Greece (Ελλάδα)

I: History in a Nutshell

Sun, 7 May 2006 23:51:59 -0700

It is always useful to know a little about the history of the country or region one is visiting. It helps in getting yourself established as the established savant amongst your travel companions.
For those considering themselves literate, Greece is the land of antiquity. Some are even aware that it is the venue of the Iliad and the Odyssey. And the more snotty ones would add the histories by Xenophon, Thucydides and Herodotus to the list. But a lot of things has happened since the Achaean fleet departed for Ilium, some 3200 years ago. It is obviously impossible for me to go to any depth, but I shall cover some of the highlights, because it does help in appreciating many of the sights we enjoyed during our trip.
The Stone Age did not bypass Greece and remains of humans from 700,000 years ago have been found. Around 3000 BC there was the Bronze Age when people learned how to process bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. This spawned three civilizations; the Cycladic, the Minoan, and the Mycenaean. The Minoan civilization in Crete (3000 - 1100 BC) was the first advanced civilization to emerge in Europe. Its most famous example is the Palace in Knossos, described in Part II of this report. The Mycenaean Civilization came a bit later and reached its peak between 1500 - 1200 BC. The ancient city of Mycenae was the seat of Agamemnon, the king who led the Greeks in the Troyan Wars. It was also the locale where in 1876 the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann made his celebrated finds of gold and other precious artifacts of an ancient civilization. Then came the Geometric Age, followed by the Archaic Age, (800 - 600 BC), which was the time when sanctuaries, such as Delphi were built. Then Athens developed into a democratic city-state, as well as Sparta, which became a military city-state.

left: The ancient Temple of Apollo in Ancient Corinth. These seven pillars are what is now left over from the original 36 columns in the 6th Century BC temple.

The Persian Wars came to a head when in 490 BC a 25,000 strong Persian army under Darius landed on the plains of Attica to march on and capture Athens. But before they were ready for battle, the Athenian force of 10,000 attacked and against all odds the Persians suffered a humiliating defeat. This was the Battle of Marathon and legend has it that a messenger ran to Athens to proclaim: “Rejoice, we conquered” and fell to the ground dead of exhaustion. It is quite unlikely this happened, and historians and writers may have confused this run with the one made by Philippides. When the massive Persian army landed, the Athenians sent Philippides to Sparta to enlist their help. He ran the distance of about 150 miles in two days, a remarkable accomplishment by any standard. But the legend lives on and at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 the Marathon was introduced. The official distance of 26 miles and 385 yards was actually set during the 1908 Olympics in London, so that the course could start at Windsor Castle and end in front of the Royal Box. And this distance stuck. And Phil
The Persians were not through. In 480 BC, under Xerxes, the son of Darius, the Persians launched a huge army and navy. Herodotus estimated its size at 5 million, which was obviously a gross exaggeration. But it was a large force. The Spartan King Leonidas led his army of Spartans and a number of his Greek allies to the narrow pass at Thermopylae, the main entrance to central Greece. The bottleneck was easy to defend but a traitor showed the Persians a road over the mountains. Most of the allied forces retreated but Leonidas and his 300 Spartans elected to stay and fought there to the death. Seldom mentioned is that a band of Thespians under Demophilus also elected to stay at the pass and were killed. The decision of Leonidas to stay may also have been due to the prophecy from an oracle that either Sparta would be laid to waste or one of their kings would be killed. One Spartan survived because he was a messenger and was not there during the final days. He was publicly scorned and he took his own life. Two other were in sick camp, but one immediately donned his armor to rejoin the group when the news came, while the other dawdled and escaped. He too was publicly scorned. The Athenians fled; women and children to the island of Salamis, and the men to sea with the fleet. The Persians razed Attica and burned Athens to the ground.
By guile the mighty Persian fleet, about 600 ships strong, was enticed to Salamis. The Greeks, who were, as usual, fighting amongst themselves, were ready to flee to the Peloponnese. Now they had no choice. Their fleet was bottled up in the harbor of Salamis. They had 280 fighting vessels. But there, under the eyes of Xerxes himself, seated on a throne and sure of victory, the bulk of the Persian fleet was destroyed in the ensuing naval battle. Because the Strait of Salamis is narrow, the Persians could not use the advantage of their superior numbers, and the Greeks fleet was more disciplined. In addition, the Greeks who fell in the water could swim, while most of the Persians could not. Many of the Persian ships in the rear never got to fight but became entangled with their own ships. Xerxes left. He was afraid that the Greeks, after their victory would sail to the Hellespont and destroy the bridge he had built over this strait, effectively isolating him in Europe without help.
After this victory Athens entered a golden age and under Pericles the buildings on the Acropolis were rebuilt. Then came the First Peloponnesian War, followed by the Second, which left only Sparta in a position of strength. But in a decisive battle in Leuctra in 371, Thebes, under the leadership of the remarkable Epaminondas inflicted on Sparta its first defeat in a pitched battle. But ten years later, Epaminondas was killed in the battle at Mantinea and Thebes then declined in power. The next one of the horizon was Macedonia.
As a boy, Philip II of Macedonia was held hostage in Thebes where Epaminondas taught him military strategy. When he became king of Macedonia, he started the campaign against Persia. But he was assassinated in 336 BC and was succeeded by his son, Alexander the Great. Alexander was 20 at that time. He was highly educated, tutored by Aristotle himself, fearless and ambitious. In the next 13 years which followed he conquered a.o., Persia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Bactria, and Northern India, a formidable achievement. But Alexander the Great fell ill at 33 and died, without leaving an heir.
Then came the Romans. In 146 BC the Roman consul Mummius destroyed Corinth, massacring the men and selling the women and children into slavery. In 86 BC the Roman Sulla invaded Athens, destroyed its walls, and took off with its most valuable sculptures. For the next 300 years Greece was the Roman province of Achaea. It was a period of peace, the Pax Romana. At the turn of the century, Christianity started to grow. In 324 Constantine the Great transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium (later changed to Constantinople and then to Istanbul). Rome went into terminal decline. In 394 Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Greece.
During the fourth Crusade, the crusaders struck a deal with the Venetians and instead of sailing to Jerusalem, they went north. Constantinople was sacked in 1204 by them. Over the next few centuries the Venetians acquired all the Greek ports. Then the Muslim Ottomans came. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks under Mohammed II, the Conqueror. The Turks then swept into Greece and displaced the Venetians in many places. But the Venetians succeeded in holding on to the Peloponnese and in 1687 they advanced even as far as Athens. That was when the Parthenon sustained serious damage. But over the years Turkey gained more of Greece.
When Catherine the Great became Empress of Russia in 1762 both the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice were weak. Sensing the opportunity, the wily queen sent Russian agents to foment rebellion, first in the Peloponnese in 1770 and then in Epiros in 1786. Both rebellions were crushed ruthlessly, the latter by Ali Pasha, the Governor of Ioannina, who then proceeded to set up his own power base in Greece in defiance of the sultan.
The fight for independence in Greece started in 1821 and the fighting was savage. Greeks and Turkish inhabitants were massacred. Help came from the Philhellenes, aristocratic young men with classical education from all over Europe, willing to fight oppressors of the descendants of a glorious civilization. They included Shelley, Goethe, Schiller, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset and Lord Byron. The cause was not moving anywhere because of lack of unity. But then the Western Powers finally intervened and a combined Russian, French and British fleet crushed the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Navarino.
right: Painting in Wikipedia Commons showing the battle in the Bay of Navarino.
The date was October 1827. Then Russia sent troops into the Balkans and with these troops at the gates of Constantinople, the sultan accepted Greek independence by the Treaty of Adrianople. After more than 300 years of harsh Turkish rule, Greece was independent again.

