Lunch at Colonaki Tops

We had our lunch near the museum in Kolonaki.

 The Menu dated 24th June 2015

Grilled veal liver

Mousaka

Byzantine Museum

This museum houses the religious artefacts of the Early Christian, Byzantine, Medieval, post-Byzantine and later period.

Funerary stele showing Orpheus with his lyre

The Virgin Hodegetria.

Episkepsis

The Virgin and Child

The Three Hierarchs

The Church of St Theodore

There are three churches in the First Cemetery of Athens. St Theodore is the largest.

First Cemetery of Athens

As the name suggests, it is the first cemetery built for the city of Athens. It was first used in 1837 and soon the rich and famous were dying to be buried here. We took the same taxi here from Kaisariani Monastery since it is difficult to come here by public transport 

The entrance to the cemetery

The Greek Orthodox Church does not allow cremation for it understands the body to be an integral part of the human person and the temple of the Holy Spirit and expects the resurrection of the dead. The Church considers cremation to be the deliberate desecration and destruction of what God has made.

The long term residents here are the rich who could afford their own monuments. Those not so lucky ones were given a term of 3 years and thereafter their bones were dug out (and placed in an ossuary) to make room for the next persons.

Although cremation has been legalised in 2006, there is still no crematorium in Greece.

The Sleeping Maiden

This the most famous tomb here, the tomb of Sofia Afentaki. The girl seems to be sleeping soundly and nothing shows the rigidity of the dead body. This corresponds to the model of the classicist tomb to which death is an eternal dreamless sleep.

Quiet, please

We like visiting cemeteries as we consider them to be museums for tombs. We also find them hauntingly beautiful!