When Sigmund Freud visited the Acropolis and the Parthenon for the first time in 1904, he reportedly couldn’t believe that it really existed as he had learned about it in school. Mary Beard wrote in her book, The Parthenon, that Freud had said he felt like he was walking by the lake of Loch Ness and had spotted the legendary monster. It was, he said, only seeing it with his own eyes that made him believe the Acropolis really existed.

That was how my two Spanish friends, Carlos Martinez and Isabella Rodriguez, felt when the first encountered the Parthenon. “I could never have imagined that I would feel such awe when I first saw it, even though I had seen… Continue reading →