Sunday, June 27--Olympia and beyond

Early Sunday morning we made a brief tour into the town of Olympia before heading to the archaeological site.


The site of the games was impressive, with ruins from gymnasia and other training facilities, temples and places for people to stay, in addition to the stadium.

Athletes could not practice in the stadium itself since that was sacred, so the gymnasium was laid out with a practice track of equivalent length.
Here's a picture of our tour guide, Joy, showing members of our group a photo recreation of the site. Trained as an archaeologist and then an additonal 3 years to become a licensed tour guide, she was full of information about history and mythology as well as architecture. Anytime you see bricks (like the background here) that is an indication of Roman era work.

Originally, Greek columns were made of one large piece of stone or marble, but in later years they were built in sections and fitted together with dowel-like pieces in the center. You can see the fallen columns in sections very clearly here.
The arch marks the entrance to the stadium. Joy told us that athletes who cheated were forever shamed by having statues place along the walkway...not sure if that's true.

The start and finish line for the races, were lines of stone. You can see there were no seats, just hillsides where people sat to watch the games.to get a wonderful fictionalized but historically grounded story of how the games were carried out, read Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine.

We then went to the museum where they have preserved substantial portions of the friezes from the buildings on the site.

The statuary conveys not only their reverence for the human form, but also the high level of artisanship.

After having lunch, we headed north, back across the canal to the mainland. Next stop, the museum at Delphi (pronounced DEL-fee) since it wouldn't be open Monday morning. The drive up to the mountain town of Delphi was gorgeous; the valley below supposedly is home to over 1 million olive trees.

Delphi was considered the "naval of the earth" (aka Omphalos) supposedly because Zeus sent his two eagles to fly from opposite ends of the earth and this is where they met.
Delphi was also the seat of the most revered oracle in ancient Greece and home to Panhellenic games called the Pythian games. Apollo supposedly defeated the god Python, who originally guarded the site, because Python had tormented Apollo's mother while she was giving birth to him and his sister (on Delos). It's very complicated, no? These statues of the "Twins of Argos" in the museum fascinated me because they reveal very strong Egyptian influence on the art of the time. Greece was such a cross-roads for trade and culture and was constantly fought over and conquered by multiple groups from around the Mediterranean and Europe.

Another Egyptian derived creature fueled the myth of  the Sphinx who posed questions to travellers and ate them if they didn't get the right answer. The Sphinx of Naxos is also housed in the museum
The last memorable sculpture at the museum is The Charioteer, a life-sized bronze statue whose eyes seem to follow you.
This was our favorite hotel on the trip because it had a stunning view from the lobby and was close enough to town to allow an evening ramble and some shopping.( Yes, that's me reading on the balcony--what a surprise!)

We tasted homemade olives, bought ceramics, and a birthday present to myself, a small gold "meander" pendant. We saw a herd of goats being shepherded only by a hard-working dog.

Saturday, June 26--The Peloponnese

The Peloponnese is the name given to the lower portion of the country; it's still called an isthmus, but is separated entirely by a canal which was completed in 1893, although efforts to that end date back to 700 BC. Nero had plans drawn up and construction started in 67 AD and some say those were the plans that were actually used. Other accounts suggest that the plans for the Panama-Suez canal provided the model. It is less than 4 miles long, and before the canal was built, ships were sometimes pulled over land on a rock road built for that purpose, or cargo was off-loaded from one side and put on wheeled carts to be carried to ships on the other side. Today it is spanned by two major bridges, both of which we crossed.



We drove along the east coast of Corinth and  then into Argos perfecture where our first stop was Epidaurus.Scenery is gorgeous with views of the sea and groves of olives, though usually not the orderly kind of orchards we're used to seeing, rather just scattered about the hillsides. The most famous and best preserved all the ancient theatres in Greece is here. Built in 3rd C. BC, it can seat 12, 000 and is still used for performances, having nearly perfect acoustics.

Some ruins of the temple built to honor Asklepios, the god of healing, are also here in Epidaurus, and we visited a small museum at the site.

Then we headed west across the middle of the Peloponnese and stopped at Nafplio--obviously not a Greek name--which is capital of the prefecture and home to three old fortresses: the Venetian fortress of Palamidi (late 17th C.)crowning a hill in the middle of town, and reached by a flight of nearly 1,000 steps, which we did not climb--
the Acronofplia (14th C--
and the Bourtzi (15th C) which is an island in the bay-- There are some great pictures of the town here; we didn't actually get to tour Naplio since we just had a 10 minute rest stop.
On to Mycenae for lunch and to visit the ruins at the acropolis, which is entered through the Lion Gate--there used to be carved stone lion heads facing toward anyone who approached. This is the ancient home of a tribe that ruled much of Greece for several hundred years, up 1100 BC. Like all good fortifications, the acropolis offered a commanding view to the surrounding area, even to the sea in the east.
We then drove to the Treasury of Atreus, a beehive shaped tomb, aka as tholos tombs, which was the most common form of burial architecture from about 1600-1100 BC.

As you can see, we covered a lot of ground in one day. We finally arrived on the west side of the Peloponnese in Olympia.We weren't really near the town at our hotel, so most of us just had dinner and rested up, while a few of the group headed to the bar to watch the World Cup matches. The chain of  hotels where we stayed (Amalia, pronounced Ahm-ah-LEE-ah after the former queen), were on a grand scale, a couple decades past their glory days, and almost empty except for our group of 18.

Back in Athens--Friday, June 25th

Here's where things will get a little muddy since I lost my travel journal and no longer have the handy dailies provided by the cruise coordinator on the boat. The group disembarked early Friday (25th) and went back to the Hotel Herodion for the night. We actually had a nifty little view of the Acropolis this time around (instead of the airshaft). We spent the day touring some of the other archaeological sites in Athens. In the center of town, adjacent to the Royal Gardens, is the Temple of Zeus...it's hard to get a sense of scale but it was massive.

Here's a side view of the temple of Hephaistos (also spelled Hephaestus), on the northwest side of the Agora.  It is considered the best preserved Doric temple in Greece; construction began 2 years prior to the Parthenon (ca. 449 BC).

Here is a view of the Acropolis from the temple site.

I couldn't resist this little bit of domesticity on one of the areas being worked within the Agora.

This is me standing outside another "library"--that of Roman emperor Hadrian, built in ca. 131 AD; it served as a cultural center for Athenians at the time. You can also just see the Parthenon way up in the background.

We walked through the Royal Gardens and went to the Parliament buildings.


While we waited patiently for the changing of the guard, friend Anne made the acquaintance of a non very shy pigeon.

The guards in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier are considered to be the cream of the crop.

It was VERY hot and they periodically got to go inside a hut where a soldier in regular uniform gave them a drink of water and wiped the sweat from their faces.
We found a nifty creperie where we had dinner and retired early in preparation for our 7:30 am bus departure next morning.