The National Gallery—Museum of Alexandros Soutsos has prepared a rich festive program addressed to the residents of Athens and Attica, both young and old. Activities include themed tours, innovative educational programs, festive bazaars, and many more!

In the Gallery’s main building, a special surprise awaits visitors and listeners on Thursday, December 22. ERT will be participating in the EPMAS’ Christmas events through its radio stations, Second Programme 103.7, Third Programme 90.9, and Cosmos 93.6, as well as their producers, who will be broadcasting live from the National Gallery for six hours, spreading the festive message everywhere.

The Gallery will also be running a series of educational programs like "The Pilgrimage of the Shepherds" and "Nativity," offering themed tours to families with children aged 3 to 12 years old. These programs aim to introduce young and old to the true spirit of Christmas, as captured by some of the greatest artists. At the same time, through the "Meet Pablo" educational program, children are invited to get acquainted with the fascinating world of Pablo Picasso.

As we count down to Christmas, the themed tours will continue with a journey through time titled "Religious Painting." From Domenikos Theotokopoulos and his "Concert of Angels" (1608-1614) to Steven Antonakos and his "White Iconostasis" (2003), visitors will be able to see how great artists have captured and continue to capture the magic of Christmas in such a unique way, even though the materials and forms have changed over the centuries.

Throughout the holidays, the EPMAS Store will be hosting bazaars with old and new editions, giving visitors the opportunity to buy unique Christmas gifts!

Festive programs will also take place in other parts of Greece, including the Gallery’s Nafplion annex and the Coumantaros Art Gallery in Sparta.

Originally published in Greek on: protothema.gr
Translated by: Codico Lab

Archaeological finds on the site date from as early as 700 BC. Herodotus tells us that in the sixth century BC, the Athenians celebrated a quadrennial festival at Sounion, which involved Athens' leaders sailing to the cape in a sacred boat.

The temple at Sounion whose columns still stand today, was probably built in ca. 440 BC. This was during the ascendancy of Athenian statesman Pericles, who also rebuilt the Parthenon in Athens. Today’s standing temple was constructed over the ruins of a temple dating from the Archaic Period. It is perched above the sea at a height of almost 60 m. The design of the temple is a typical hexastyle i.e. it had a front portico with 6 columns. Only some columns of the Sounion temple stand today, but intact it would have closely resembled the contemporary and well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus beneath the Acropolis, which may have been designed by the same architect.
As with all Greek temples, the Poseidon building was rectangular, with a colonnade on all four sides. The total number of original columns was 42: 15 columns still stand today. The columns are of the Doric Order. They were made of locally-quarried white marble. They were 6.10 m (20 ft) high, with a diameter of 1 m (3.1 ft) at the base and 79 cm (31 inches) at the top.

At the centre of the temple colonnade would have been the hall of worship (naos), a windowless rectangular room, similar to the partly intact hall at the Temple of Hephaistos. It would have contained, at one end facing the entrance, the cult image, a colossal, ceiling - height (6m) bronze statue of Poseidon. Probably gold-leafed, it may have resembled a contemporary representation of the god, appropriately found in a shipwreck, shown in the figure above. Poseidon was usually portrayed carrying a trident, the weapon he supposedly used to stir up storms. On the longest day of the year, the sun sets exactly in the middle of the caldera of the island of Patroklou, the extinct volcano that is offshore, suggesting astrological significance for the sitting of the temple.

In a maritime country like Greece, the god of the sea was bound to occupy a high position in the divine hierarchy. In power, Poseidon was considered second only to Zeus (Jupiter), the supreme god himself. His implacable wrath, manifested in the form of storms, was greatly feared by all mariners. In an age without mechanical power, storms very frequently resulted in shipwrecks and drownings.

The temple at Cape Sounion, therefore, was a venue where mariners, and also entire cities or states, could propitiate Poseidon, by making animal sacrifice, or leaving gifts.

Archaeological excavation of the site in 1906 uncovered numerous artefacts and inscriptions, most notably a marble kouros statue and an impressive votive relief, both now in the Athens National Archaeological Museum.

The Legend of Cape Sounion:

According to legend, Cape Sounion is the spot where Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt to his death off the cliff, thus giving his name to the Aegean Sea. The story goes that Aegeus, anxiously looking out from Sounion, despaired when he saw a black sail on his son Theseus's ship, returning from Crete. This led him to believe that his son had been killed in his contest with the dreaded Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. The Minotaur was confined by its owner, King Minos of Crete, in a specially designed labyrinth. Every year, the Athenians were forced to send 7 men and 7 women to Minos as tribute. These youths were placed in the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus had volunteered to go with the third tribute and attempt to slay the beast. He had agreed with his father that if he survived the contest, he would hoist a white sail. In fact, Theseus had overcome and slain the Minotaur, but tragically had simply forgotten about the white sail.