II: Athens

Sat, 6 May 2006 09:35:44 -0700

Visiting Athens (Αθηνα)
Except for the Acropolis and its monuments to ancient glory, and the Archeological Museum, there is really not many attractive spots in the city and the consensus is to stay in Athens for a day or two and then get out. Travel posters do not emphasize the attractions of downtown Athens, but rather the gorgeous beaches, where even the cows go on vacation
.right: This cow on the right is one of the unlucky ones. She had to stay in Athens to entertain the tourists. But she does have her beach umbrella and a cooling drink. Not many of these cows were left when we revisited Athens in 2011.
In Athens streets are narrow and traffic can be heavy at times. Luckily there is the Metro, which is fast and efficient. With so much traffic the air is not very clean. Streets are safe but there is a lot of petty crime and you are well advised to have your wallet in a rather inaccessible location. People are not as nice as in the rest of Greece, which is typical of all large cities. And with so many tourists around --the Greek National Tourist Organization expected 14 million visitors to come to Greece in 2005 (population of all of Greece is less than 11 million) most of them going through Athens-- the locals are getting to see them just as pockets of cash ready to be disbursed.
This sounds a bit harsh, but we did enjoy Athens and there were lots of helpful people around. Is that because in May the tourist season has not really started yet? Try coming in July and August.

The Acropolis (Ακροπολη)
This is where tourists go, like homing pigeons, when they visit Athens. You can’t miss it because it is high up on a hill rising some 100 m above the level of the city. You can see the Acropolis from almost anywhere in Athens. The easiest way to get there from Monastiraki is just to walk uphill through the mostly car-free streets lined with garish tourist shops, cafés and outdoor restaurants until you come to a small, wooded road that goes around and gently up the hill until you reach the official entrance. Tickets are €12 per person, but it also gives you access to the archeological sites around the Acropolis, such as the Ancient and the Roman agoras, the Theatre of Dionysos, etc. From a distance the height of the Acropolis hill is rather daunting, but it is actually quite a pleasant walk.
From the ticket office you still have to walk up a short steep hill, but in August 2004 a lift was installed for disabled visitors. After climbing these steps, you are at the entrance of the site.
left: Nope, you are now at the entrance of the entrance building. It is called the Propylaea, built in 437 - 432 BC just before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian wars. It is now being restrored.
On the left you have the Pinacotheca. On the near right is the Temple of Athena Nike. Then you step out on the main area. Neolithic remains have been found on the Acropolis and by the 8th century BC there was already a sanctuary of the goddess Athena. But in the middle of the 5th century BC the Athenians were persuaded by Pericles to rebuild the temples on a grand scale, so the most famous buildings on the Acropolis were constructed during the second half of the 5th century BC.
In front, slightly to the right, you see the Parthenon, built between 447 - 438 BC as the most important and characteristic monument of ancient Greek civilization. It was built under the supervision of Pheidias, the famous Athenian sculptor. It is a Doric temple, built almost exclusively out of Pentelic marble, with eight columns on the short sides and 17 columns on the long side. The Parthenon looks especially graceful because Kallikrates and Ictinus, the architects, used optical illusion to make the columns look straight. They are actually minutely curved and each column is slightly thicker in the middle.
The building was preserved quite well over the centuries until the Turks used it as a powder magazine. The Venetians besieged the Acropolis in 1687 and one of their shells landed in the building, causing a huge explosion. Then, in the beginning of the 19th century, Lord Elgin stole the greatest part of the sculptural decoration of the monument and sold them to the British Museum, where they are still exhibited as one of the most significant collections of the Museum. Right now, all of the Acropolis is being restored, including the Parthenon, and cranes, derricks scaffolding and hard hats are everywhere between the tourists and their digital cameras..
As you step on the main area, the Erechtheion is on the left, with the famous porch of the Caryatids on the south. It was built around 420 BC in the Ionic style on the most sacred site of the Acropolis, where Poseidon and Athene had their contest who would be the patron of the city. Taking a cue from Charles Heston Moses, Poseidon thrust his trident in a rock and a spring burst forth. But Athena touched the ground with her spear and an olive tree grew. In ancient civilizations, the olive tree is inseparable from civilized life itself. It yields food, the oil is burned in lamps, used as lubricant, and can be blended with essences to produce fragrant oils. So Athena was declared the winner and the city was named after her after it was discovered that all Poseidon did was to puncture the municipal water main. As consolation prize Poseidon had the small village of Possidonia in Syros named after him.
right: The porch of the Caryatids.
The Erechtheion is actually the building you see on the hill from the city. And the real Caryatids are in the Acropolis Museum, to protect them from the fumes of the modern city. Marcus Vitruvius, the Roman architect in the 1st century BC wrote that Carya, a city in the Peloponnese, joined the Persians in their war against the Greeks. After the Persians were defeated, the Greeks launched a war on Carya. The city was taken, the male population was extinguished, and the women were carried into slavery. To ensure that these circumstances be ever remembered, the porch represents these matrons, suffering for eternity under the burden with which they were loaded, and handing down to posterity a memorial of the crime of the Caryans. “Thou shalt not collaborate with the enemy”.
As an aside, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Vitruvian Man” is also related to the same Marcus Vitruvius, who was one of the first authors in the field of architecture.
The small, but very nice archeological museum on the Acropolis is certainly worth a visit once you are on the hill anyway. Besides the original Caryatids, there is a wealth of sculptures and section of friezes, pediments, etc. from the buildings on the hill. And as you walk around the perimeter of the hill you see steep drops on three sides of the hill, affording you very nice views of the city, now usually softened by the haze and exhaust fumes of the cars. You will also see lots of other monuments.
There is, far below the ramparts, the ancient stone Greek Theater of Dionysios, rebuilt in 342 BC, and home to Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes and many others.
left: Of more recent vintage is the Odeum, the theater built by Herodes Atticus in 161 AD and still in occasional use today.
And in the distance, away from the Acropolis proper, you can see the Temple of Hephaistos. built in 449 BC and still in very good shape. At one time the temple was used as a church, dedicated to Saint George, also known as St. George the Lazy, because the church was only open one day of the year.
right: The Temple of Hephaistos, patron of metal workers, as seen from the Acropolis
The temple of Hephaistos was once also known as the Thission and dedicated to Theseus, but that was a mistake. But the neighborhood around is still called Thission, which is adjacent to the Plaka district, and is full of little cafes and restaurants. You get here almost automatically as you descend the hill of the Acropolis. Most of these venues are geared to the tourists, but if you take the trouble to walk to the quieter areas, the service is a bit more personable and the food probably better.
We had a delightful lunch and dinner at the shady garden of Taverna Nepheli (Ταβερνα Νεφελη) on a quiet street going down the Acropolis. (Panos 24, Athens). The millefeuille on the spanikoptika was crunchy and the baklava was huge. I suppose a lot of locals come there. We actually ate there several times. A relatively quiet place with no barkers trying to hustle you inside.
To the left is another view of the Acropolis. The Agora, or the old marketplace, is where the ancient Greek statesmen, businessmen and philosophers walked and debated the nature of the universe and the more direct issues of the day. Here Socrates at one time discoursed, and here he was forced to drink the cup of hemlock.

left: The Acropolis in the background; the Agora in the foreground.

