Nikos Papadakis

I am a guide licensed by the Greek Ministry of Culture and an archaeologist. I studied at the University of Athens and excavated in the Ancient Agora for five summers, which left me with a particular fondness for broken pottery and drainage systems. On the Acropolis most groups rush to the Parthenon and leave. I start with the theatre of Dionysus, walk up past the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and explain the Parthenon as a building site, a temple, a church, a mosque and a gunpowder store before it became a ruin. Then we visit the Acropolis Museum, where the original Caryatids stand. In the Agora I show you the building where Socrates may have been held and the stoa where Zeno taught. I worked in Berlin for three years, hence the German. I am patient and detailed, and I dislike myths presented as facts. My sessions now run live on video from Athens: I carry the phone, you watch from wherever you are and ask anything.