SATURDAY, JUNE 8
POST OFFICE FIRST
Why is it so complicated to send a package from a country that is not your own? We probably shouldn’t have gone on a Saturday (that reduces the available options) and maybe we shouldn’t have left at 12:30 when the postal office closed at 2:00.
Long story short, we made it, but had to be led there by a very kind stranger, an Iraqi man, who I asked to help us. He walked the whole way, about one fast kilometre, to the post office to ensure we arrived on time. It was hot, 29C, the asphalt softened by the heat under foot. The box, we hoped the last that we would return, was successfully posted.
NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY MUSEUM
I have told Chloe all along, “when we get to Greece, you will see the most perfect art of all in the National Archaeology Museum.” The museum didn’t disappoint. The works are examples of such perfection, simplicity and elegance. I don’t think the Renaissance has anything over Classical sculptures. Shhhhh. I don’t think Contemporary art has anything over art from 4,000 years ago.
We walked through every room, hour after enjoyable hour…the jewelry and pots, the sculptures and pediment reliefs, the wall paintings excavated from Akrotiri (Santorini) from the 16th C. It is amazing to think that a bed frame, a stove, and a mirror, were items used 3,000-4,000 years ago, belonging to people like us, to imagine that such visually sophisticated and intellectually advanced (perhaps beyond us) peoples existed in Greece. It’s easy to see how these lines, colors, and designs influenced artists like Matisse, Picasso and so many more.
The art and design contain humor and romance, mythology, depictions of relationship between humans and nature, smiles and smirks, frowns, strength and beauty. The monumental and the tiny. Whole worlds come to life as the mind pieces together the elements presented in the National Archaeology Museum. History falls into place with art and culture and cooking and gods.