The National Archeological Museum.
The museum is the most important archeological museum in Greece. Their collection of artifacts relating to ancient Greece is one of the richest in the world. It is full of beautiful sculptures and other artifacts and it becomes more amazing if one considers that many of these are several thousands of years old. How they could have worked the metal and the stone in those ages to give the finished products such lifelike qualities is something which gives you a better appreciation how advanced the ancient world was. It is impossible to cover even the many highlights of the Museum and I am only mentioning some.
right: There is a section full of golden artifacts recovered by Schliemann from a grave in Mycenae, including a death mask in burnished gold which he thought was the death mask of Agamemnon.
As you may recall from the Iliad, Agamemnon was the ruler of Mycenae. He was the one who organized the Greeks in their campaign against Troy to get back the fair Helen who had been abducted by Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy. However, indications are that these artifacts were from 1700-1800 BC, several centuries older than the period of the Troyan wars. But one can still imagine Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra drinking together from that golden cup, just before she thrusts the dagger in his back. Serves you right for staying away for 10 years and then coming back home with that hussy Cassandra.
An especially lovely piece of sculpture was recovered from the island of Delos in the building called the Establishment of the Poseidoniasts, in the quarter of rich merchants. It was probably carved in the 5th century BC. The great god Pan, foster brother of Zeus himself, is trying to seduce Aphrodite. She is trying to rebuff his advances by threatening him with her slipper, but you can see that both she and Cupid are smiling. And one can see that Pan has a huge erection.
left: Pan trying to seduce a playful Aphrodite
I suppose I should also mention the frescoes recovered from Thera, on the island of Santorini. The city of Akrotiri was buried during the great volcanic eruption in 1640 BC, but many of the frescoes were in very good condition when found during recent excavations. Other noteworthy items in the museum are the so-called geometric amphoras, which were used as funerary monuments. They are from the 8th century BC, stand 5 - 6 feet tall and are beautifully decorated. It is amazing that they should already have the technology to make these huge vases.
right: The Artemision jockey, about 140 BC.
The pieces of this bronze statue was found in a shipwreck of the coast of Evia and carefully reassembled by the museum staff. It is one of the most prized possessions of the museum. It is amazing that a master sculptor, more than 2000 years ago, was able to create this very large statue, where the musculature of the horse is so well-defined.
For more pictures of the treasures of the museum, click here.

More Stuff of Athens.
On the left is the changing of the Guard in front of the Parliament Building on Syntagma Square.
Soldiers in their flowery white uniforms do a measured walk, swinging their hands, as goggle-eyed tourists jostle for position to shoot their digital camera.

right: A group of stern-faced women demonstrating
And on the other side of the square, a group of stern-faced women were walking in a demonstration, I am not sure for what.

left: The 11th century Capnicarea church.
And to the left is this 13th century Greek Orthodox church, perched rather incongruously in the middle of busy Ermou Street in a modern neighborhood.
But once you step inside Capnicarea church, you enter into another world, a dark, quiet, introspective haven filled with ancient icons, many of them wooden frescoes covered with sheet metal with openings showing the heads or faces of the saints. Some of these were covered with glass, and people came by to reverently plant a kiss on the glass. A priest was there on duty to hear confessions, give absolutions, and provide spiritual advice.
The church is compact, so it managed to survive many earthquakes in its life. The design shows the influence of the Turks. It was dedicated at one time to Saint Barbara, but under Ottoman rule it was called “l’Eglise de la Fille du Roi.”
Internet cafes are not too difficult to find. They charge about € 4/hour.
In the evenings the Plaka, and especially the area next to the Metro line is thronged with people having dinner and/or drinks at the many eating places, most of them out on tables on the street. Little shops and street vendors are everywhere. Maybe because it was a weekend night? It was fun to gawk at what people were eating and drinking in a festive-feeling atmosphere, even though nobody offered us to join them. We just did not look interesting enough.

III. Delphi, Meteora, and Kalambaka

Fri, 5 May 2006 16:07:29 -0700

We rented a car from Hertz, and the office was on a busy street with no parking at all. The rental car was delivered on the little sliver of sidewalk, from where we had to pull into the busy traffic. No time to get yourself acquainted with the car. It was a tinny-feeling small Chevrolet with a high RPM engine (3500 rpm at 65 mph), but it did give good mileage.

Our destination for the day was Delphi. Look at the map of Greece above. Athens (Athina) is in the lower right corner. with its port, Piraeus, just southwest of the city. Delphi is not shown but it is a bit west of Levadia in the shadow of Mount Parnassus.
Driving in Athens is a rather hair-raising experience because the streets are narrow, many of the streets are one-way, and drivers keep honking, if you don’t know where you are going. It feels just like New York. Outside of Athens things become much better. The Greeks drive fast and even though the road has signs with a 50 or 40, the Greeks blithely drive 80-100 km/hour in these sections. Not even an intersection will slow them down. Outside Athens the Greeks are fairly courteous drivers and if you drive faster than they do, they will move to the right of the line delineating the right boundary of the road to let you pass. And they do seem to take fewer risks then the Italians. The roads are well-paved, but almost always there is only one lane in each direction, except on a few major highways.
Signs are usually in both Roman as well as in Greek. In the smaller places the Roman transliterations have sometimes not been posted, so it is useful to be able to read the Greek characters as well. Also, the pronunciation in Greek may not be the same as in English. So your road map better have the place names both in English and Greek. We actually had a free map from AAA, which was very good. Gasoline was around €1 per liter, or about $4.75/gallon. Which was not too bad since our car probably delivered twice the mileage as the average American chariot. And after a while, it was really not bad driving in Greece.

Delphi (Δελϕοί)

It took us about three hours to drive from Athens to Delphi, where we had reservations at the 3✫ Hotel Acropole, highly recommended by Frommers. We had asked and obtained a room in the back on the top floor. And as we stepped in it, we saw one of the most stunning views we have ever seen from a hotel room. From the balcony of the room was a steep drop of several hundred feet to the valley floor and between the mountains we could see in the distance, some 20 miles away, the port of Tina on the Gulf of Corinth.

left: View from our hotel room in Delphi.

The picture does not give full justice to what we saw. In the distant past, travelers to Delphi would disembark at Tina to proceed to the sanctuary to consult the Oracle, or to give thanks to Apollo for favors received and victories gained. Green mountain ranges are visible to the left and right.

The hotel clerk arched his eyebrows when asked how far the ancient Delphi site by car. Only about half a mile from the hotel. Indeed too far for the average American tourist to walk, but within walking distance for the average European traveler. We walked. What would our friend Mosheim say if we had done otherwise?

I had always envisioned Delphi to be a small temple, where the oracular priestess would squat above an abyss inhaling noxious gases and sprouting gibberish, which would then be interpreted by the priests as messages from the gods. But Delphi in the 9th to 6th century BC. was a major religious center, with the huge Sanctuary of Apollo in the center of town.

right: The 7 pillars are the remains of the Sanctuary of Apollo. In the foreground is the stadium, renovated by Herod Atticus in the 4th century AD. Admire the inspiring surroundings of the site

The priests of this Sanctuary had a vast network of spies to give them background on the supplicants for oracular prophecies. It helps to make the correct predictions. They were also masters at double-talk and many centuries later even the current president of the United States emulated this custom. So to the population their sayings made sense. Note that this was not the place where the priestess would inhale fumes and spout her prophecies. That happened n a cave higher up the site.

There were many smaller, exquisite temples, votive offerings to Apollo, especially along the main road leading to the Temple. They were built there by grateful recipients of perceived favors from Apollo. And to the back there is a huge amphitheater built into the hills. Some 30,000 people used to live in Delphi, and many more people came from all over Greece to worship here. Now almost everything is in ruins and there are huge mounds of marble blocks strewn all over the place.

right: Ancient Delphi is built in a high hanging valley with lofty, craggy, Mount Parnassus, shown here, lovingly guarding the site.

One can understand why a major religious center was built here, because the surroundings are strikingly beautiful, the atmosphere is inspiring, the air is clean, and the light is pure. Everywhere are pine trees, The mountain hovers over you, like a mother cradling her child, and the wildflowers were in full bloom. Especially striking are the blood-red poppies which, as legend has it, are the drops of blood of the Minotaur spilled when it was killed by Theseus.

A few hundred meters before the site was the Archaeological Museum. It is wise to visit the museum first to get an understanding of the history and to get a better feel on how the site looked like in antiquity. And the museum usually has many good pieces on display which are kept indoors to prevent further deterioration.

right: There are indeed some nice pieces here, such as the huge kouro (naked youth) twins, which was only recently excavated. They represent the brothers Cleobis and Biton from Argos.

Then there is the sculptured cone that stood in the exact center of the world and the bronze remnants of a charioteer, one of the most celebrated pieces of ancient art in the world.

left: This statue of the charioteer was cast in bronze at around 470 BC, almost 2500 years ago. It shows him at the moment of glory after winning the race. He presents his chariot and horses to the crowd with full control of his emotions. No jumping up and down and making fist pumps.

