May 3, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Barack Obama and his family visit the Acropolis, the ex-president asks about the 6th caryatid

Former US President Barack Obama and his family visited the Acropolis Museum and went on a tour of the Acropolis, while the queues of tourists there stretched for a kilometer.

Dressed in casual clothes and armed with a camera, Obama and his family went on a tour of the sacred (for the Greeks) rock of the Acropolis.

The tour of the Acropolis Museum was personally led by CEO Nikolaos Stampolidis, who told state news agency AMNA that Obama had taken a keen and conscious interest in the ideals and philosophy of the ancient citadel. He also commented on the absence of the sixth caryatid, which supported the southern portico of the Erechtheion and is now in the British Museum. “Why don’t you ask her back?” Obama asked.

“I replied that we want to return the sculptures of the Parthenon, they don’t want to return them,” said Stampolidis. of my visit in 2016. I told him about the late D. Pandermalis, that he is no longer with us, and that he was a wise teacher and the man who took the lead in establishing the museum.”

After a few days of rest in the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, Obama arrived in Athens, where the former president will attend the “SNF Nostos Conference” at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. During a discussion at the SNF early Thursday morning, Obama spoke about the tragedy that occurred last week as a result of a shipwreck south of Greece.

PS Walking on the morning of June 22 along the Plaka, I was surprised at the long queue to visit the Acropolis, stretching for almost a kilometer. I understand everything, the former president of the United States arrived, you can’t warn for security reasons, but you could tell people in lines to walk somewhere else for an hour? But no, they just blocked everything and said to the people standing under the hot rays of the sun: “wait.”



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