…that I learned during the free Athen tours that I attended in the beginning of November.
1. If they ever start a construction around Athens, there must be an archeologist, just in case, they found something ancient. So if you ever see a construction in Athens, and you see a guy, who is just standing there, doing nothing, you will know that he is the archeologist. (well, in Hungary, as we have the joke you would have a hard time to tell which one is the archeologist amongst the guys who are just standing there.)
2. You will see a bunch of cats everywhere in the city. Sometimes dogs as well, but most interestingly turtles, and in some cases even parrots especially around the National Garden.
3. They actually feed these cats, there is a network of volunteers, called the Nine lives Greece, that look after the kittens on the streets. Most of them are really beautiful and friendly animals, that you could even pet. No worries they even bring them to the vet annually!
4. As we know there was a competition between the Greeks and Romans, about the inventions, and about who is better in ruling the world, but – according to our tour guide – in general, we can say that Greeks are better at analyzing the world and Romans are better at running the world.
5. They had 12 main Gods and when they built a church they usually dedicated it to one of them, but just in case they forgot the 13th God, they had churches without dedication, so in case they would have found out that they had a 13th God, there was already a church for him/her, so they didn’t piss him/her off.
6. I guess we all know this from high school history class, but just a quick reminder for you: Only wealthy, 25-year-old (or above) man, with parents from Athens had the permission to vote, women were only allowed to vote from 1952.
7. Women’s life was not easy in ancient Greece/Athens. They usually had to get married at the age of 13, then they were expected to have kids immediately (you can guess the death rate.) They were not allowed to leave the house without the husband’s permission, so it happened quite frequently that they stayed at home for weeks, even months. When finally they were allowed to leave, they had to wear scarfs and they were not allowed to drink alcohol in public, or talk to other men. Sounds like a fun life…
8. It is kind of a tabu now, but they actually had 3 slaves on average in every house.
9. The meaning of Acropolis is HighCity
10. It’s just one thing if the traffic light is green if you love your life you should not cross the street without looking around at least twice.
Are you a local? Or did you also visit Athens? Do you know any other interesting facts, myths or stories about the city, history or culture? I would love to learn that as well. Leave a comment below.