In a separate room were many gifts of gold from Gyges (680 - 644 BC) to the city. Gyges was king of Lydia, now located in Turkey, a city rich in gold from the alluvial deposits from Pactolus, a nearby stream. Lydia is especially well-known because of the legendary Croesus, one of the later kings (560-547 BC), for whom the term “as rich as Croesus” was coined. All that wealth did not help him because he was defeated in battle by Cyrus the Great, leader of the Persian Empire. Prior to this battle, Croesus had consulted the Oracle and was told that if he attacked Persia, a great empire would fall. He assumed that Persia would be the empire to fall. He was wrong; it was his empire that would fall.

As described in Book I of the Histories of Herodotus, Gyges himself was not of royal blood, but a member of the Royal Bodyguard to Candaulus, who was then king. Candaulus was so proud of his beautiful wife that he insisted that Gyges see her naked and told him to hide behind the door in their bedroom to view her when she undressed for bed. Gyges did his best to decline the king’s invitation, but had no choice but to accept. But when she was naked, she saw him as he slipped out. She was so incensed, that the next day she gave Gyges the choice. He would murder her husband and make himself king, or he would be put to death himself. He chose the easiest way out.

But the Lydians were indignant at the murder of Candaulus, so Gyges sought to justify his ascendancy to the throne by petitioning for the approval of the Oracle of Delphi. He gave Delphi numerous gifts, including a huge amounts of silver ornaments and vessels of gold of various kinds, the most noteworthy being 6 mixing bowls weighing thirty talents, or nearly 2500 lbs. Money talks, now as well as in ancient times. So the Oracle duly confirmed Gyges as the rightful King. But because there was murder involved, the Priestess of the Shrine foretold that his dynasty would fall in the fifth generation. That was when Croesus was king.

But the most recognized building on the site is the Temple of Athena Pronaia That is the picture on the postcards from Delphi saying “wish you were here”. It is a round temple and unusual because of the pinkish color of the marble, located about a mile away and at a much lower elevation than the Sanctuary of Apollo, the center of ancient Delphi. A picture of the temple is shown above.

The modern small town of Delphi consists of two main streets, parallel to each other, where every house is either a tourist shop, a tavern, a restaurant, a pension, a hotel, or some establishment designed to shamelessly separate money from the many tourists coming to this place. Since there is nothing else to see, almost everyone stays here for one night only, sometimes even less. Cafés and restaurants are only interested in getting the tourist inside. Service is invariable bad and food quality is atrocious. So in the evening we drove some 4 miles to the little village of Arachova, where we had a good meal at the Taverna Dasarynis. It was freezing cold outside.

Friday, May 5, 2006. Hotel Acropole was very nice. Not only did we have the best room in the house, they also gave us 8 % discount when we mentioned Frommers. This is the only hotel we know, where they charge less than the agreed price. Usually, especially the big chains, they will chisel you to death with service charges, taxes, and miscellaneous items, such as fees for breathing the air in the hotel.

Then on Kalambaka. It was a beautiful drive through very mountainous regions and narrow winding roads. Luckily there was little traffic. Tourist buses also take this road from Delphi to Kalambaka, but luckily we did not see any. We took the road through Lamia, stopped at Karditsa for lunch and the friendly waiter/proprietor served us a more expensive dish than what we ordered by mistake, but charged us the lower price nevertheless. Then on through Trikala to Kalambaka.

Kalambaka and Meteora. (Καλαμπακα, Μετεωρα)

Kalambaka is a fairly prosperous looking town, with a population of around 20,000, pleasantly adorned with many fountains and modern sculptures. Even though tourism must be a major source of income, the town did not look too touristy. There were many people on the streets at all times of the day, even in the cold of the evening, but they looked like locals to us. The main attraction of the area are the monasteries in adjoining Meteora, perched high in the air on rocky pinnacles jutting up from the plains of Thessaly.

We stayed at Elena’s Guesthouse, on the outskirts of town and at the base of the Meteora rocks. We had a clean big room with bathroom and toilet en suite, a balcony with a view of the rocks, self-serve breakfast, lots of parking, all for €45 per night.

left: Elena’s Guest House at the base of the Meteora rocks. On the top of the rock on the left is the Agua Treiada Monastery. From here you can walk up to the monastery in about 6-8 hours.

Meteora means suspended in air and it now encompasses the entire rock community of some 24 monasteries. The first settlers came in the 11th century to escape harassment and so did the later settlers. Monasteries were built in the 14th century. In the old days the main access was by means of a net hoisted up by a rope, or by retractable wooden ladders up to 40 meters long. During the Turkish occupation, Meteora became a refuge for Greeks escaping the harsh administration and taxation of the Ottoman authorities. Even up till 1920 windlasses were used to haul the monks up in nets. When apprehensive visitors would ask how often the ropes were replaced, the stock reply was “When the Lord lets them break.”

Today, only six monasteries survive as museums, sparsely occupied by monks and nuns offering a rare glimpse of Orthodox monastic life. Nowadays steep paths have been chiseled in the rock face to allow the visitors with no rock-climbing experience climb up into the monasteries. It is often still a stiff climb which did not faze any of the visitors we saw. In the US they would have installed an elevator by now. They do charge a nominal €2 per person for entry. But you can drive a car on the well-maintained asphalt road on the top of the hills linking the monasteries together.

right: The Agia Triada. The James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” was filmed here.

Inside all the monasteries there is the richly decorated Greek Orthodox chapel and many displays of Byzantine art. The Agia Triada, (Αγιας Τριαδος) or the Monastery of the Holy Trinity is one the more simpler and compact structures; the frescoes in the chapel look old. The buildings are located so high and isolated on the rocks that it was used in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only”. From the end on the right of the rock we could look down and see Elena’s Guesthouse just below.

left: In Agiou Stefanou (Αγιων ΣτεΦανου) the frescoes are brand new because the originals were damaged beyond repair.

In others they are partially restored. In all these monasteries there is usually a collection of 14th-18th century paintings of tempera on wood, many of them behind glass to prevent further damage from the elements. Some of them are almost completely covered by a metal sheet with cutouts showing the faces of the most important personages on the panel.

There is the meeting hall, the living areas of the monks which are off-limits to the visitor, a pleasant courtyard with a commanding view of the surrounding areas way below, and maybe a book cum souvenir store. Even though there is little space on the rocks, there is usually a garden of sorts and way in the back, away from the buildings, the public toilets. I am not sure where the waste goes, but there are lines with water snaking up the rocks to the buildings. And nowadays they must have generators for their electrical needs.

right: Part of Varlaam monastery showing how supplies are winched up. In the olden days the visitors too are winched up.

A rather large monastery is Varlaam, (Βαρλααμ), where they have now very considerately built a sturdy bridge over a chasm to make entrance less challenging. It was named after a monk who first built a tiny chapel on this rocky promontory. In the 16th century two brothers founded the monastery after, according to legend, driving away a monster who lived in a cave at the summit. Besides the usual 14th - 18th century rescued paintings on wood, they also have a small collection of very old manuscripts, including a dictionary from the 15th century. They do have a very nice terraced courtyard.

Adjacent to Varlaam is the Great Meteoron, the most well-known monastery, also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration, a grand 16th century edifice rated two stars by Frommers. It is built on one of the highest rocks around, 613 meters above sea level. Founded in the 14th century, it became the richest and most powerful of the monasteries because the Serbian emperor Symeon Uros turned over all his wealth to the monastery and became a monk himself.

left: The Great Meteoron is an opulent monastery, even though it is built way up on the rocks.

The church has old frescoes, a twelve-sided tower with a huge painting of Jesus on the inside of the dome surrounded by his disciples on the sides.

Because this is the monastery to visit, it has a large parking place for buses and the place is usually jam-packed in the summer. But we were early enough in the season, so it was still fairly quiet.

right: There is a charnel house with a large collection of bones and skulls to remind the visitor that life is temporal and next to it a large wine cellar showing that there is also a lighter and jollier side to being a monk.

The monasteries are only open during certain hours during the day and are closed on some days of the week.

The monastery on the left is some distance from the main road and by that time we had seen enough monasteries for the day.

left: The Agias Varvaras Rousanou, which sounds French to me and which you enter over a narrow foot-bridge suspended over a deep chasm.

