Antikenfahrt: Greece 2004
 
On October 19 th at 01.48 pm Olympic Airways 162 departed from Tegel Airport .
And thus the journey covering 11 days of pure Greece with 42 soon to be examined pupils, as well with our teachers: Mrs. Hollman-Stelzer, Mr. Buchwald and Mr. Pechstein.
Having arrived on time in Athens we reached our Hotel Attalos at about seven pm.
The Hotel was positioned in the immediate centre of Athens and was hence well suited to visit the nearest temple-sides of Athens .
Around the Hotel there were countless small restaurants, whose services we frequently used and a supermarket to sell us the plethora of litre waters on which we relied because of the hot weather. We were accommodated in rooms providing three or four beds on several floors. Most rooms would have rather been suitable for nearly one person but this way we got to know us even better.
The staff happened to be fairly nice but did not seem to know that partly we could by translating understand the anti-tourist remarks. On the Hotel's roof there was a terrace from which we could marvel at the illuminated Acropolis by night. There we spent many evenings in a nice alcoholic circles brilliantly supported by our home-made guitar-virtuoso.
With the Olympic Games having just passed, the city of Athens appeared to have got a decent infrastructure and high streets and shopping passages that had been spruced up, although if you took a street beyond the big streets and tourist quarters you came to see masses of garbage and smell that was not considerably nice. On the first morning we visited the Acropolis and its museum. Then we descended and took a sunbath in the Theatre of Dionysus.
In the next days we explored the narrow lanes of Athens accompanied by our Audio-Guide. We could not get lost for we escorted by a competent four-legged guide. Next we had the chance to visit the Areopag, the Agora and the Hephaisteion. Whilst another hike through Athens we got to know the monstrous Olympieion of which only a few of the huge columns had remained through the ages, as well the Kerameikos and the National museum.
The Lykabettos-Hill obviously remained the biggest task since we had to climb an incredible amount of stairs, only in order to realise that we did not reach the church yet that was positioned on top of it. Still the incredible sight over the whole of Athens was a suitable reward for all of the loss of energy. Within the next days we visited Lysirates memorial, the Pnyx, the Olympic Stadium of 1986, the roman market, the tower of the winds, the Omonoiasquare, the Syntagmasquare and the Plaka.
We made a ten hour bus transfer through Corinth to Olympia . Having arrived there we visited the ancient venues of the Olympic Games like the old stadium. Mrs. Hollman-Stelzer and Mr. Buchwald went through a competitive race which did not turn out a winner on the ground of fair play. The next trip took us to Delphi with the probably most remarkable environmental scenery of the Greece-Excursion.
Surrounded by a beautiful mountainesque landscape with a view to widespread valley lies the myth-weaving historical site. After our trip to Delphi we had the choice whether we would prefer an excursion to the island of Aigina featuring the Aphaia temple with the subsequent visit of the beach or we would rather stay in Athens .
Eventually the group split into two parts and none of them came off worst regarding the beach (Water temperature about 25C). The final trip then turned to Mycenae and Epidauros with the famous theatre in which we then shot the official group photo.
On Friday morning we flew back to Berlin with a stopover in Thessalonica at the early time of seven am. As we had to get up at about four am many of us used the night for a last party.
Without greater delay we eventually arrived in good old cloudy and cold Berlin , just to start missing immediately the heat of Athens .
We did not fly back though, for the Greek breakfast did not really provide a variety.
To come to a conclusion it was a great time so great praise is to be given to our teachers who organized the excursion.
 
Julian Sonne, 3. Semester