Source: Wikipedia

Meanwhile, in the 21st Century and while facing one of the worst financial crisis in Europe they continue to innovate under the radar, creating new ways for us to live our lives. These Greek Startups are all cases in point, and they all impacted Web Summit 2014 in Dublin.

The Gadget Flow

The team behind The Gadget Flow aim to regenerate the whole idea of online gadget hunting through their remarkable storehouse of carefully handpicked products. Having over 30 million page views and 100,000+ app downloads, their big time aspiration lies in enhancing the overall experience of web shopping. The Wishlist feature and their mobile apps (both for Android and iOS) are the latest steps on that journey.

Horizon

This award-winning app lets users record horizontal videos and photos regardless of their device’s orientation. Having been recently updated, the app now also provides horizontal photo support with full resolution photo mode, the ability to uninterruptedly take photos while recording a video, horizontal video recording at up to 2K resolution (2592×1936) and in slow motion.

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

The Nemea and Attika regions have so many wineries that Cycling 4 Wine’s organizer, Themistokles Nicoletopoulos, is able to create new routes each year bringing cyclists and vinticulturists together.  Themos has a connoisseur’s knowledge of fine indigenous wines and appreciates an elegant bicycle, like his Bianchi which he dubbed Pegasus. 

This year 210 cyclists participated in the Nemea ride, most coming by their own car.    For twenty euros the car-less crowd (I, for one) were transferred to Nemea by a coach rigged with a two-tiered trailer holding the passengers’ bicycles.   

From 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, participants rode at their own pace from winery to winery following arrows spray painted on the road to show the turns.  You can also download an app to your GPS or iPhone that maps the route.   This year’s mileage was 42 kilometers (26 miles) with long flat stretches enhanced by two hills rising to 415 meters (1361 feet). 

Nemea has an ancient history of wine making.   One of its most popular and oldest varieties is the Agiorgitiko, a deep dark red wine whose grape vines, legend has it, were stained by the blood of the Nemean lion slewed by Hercules as one of his Twelve Labors.  We were treated to an exquisite Agiorgitiko at the incomparable Pappaioannou Estate whose organic grapes have been cultivated by the family since 1876.   At Domain Rapani we tasted the exotic dry white wine known as Moschofilero whose ideal terrain is the high plateaus of Nemea.  At the Nemea Wine Cooperative, founded in 1937, we sampled Malagousia, a white wine with citrus and peach characteristics, which was rescued from extinction in 1983 by a Halkidiki oenologist.  The twenty euro entry fee included a buffet dinner at the Cooperative.  

There were four places in ancient Greece where athletic events were held every four years: Ancient Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia and Nemea.  The most exciting feature of this year’s Cycling 4 Wine was biking to Ancient Nemea for a private tour with Dr. Stephen Miller, a retired archaeology professor from UCLA Berkeley, who has been studying and digging at the site since 1973.   It was akin to touring Mycenae with Heinrich Schliemann!   Dr. Miller walked forty of us through the grounds and the museum explaining the history, telling rich stories and pointing out delightful aspects, such as the graffiti in the long spectacular tunnel leading to the stadium.   

Starting in 1994, Dr. Miller helped launch the Revived Nemea Games held every four years with sports and music and dance similar to the ancient Games.  Anyone eight years and older can run in the foot race competitions in the stadium, 90 meters in length.  Nowadays participants wear short white togas rather than compete naked as the original athletes did.   Just as in the past, winners are crowned with a wreath of wild celery.   The next Revived Nemea Games are scheduled for June 11, 2016 where a 7.50 kilometer race, “The Footsteps of Herakles," will begin at the Temple of Herakles in Kleonai and end in the Nemea stadium.  

The organizers of the Revived Games state that their aim is to reproduce the spirit of the original Games which sought to substitute athletic competition for war.   Coincidentally, that same spirit of camaraderie and brotherhood is present in Cycling 4 Wine events, too, where riders gleefully pedal along rural roads flanked with vineyards and raise their wine glasses in a series of toasts at each winery on the itinerary.  

By Colleen Mcguire
Managing Director of cyclegreece.gr