They do have railings. And there are a few more monasteries all over the place.

We had dinner in Kastraki, the town next to Kalambaka. Elena had recommended Batagogianni 2, and even though we were the only guests, the food was good and freshly prepared. And the owners were very friendly. The moussaka was unusually good, with a layer of frothy well-beaten egg-white on top. The prices were reasonable. I wonder how they could survive with almost no customers, but I suppose they make it up during the high season.

IV. From Ioannina to Ancient Olympia

Thu, 4 May 2006 23:12:18 -0700

Ioannina (Ιωάννινα).

From Kalambaka going north-west to Ioannina was around 140 km through narrow, curvy roads and high mountains, some of them so high there was still snow adjacent to the road. The scenery was beautiful, reminiscent of the Sierras, but it was a rather tiring drive. We drove through Lamia, Karditsa, and Trikala to get to our destination. Ioannina is not the usual destination of the tourist to Greece. W remembered that Chris, the guy next to us in the plane from Amsterdam, asked us why for Heaven’s sake did we want to go to Ioannina. We did not have a good answer.

The city is the capital and largest town in Epiros, and it is located on the shore of huge lake Pamvotis. With a population of above the 100,000 it is a busy town and driving there takes a bit more effort, but it was considerably better than in Athens. And after a while you do learn how to drive like the Greeks. But to us the city had a nice feel, also just because the visitors who come here are usually locals or Greek. Things appear to be like a normal, grimy middle-class town. There were some nice shops and the tourist venues appear to be more subdued.

Hotel Olympic rates itself as a 4 star hotel, but the room was small and the bathroom very small. It was located on the top floor with a view of the lake in the distance. But the balcony was a shared balcony with a lot of other rooms, so you had to keep the blinds drawn most of the time. But what was nice was that the hotel had a free internet station in the basement, and few people knew about it. The hotel is located in the center of town with access to a parking lot. Which is nice for a busy city but we found a parking place on the street just in front of the hotel and we left our car there for the two days we were there. And the staff was very friendly.

A half-mile walk from the city takes you to the quay and the ferry to Nissi Island (Το Νησί) on Lake Pamvotis. On the street to the quay are little shops, cafes, restaurants, ice cream stores, and crepe shops where you can get crepes with simple fillings such as plain sugar, or more elaborate fillings, such as meatballs, cucumbers, ham, french fries (yes, french fries), olives, hard-boiled eggs, and a variety of other things. Seems to be a major food item in this place. You just point to the fillings you want from the display and you pay for the fillings you chose.

left: Street going to the harbor. To the left are the walls of the old fort.

On some of the sidewalks, we also saw Chinese selling inexpensive trinkets, toys, watches, sunglasses, scissors, etc. on a canvas sheet on the street or on makeshift boxes. This was certainly not an easy life, because sales were few and far between. I spoke to one in Chinese (my Greek is not that good) and she said she came from Shanghai a few years ago. Life in Shanghai was hard, she intimated, which was the reason they came here. To Ioannina, of all places? And they had to learn to speak Greek. And some English for the occasional tourist who comes by. I wonder whether they had jumped into the fire from the frying pan.

Adjacent to the port is the old walled city, the fort jutting out into the water. Inside the walled city, the streets are narrower, and there is an old mosque and a fort. Ali Pasha built this mosque in 1618 on the site of an orthodox church he razed to punish the Christian Greeks for their failed revolution to overthrow the Turkish occupation. The mosque has been converted into a museum now showing items of clothing, weapons, and household items from the Greeks and from the Turks. And around the are rusting old cannons and cannon balls in large heaps. There also used to be a Turkish cemetery here and there are some very old graves and stacks of old headstones with Arabic script.
.

right: Stacks of old gravestones with Arabic scripts.

Nissi Island is a little island, about a mile long and a mile wide, with a cute little white-washed village on it. It is a tourist destination, but most of the visitors appear to be Greek and locals from Ioannina. You get there in 10-15 minutes on a ferry from the port for €1.50 per trip. So a round-trip for the two of us is still €6. Lake Pamvotis is quite large, I guess about as large as Lake Tahoe in the Sierras in California - Nevada.

left: Most of the friendly and shady town square is filled with tables from the adjacent restaurant.

No motorized traffic is allowed on the island and the only motorized vehicle we saw was an old rusty fire engine which did not look that it would even start when needed.

There are lots of small tourist stalls selling a variety of souvenirs, and especially a lot of filigree silverware.

right: A street in the village on Nissi

There are a number of monasteries on the island, but in the one we visited, Moni Filanthropinon, the caretaker was nowhere to be seen. You could walk into his house, which was wide open, but the monastery was locked.

There are also a number of restaurants specializing in the local seafood. You see holding tanks with different kinds of fish and very large eels, with diameters as much as 2 inches and several feet long. I had the eel, --they are usually served deep-fried-- for dinner; it tasted like catfish.

left: As befitting a tourist destination, there are the usual tourist shops.

On the island is also a museum dedicated to Ali Pasha, one of the more flamboyant characters of recent Greek history. He was born in 1741 and in 1787 the Turks appointed him Pasha of Trikala; a year later he was also the ruler of Ioannina. At the height of his power he also controlled most of Albania, western Greece and the Peloponnese. The life of Ali Pasha is a catalog of brigandage, murder, warfare, capricious cruelty and debauchery. He had a notorious reputation as a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. He had a harem of some 400 women, but he was at one time enamored of Kyra Frosyni, the mistress of his oldest son. When she rejected his advances, she and 17 of her companions were put into sacks and dropped in the lake. On his good side, he encouraged Greek cultural revival and improved the infrastructure of the areas he controlled.

Lord Byron visited him and came away impressed with his courtesy and appalled at his cruelty. Ali Pasha always wanted to break away from the Ottoman Empire and create an independent state. He collaborated with Napoleon and he courted the British. He sent an assassin to Constantinople to remove an opponent. In 1822 Sultan Mahmud II decided he had enough of Ali’s behavior, and ordered him to resign. Ali Pasha refused and the sultan sent his troops to catch and execute him under the pretext of sending him a general pardon. Ali was no fool; he retreated to Nissi Island and packed a huge amount of gunpowder in the citadel of Ioannina and threatened to blow up the city if they came after him. A trusted lieutenant would do this if he heard gunshots from the island. Only if a messenger would come to him with Ali’s special decorative chain, which Ali always wore on his belt, he should desist.

Ali Pasha took refuge on the first floor of the guesthouse of the Agios Panteleimon monastery, now the site of the museum, but he was killed when the troops stormed the island and fired bullets through the floor. The hole made by the bullet which killed him is still visible. He was amazed that his lieutenant did not blow up the city then, but when he looked for his chain, it was not there. His latest mistress, a beautiful young Greek woman named Vasssileri, had stolen it when he was asleep and given it to the troops of the Sultan. His corpse was beheaded and the head brought to Constantinople (Istanbul). His body was buried in Ioannina.

Perama Cave and Dodoni. (Σπήλαιο Περάματος; Δωδώνη).

Well, the title and the intent were there, but we didn’t go to the Perama Cave, 4 km north of the city and one of the largest caves in Greece. It was reputed to be 1100 meter long, with an astonishing array of stalactites and stalagmites, but we decided we have seen enough caves, stalactites, and stalagmites. The biggest commercially accessible cave we have seen was the Heng Song Sol cave in the karst formations in Halong Bay in Vietnam; the most nicely presented was at the Coves deis Hams in Mallorca. That is enough for the next few years.

Dodoni, some 20 kms from Ioannina, lies in a high, fertile valley at the foot of Mt. Tomaros. Like all of the ancient sanctuary sites, the location is superb and one can easily imagine this to be the place where gods would come down to commune with mere mortals.

right: Ruins of Dodoni.

