropolis while indulging in the most expensive meal of our trip (which was very nice, but it has to be said the small tavernas and restaurants of the Peloponnese more than held their own for half the price - the hotel strangely advertises its menu as 'eclectic'). Tomorrow we strike out for the hill's summit an the surrounding ancient interest.