Diary Athens: Feb 12-19, 2016

Feb 18
Regarding house hunting: I have hired a lawyer to setup a power of attorney document so that my friend Hara can represent me when I am not in Greece. He will also check the housing registry to see if there are any liens or other negative things regarding the apartment. I found out that as a Dutch citizen, there is a non-resident Greek bank account and a resident, Greek bank account that can be opened (after jumping through lots of hoops)
I took the subway to Piraeus this morning (25 minutes from the Victoria metro station to Piraeus station), did some walking around.

Feb 16
Still warm. Went running in Aeros Park.

I added some more pictures to my Alaska blog of Jul 2015.
http://bigfoottravels.blogspot.com/2015/07/150728-arawjo-tours.html.

Feb 15
Warm day yesterday, about 24 degrees Celsius. The owners of the apartment called me back in the evening. More info. It is still very complicated. The main stumbling block is that because of Capital Controls, nobody can open a bank account, not even Greeks. Anyway, still working on it.

Feb 13
One place I had not been to yet: The Kerameikos Cemetery of ancient Athens.

The area took its name from the city square or dēmos of the Kerameis (potters), which in turn derived its name from the word kéramos, "pottery clay", from which the English word "ceramic" is derived. 

The "Inner Kerameikos" was the former "potters' quarter" within the city and the "Outer Kerameikos" covers the cemetery and also the public graveyard just outside the city walls, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration in 431 BC.

It was originally an area of marshland along the banks of the Eridanos river which was used as a cemetery as long ago as the 3rd millennium BC.

It became the site of an organised cemetery from about 1200 BC. During the Archaic period increasingly large and complex grave mounds and monuments were built along the south bank of the Eridanos, lining the Sacred Way.^[1]

The building of the new city wall in 478 BC changed the appearance of the area.

At the suggestion ofThemistocles, all of the funerary sculptures were built into the city wall and two large city gates facing north-west were erected in the Kerameikos.

The Sacred Way ran through the Sacred Gate, on the southern side, to Eleusis. On the northern side a wide road, the Dromos, ran through the double-arched Dipylon Gate.

After the construction of the city wall, the Sacred Way and a forking street known as the Street of the Tombs became lined with monuments belonging to the families of rich Athenians, dating to before the late 4th century BC.

The construction of such lavish mausolea was banned in 317 BC, following which only small columns or inscribed square marble blocks were permitted as grave stones. 

Feb 12
Me running on the ancient Olympic track