An earth goddess was worshipped here as early as 2000 BC, but by the 13th century BC boss Zeus took over, where he spoke to the humans through the rustling of the leaves from a sacred oak tree. Around the tree a temple was built, now in ruins. On the site are many other ruins, as well as beautiful wildflowers in full bloom. There was also a magnificent amphitheater from the 3rd century BC, in good shape because it was renovated in the 19th century, and still in occasional use today

left: Wildflowers in full bloom in Dodoni.

From Dodoni we headed south to Ancient Olympia, which is located on the Peloponnese Peninsula. Going south we had to cross mountain ranges on winding roads. But there was hardly any traffic, so we did make good time while being able to enjoy the landscape. We drove through Arta, Agrinio, Messolongi and then crossed from the Greek mainland into the Peloponnese over the new Rio-Antirio bridge, just north of Patra.

From the map above you can see that this is the narrowest point between mainland Greece in the North and the Peloponnese Peninsula in the south. The Peninsula is attached to the mainland only at a narrow strip of land at Corinth. On the north of this strip is the Corinthian Gulf, connected to the Ionian Sea, and on the south is the Saronic Gulf, which is connected to the Sea of Crete.

right: The modern Rio-Antirio Bridge. The bridge is built at the narrowest point of the Straits to the Ionian Sea, just northeast of Patra.

The toll was €10.50 per car. This modern bridge consists of 5 cable-stayed spans and four pylons. At a length of 2252 meters it is one of the world’s longest cable-stayed suspended decks. The bridge, costing €630 million, is an engineering masterpiece because of the deep water of the Gulf of Corinth, reaching 65 meters in places, a seabed of loose sediment making buried piers impossible, and because the Gulf is expanding at a rate of about 30 mm/year. So the piers rest on a bed of gravel, and the bridge parts are connected to the pylons with jacks and dampers to absorb movement. There is also the probability of tsunamis in the event of an earthquake. The bridge is high above the water, allowing unobstructed movement of ships through the Straits. You can see from the map that without the bridge one has to take a ferry or make a long detour over the Isthmus (the narrow land connection between the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland) of Corinth.

Ancient Olympia. (Αρχαια Ολυμπία)

After crossing the bridge we drove straight south to Ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the modern Olympics. As “The Lonely Planet” puts it: “The modern village of Olympia panders unashamedly to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who pour through here each year on their way to ancient Olympia, half a km south. The main street is lined with countless overpriced souvenir shops, coffee shops and restaurants”. But the locals have since gone up one step further. Their town is now renamed “Ancient Olympia” to give it dignity and cachet. They still fleece the tourist, but it is now sanctioned by Zeus himself. Olympia does not exist anymore. The modern city and the ancient site have been blended under one name.

We stayed at the Hotel Pelops, run by the Spiliapoulos family, and we were given a pleasant room on the third floor, because we were staying there two nights. Most people only stay in Olympia for one night. On one wall of the dining room was a display of three olympic torches of different design and some photographs. Papa Spiliapoulos happened to be the first torchbearer in the 1964 as well as in the 1968 Olympics. His image had been beamed all over the world as his torch was lit by the flame on the sacred site.

left: Two torchbearers; three Olympic torches.

Spiliapoulos Jr. was torchbearer no 7 in the 2004 Athens Olympics. We were suitably impressed. On further questioning Papa said he was a javelin thrower. Was he part of the national team and did he have any records to his name? No, not really. Junior is a basketball player. Was he a member of the national team. No, not really, but he played in the local league. How did they then receive the honor of being torch bearers at the Olympic Games? “Well”, they admitted sheepishly. “This is Greece, you know. Uh, .... and the mayor of Ancient Olympia, you know, the one who assigns the torch bearers, you know, he is OK” . Jr. was actually still incensed because he had to pay €300 for his torch. The Greek Olympic Committee was running short on cash. Papa got both of his free.

There is a museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity in town, very well set up and very informative. Displays apparently were at one time mostly in French and/or Greek, but now English has been added. The Olympic Games started in 776 BC and continued uninterrupted every four years until 392 AD, when it was banned by Emperor Theodosius II because it was in his eyes a pagan festival. He also decreed that the site be destroyed. Guess who was the pagan here?

As recorded by Pindar in the first half of the 5th century BC, the beginning of the Games has been attributed to Hercules himself. Only men could compete, and they competed in the nude. No slaves or women were allowed to enter the sanctuary, not even as spectators. But women were not completely barred from the sport, because in Olympia every 4 years there was also an Olympics for women under the auspices of the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus. Kyniska, daughter of the Spartan king Archidamos, was the first woman to win the equestrian championship. In the beginning the Games were completed in one day; it was later expanded until it was 5 days. By that time the Games included wrestling, discus and javelin throwing, long jump, and running.

By the time the Romans were in power, the importance of the Games had declined. Emperor Nero entered the chariot race with 10 horses, decreeing that other competitors could not have more than four. Despite this advantage he fell and had to abandon the race. But he was still declared the winner by the judges. The judges knew the rules of the game.

By this time we realized that to enjoy an ancient site one should first go to the Archaeological Museum first. Going immediately to the site is usually not very productive, because all you see is a jumble of stones. The Museum shows how the site looked like in 800 BC until its decline in the 4th AD. After the destruction by Theodosius II, the site was abandoned and in the intervening centuries silt from the nearby river, which regularly floods the plains, started to build up on the remains. When a German archeological team started excavating in the late 1800’s. they had to remove as much as 10 feet of deposit in some places.

left: Statue of Pan

A statue which seems to attract a lot of attention is that of the God Pan. He is shown on the left with a huge erection.

Since the Games were dedicated to Zeus, the largest temple was dedicated to him. Hera got the next largest one. The eastern pediment of the temple of Zeus shows the chariot race between Pelops and king Oinamaos. King Oinamaos was warned that he would be killed by his son-in-law, and so he challenged each of his daughter Hippomadeia’s suitors to a chariot race and even allowed them to start first. But the king had the swiftest horses in the world and he would overtake and kill the suitor. In the case of Pelops, Zeus himself provided the horses for him and to ensure victory Oinamaos’ charioteer was bribed to use waxed pins in the wheels, causing the chariot to tumble during the race and killing the king in the process. Major tilt here. The Peloponnese is named after Pelops

right: Detail of the West Pediment; Temple of Zeus

On the West side of the Temple there is Apollo watching the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. The Centaurs had been invited to the wedding of the Lapith king Peirithous, but after some time they had too much to drink and started to attack the Lapith women and boys. The scene also shows Theseus help defeat the Centaurs.

In the Temple used to be the huge and superb chryselephantine statue of Zeus, created by the master Phidias and considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The statue was carted away to Constantinople where it was destroyed in the great fire of August 1203, when the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade and the Venetians attacked the city for loot.

left: The star piece in the collection in the Museum is no doubt the 4th century BC statue of Hermes by Praxiteles.

The statue is carved out of Parian marble, with a soft smile on his face. The statue shows Hermes taking the infant Dionysos to Mount Nysa.

On the site itself the archeologists have uncovered numerous ruins. Very well preserved and partially restored was the Nymphaeum, erected by the wealthy Roman banker Herodes Atticus in 150-160 AD, a semicircular building with Doric columns. In the building is also a spring supplying fresh water to the town. Other sites of interest are the Gymnasium and the partly restored Palaestra, or wrestling school. Then there was the workshop of Pheidias, where he had sculpted the statue of Zeus.

right: The Philippeion in Ancient Olympia, the only circular building on the site.

We also walked to the track where the sprint was held for the times that the Olympics were held here. The track was 160 m long and Elise Erickson, whom we had just met the day before in Hotel Pelops ran it and back again for good measure. It was hot and we were content to savor a life of leisure and just applaud.

left: The original track for the sprint, one of the first events in the ancient Olympics.

The first night Hotel Pelops offered a special dinner of Greek specialties to their guests for € 15.80/per person. On a large plate they served dolmas, sausages, tsatziki (a yoghurt based dip), cucumbers with garlic and yoghurt, olives, stuffed tomatoes, moussaka, fava broad beans, beet root salad, vegetable wrap, cheese wrap, and fish roe salad. For dessert we had sweet strawberries or honeyed yoghurt. The wine (cost extra) was a local Flogaros rosé. Under Mama Spiliapoulos tutelage, the hotel also offers multiple day cooking classes, and the food was quite good.

