Back to the Past

Yesterday I spent most of the day traveling back through the classical world.
Landing in Rome and then hopping a lovely Aegean Air flight to Athens.

In Athens, I am attempting to savor the last bits of urban life before heading into the hinterlands to ride horses like the ancient sychthians.

As a one time student of ancient greece, you would think a trip to Athens would be the fulfilment of a lifetime ambition. However, there is a quality of Athens, different than that of Rome, which makes the Agora and the Acropolis not part of some remote past enhabited by Socrates and Pericles, but part of some eternal present - integrated into 'Athens.' Perhaps Athens is the eternal city.

In Rome, you get the sense of living among ruins. That there were different stages of rome and they are all presevered in different strata - all on view in the Museum that is the city of Rome.

Rome is stratified Rock, Athens is metamorphic rock or something (I cant google it now i am being rushed off the computer by german tourists).