For lunch the next day we went to hotel Europa, a little bit further away from touristy downtown, and which was a 4 * establishment. But lunch was good and reasonably priced. For dinner we went with Elise and Gregory Erickson, very nice people, to Taverna Bacchus in the neighboring village of Miraka, about 4 kms away. If you are staying in a tourist place, it is usually a good move to go to a neighboring village for food. Prices are more reasonable and the food is better, because it is there where the locals go. For dessert the taverna offered us Tentura, a sweet local port wine spiced with cloves and cinnamon. Rather unusual, but tasted very good.

We left Hotel Pelops the next day and drove west. The weather was beautiful and the road went through several passes in the high, wooded mountains. The road was curvy but there was very little traffic. In high season, with tourist buses inching along, the drive would not have been this pleasant. We passed the little village of Langadia, built on the side of a sheer mountain wall.

Right: Langadia

It is apparently also a tourist destinations because of the beautiful surroundings and because there were many cafe and restaurant tables set in the open air. Far below we could see a cemetery built in three tiers. Would you get the top tier if you had behaved well in life, or if you were rich?

Driving further we went through Tripoli, where we had lunch at Goody, because a car kindly left us a parking space in the busy street just as we drove by. Goody is a fast food restaurant chain, but the food is quite good, varied, and reasonably priced. And the bathrooms are clean.

Our destination for the day was Nafplion, on the Argolic Gulf.

V. Nafplion and Environs

Wed, 3 May 2006 12:30:26 -0700

Nafplion (Ναύπλιο)

The old town of Nafplion, our destination of the day, is one of the prettiest towns in Greece. The narrow streets, built on a mountainside, are filled with elegant Venetian houses and gracious neoclassical mansions, adorned with red bougainvillea in its full riotous glory.

left: a street in downtown Nafplion

The streets are lined with cute little art shops, jewellery boutiques and friendly-looking little restaurants and cafés with tables on the sidewalk. It felt somewhat like St. Paul de Vance in the south of France. On the town square and on the boulevard along the harbor, there are many cafés with comfortable, plush, padded seats and benches to relax, have a

drink, and watch traffic and life go by.

right: These are very comfortable benches to sit, sip a drink, and watch the people walk by. This is on the promenade along the water.

Nafplion is a favorite weekend destination for the people of Athens, so the crowd is mostly Greek. And yes, it is touristy alright, but it is geműtlich and low-key, because they are looking for repeat business. It is not as blatant as in Delphi or in Olympia. There the shops carry cheap junk, manufactured in China or Bangladesh, because they cater to the foreign tourist, who only come there for a day and never come back.

left: The town square of the city.

Nafplion was at one time the capital of Greece and it was a major port since the Bronze Age. It is so strategic that there are three fortresses guarding the city; the massive principal fortress of Palamidi, the smaller Akronafplia and, in the harbor, Bourtzi. The latter has been converted into a small hotel.

We stayed at the hotel Byron, a bit up on the mountainside and rather difficult to find in the narrow one-way streets. The town has free parking in a huge parking lot at the harbor, but that is 7 - 8 blocks away from the hotel, mostly uphill. We were lucky and found a parking place in a small square just a few houses away from the hotel, but we still had to lug our luggage up two flights of stairs to get to the reception area, and then another three flights of stairs to our room on the 4th floor. Yes, it is useful to travel light. The room had a small balcony with a gorgeous view of the city, the harbor, and the Palamidi fortress. We could also see part of the Akronafplia fortress. The hotel is as a favorite weekend place for people from Athens.

right: View from the window of our room. There is an abandoned church in the foreground and the ramparts of the Akronafplia fortress is visible a bit higher up.

Surprisingly, the Ericksons had booked a hotel on the same street just a short block away. We had met them in Ancient Olympia and here we are, together again.

We had dinner together, this time at the Taverna Paleo Archontiko, a good place to eat and not expensive. Except when you order fish. Even though Nafplion is on the water, fish dinners cost 2 -3 times that of lamb. Restaurants will have large display cases where they show the fresh catch of the day in ice. In the restaurants on the harbor boulevard, you can expect to pay €40-50/kg for fish. For that much money, they usually do a very good job in preparing the fish.

left: View from the harbor with the Palamidi fortress on the hill in the distant background.

The Palamidi fortress is built on a rocky outcrop some 216 meters above sea level and from our hotel room we can see the ramparts above the sheer and steep walls of the mountain. I climbed up the 999 steps to get up the steep side of the fortress and into the back gate. After so much effort I thought they should have given me free access, but I still had to pay the €4 entrance fee. Up there I saw a surprisingly large number of visitors. They obviously couldn’t have all walked up 999 steps; that was too much work for the average person. Then I noted with disgust that there was a road which could take you to the main gate of the fortress in the comfort of a car. Most people come there by car or bus.

right: On the top of the Palamidi fortress complex. Another fortress.

There are actually three fortresses there, built between 1711 and 1714 by the Venetians. It is a typical baroque fortress, based on the plans of the engineers Giaxich and LaSalle. But a year after completion, the fortress was seized by the Turks, obviously from the more easy land side. No person in his right mind would attack from the steep sea side. It remained under control of the Turks until 1822, when it was liberated by the Greeks. The views of the surrounding areas are impressive indeed.

When I was up in the Palamidi fortress, Norma visited the Museum of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, located in the Folk Art Museum, which had won the European Museum of the Year Award in 1981. It has an extensive collection of regional costumes, household textiles, fibers, embroideries, utensils, tools and furniture associated with the creation of these items.

left: A display in the Museum of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation.

It is a fairly large size museum, housed in three neoclassical style buildings downtown, where they display their collection in temporary and permanent exhibitions.

On Saturdays there is also a market in Nafplion. There was a woman standing on a large low table covered with a huge number of single shoes of all kinds. A potential customer would take a shoe and try it for fit. If it did and the customer liked it, the stall-holder would then rapidly find the matching pair on the table, which was amazing considering how many shoes there were.

right: A lady selling shoes in the market.

But in this manner, people were not able to sneak off with shoes when she was not watching.

Epidaurus (Επίδαυρος)

It was another beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the low 70’s in the morning. We were getting used to this. We left for Ancient Epidaurus, some 35 km away, going through small and winding roads. The city was a sanctuary of Asclepius, the god of medicine, who was said to have been born there. It was one of the two most important sanctuaries dedicated to this god, the other one is on the island of Kos. In ancient times people came from all over Greece for medical treatment. When a plague was raging in Rome, Livy and Ovid came to Epidaurus for assistance. Asclepius is normally shown with a serpent which, by renewing its skin, signifies rejuvenation.

There is a small museum showing the remains of the Temple with the usual busts and marble relics. But there was also a collection of surgical instruments from that time on display, which by now were heavily rusted and corroded and made the visitor squirm. But in the original state, they were probably almost as good as many of the current scalpels and scissors.

left: The Amphitheater at Epidaurus

But today, the place is more renowned for its impressive amphitheater. The structure, built of limestone and seating up to 14,000, is one of the best preserved classical theaters in Greece. It was built in two stages. The first was completed at the end of the 4th century BC; the second phase was completed in the 2nd century BC. The lower portion has 12 cunei (sections) with 34 benches each; the upper portion has 22 cunei with 21 rows of benches. Even with its impressive size, the marvelous acoustics allow you to hear a coin drop in the 60 feet diameter stage anywhere in the stadium. In the summer it is now the site of a Festival where ancient dramas are performed. The site attracts a huge number of visitors.

Ancient Corinth. (Αρχαια Κορινθος)

Ancient Corinth is some 5 miles away from the Corinth, where we had lunch and tried to find the excavations. It was still quite a distance from the city and the road to it was not too well marked. Currently a group of American and Greek archeologists are working on the site.

The city was sacked and destroyed by the Roman consul Mummius in 146 BC for rebelling against Roman rule, but in 44 BC Julius Caesar began rebuilding the city and it soon became a prosperous port again. Of the Greek city only a fragment of the 6th century BC Temple of Apollo remains on a hill. Of the 38 original pillars, only 7 are still standing.

right: The Temple of Apollo in Ancient Corinth

Below it are the ruins of the large Roman settlement with remains of houses, private Roman villas, shops, etc. In the middle of the settlement is a space for probably an agora or maybe a public forum. And above Corinth, towering 575 meters above the town, is the massive fortified bulk of Acrocorinth, built on a mountain of limestone. The original fortress was built in ancient times and is now a medley of Roman, Byzantine, Frankish, Venetian and Turkish ramparts. On one of the summits is the Temple of Aphrodite, where sacred courtesans, both male and female, offered their services to the sexually needy who took the trouble of trekking up the high mountain to the Temple.

left: This section of the ruins were in the area of the expensive Roman mansions in the city.

Ancient Corinth was an important city in Biblical times. It was here that St. Paul wrote his letters Corinthians, and it was here that he spent 18 fruitless months railing against the town’s wicked ways, presumably because he adamantly abstained from enjoying the temple’s sacred prostitutes himself. Not only was it of no use, which we could have told him, but the local authorities got tired of his constant criticism and hauled him away to Governor Gallo in AD 52.

right: There is something wistful in these red poppies in bloom amongst the sections of ancient Corinthian columns.

There is also a small museum on the premises. Even then they had a nice collection of clay figurines and arrowheads dating back to 6000 BC. It has also some nice mosaics of colored tesserae recovered from the floors of some of the Roman villas. It also housed the public bathrooms; they were in a rather inconspicuous corner, not well marked, and difficult to find.

The Corinth Canal.

This canal connects the Gulf of Corinth to the Aegean Sea. Before the Canal, ships had to make a very long and arduous detour around the Peloponnesus several hundreds of miles long. Emperor Nero was the first one to attempt to cut a canal through the Isthmus, which was only a few miles wide at its narrowest point. In true megalomaniac fashion, he used a golden pickaxe to start the digging but then left the task to 6000 Jewish prisoners. They did not get very far.

right: The Corinth Canal. Note the steep embankments.

The current canal was completed in 1893. It is hewn out of solid rock and it is about 4 miles long. It is only 75 feet wide, 25 feet deep and the cliffs along the canal rise as high as 200 feet.

Very interesting from the historical point is the Diolkos. In the 7th century BC, the Diolkos connected the two waters. The Diolkos was a roadway, about 10 meters wide, starting on the Gulf of Corinth. The stone-paving began at the very edge of the sea. Ships were taken to this starting point and there dragged onto the Diolkos. These ships rested initially on wooden cylinders and were then transferred to a special wheeled vehicle.

To reduce the weight of the ship as far as possible, it was unloaded before being hoisted onto the Diolkos and the unloaded commodities were taken by ordinary road to the other end of the Isthmus. Narrowing to between 3.50 and 6 meters after its starting point the Slipway was paved with porous stone throughout its length. Two deep parallel grooves, which ran at a distance of 1.50 meters from each other, marked the Diolkos. Thus, the ship was dragged all across the Isthmus. On reaching the Slipway's terminus on the Saronic Gulf, it was lowered into the sea, the cargo was loaded again, and the ship continued with its journey. This arrangement did not merely speed up traffic. It also enabled ships moving between the Central and Eastern Mediterranean to avoid the rough seas almost unavoidable in a voyage round the Peloponnese.
The Diolkos was repeatedly repaired in ensuing centuries and remained in use until the days of Augustus, though the appearance of ever-larger ships curtailed its usefulness. There is hardly any mention of its use in later centuries, and then only in connection with warlike activities.
Ancient Mycenae (Αρχαια Μυκήνες)

In the barren foothills of Mt Agios Ilias (750 m) and Mt Zara (600 m) lie the brooding and mighty ruins of ancient Mycenae. Henry Miller wrote in The Colossus of Maroussi that Mycenae “folds in on itself”. The city has a commanding view of some of the richest plains and valleys in Greece. It flourished between the 16th and the 13th century BC. The sheer size and thickness of the walls of the citadel were astounding; 13 meters high and 7 meters thick. Mycenae was once the seat of Agamemnon, (Αγαμέμνων) the king of the House of Atreus who led the Greeks in the war against Troy. In the 9th century BC, Homer wrote about “well-built Mycenae, rich in gold” in his Iliad and Odyssey. Here was the command center of the operation to win back “the face that launched a thousand ships”

left: The brooding ruins of anient Mycenae below Mt. Zara.

According to Homer and to Aeschylus, Mycenae was founded by Perseus, the son of Danaë, a princess of Argos, and Zeus. The god had appeared to her as a golden shower, which penetrated the bronze chamber where she had been imprisoned by her father, because an oracle had foretold him that her son would kill him. But the greatest deed of Perseus was the killing of the hideous snake-haired Medusa, whose looks literally petrified anyone who looked at her.

Mycenae is now also intricately related to Heinrich Schliemann, the rather eccentric German who spearheaded the excavations in Mycenae and in Troy. He proved that Homer did not just write pure fiction but that many of the characters did exist at around 1250 BC. When Schliemann was 19 he was destitute in Amsterdam, after the ship he was in was wrecked off the Dutch coast. But by dint of hard work and dogged perseverance, he had made so much money when he was 40, that he decided to get married and go digging. He married the 17-year old Sophia Engastromenos and together they started their excavations, initially sneered at by the archeological community. But in his enthusiasm he dug too deep and uncovered priceless golden artifacts from earlier periods, such as the “death mask of Agamemnon”.

right: In Mycenae most of the artifacts were recovered from Grave Circle A, shown here.

After one enters the Lion’s Gate, the main entrance to the city, Grave Circle A is just a few feet to to right, so the graves were just inside the city walls.

The museum at the site is built on two levels connected by an indoor sloping ramp in a beautiful modern building. There were nice displays of pottery and other artifacts found in this area dating back to the 15th to 30th century BC.

left: Display of ancient pottery in the Museum in Mycenae.

A mile away from Mycenae is a huge tholos or bee-hive tomb, built around 1300 BC, called the “Treasury of Atreus”. It is a huge structure, about 65’ in diameter and just about as high. We are not sure whether it was used as a tomb, but since it was above ground and easily visible, it would have been robbed clean over the centuries. Now you can simply walk into the huge and empty dark inside of the structure and wonder. But the most impressive aspect are the huge stones used in the building. It is impossible to fathom how the ancient Greeks could have moved them. Where did these stones come from. Look at the size of the large stone in the picture. It has obviously been chiseled out of a bigger rock.

right: Norma in front of a stone of the gateway to the tholos.

Tiryns (Τίρυνθα)

Tiryns, which is just a few miles outside of Nafplion, is not as well-known as Mycenae, but it is also mentioned by Homer because of its “Cyclopean walls”. They are so large and so thick that only the Cyclops could have placed them there. In some places, they are 20 meters thick, and the largest stones are estimated to weigh up to 14 tons. Which begs the question how the ancients were able to move these, unless they were the Cyclops themselves. Within the wall of the city are said to be vaulted galleries, secret stairways, and storage chambers, which was not directly obvious as you walk through the ruins. Schliemann also did some excavations here and also recovered many valuable golden artifacts.
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But not much appears to have been done about making the ruins understandable to the casual visitor and as you walk around the mountains of stones, the only exceptional thing you notice are the red poppies in full bloom. There was no museum and no explanations around. There was not even a bathroom. Maybe that is why they only charged €2 for entering the site.

left: Entrance gate to Tiryns. Note the huge stones used

To Athens and the Greek Islands.

The next morning we drove back to Athens, where we returned the car and took the Metro to Omonia Square. La Mirage Hotel was there. This was the meeting place of the group organized by Djoser, a Dutch touring company. We were going with them on the second leg of our trip: the Greek Islands of the Cyclades and Crete.

Ευχαριστώ, Καληνύχτα, Efcharisto, Kalinichta, Thank you. Good Night.