"You are kindly requested to get off our bus!"

Lions Gate: entrance to the Acropolis at Mycenae

J:  This week we joined a four-day bus tour of the classical sites of Greece -- beyond Athens.  Perhaps it is not not our favorite way to travel, but it is informative and efficient.  The group varied in size, as some left early and others joined mid-way.  Usually there were 20-25 on the very modern and comfortable bus.  The tour leader, Lea, quickly made her mark -- imagine a spinster whose role model is a drill sergeant.  She recited endless facts and dates and mythological stories, without a trace of humor, smile or grace.  The title of this blog was perhaps Lea's most repeated quotation -- said when the group was splitting up and some were leaving for Athens.  Even though Lea didn't smile, we had many good laughs (a few at her expense) with two couples from New Zealand and a couple from Chicago.  However, Lea did fill our heads with the misadventures of the gods.  The country-side was most spectacular.  And certainly we loved the opportunity to sit and contemplate life at the birth of Western Civilization thousands of years ago.

Treasury of Atreus (beehive tomb at Mycenae)

J:  Many years ago I was impressed with a biography of Heinrich Schliemann called Gold of Troy.   With a fortune gained in the California Gold Rush, Schliemann decided to prove the historical truth of Homer by digging up Troy.  He found and uncovered an ancient city in Turkey (which he declared was Troy).  Next he focused on Agamemnon's home in Greece and started digging at Mycenae.  And as of today, 10% of the site has been excavated.

On our first day on the tour we drove west from Athens, crossed the isthmus at Corinth and visited Mycenae and Epidaurus.  Our trip has accidentally followed the chronology of Greek history.  The "Minoans" of Crete/Knossos start the "time-line" in about 2,500 BC with a gentle, prosperous trading culture.  Next the feisty mainland Greeks, now referred to as the Mycenaeans, run over the Minoans about 1,400 BC.  And the fall of the Mycenaeans in about 1,200 BC leads to the Dark Ages of Greek history, reborn at the renaissance of the Golden Age of Athens and Sparta in about 450 BC.  So Mycenae was a thriving palace about 1,000 years before the Parthenon was built.  Class Dismissed.  Exam on Thursday.

Being entertained at the  Epidaurus theater

 Here's the classical theater at Epidaurus.  It seats 15,000 and has perfect acoustics.  We climbed the 80+ steps to the top, thinking that we would listen to Lea wrinkle a newspaper she brought for demonstration purposes.  Instead, we were serenaded by a choir from Northern Greece, accompanied by an accordion, singing the praises of Alexander the Great (in Greek of course).

In ancient times this was a thriving city.  It disappeared and because it was remote, later generations didn't come to steal the stones of the theater.  So they simply uncovered the hillside and exposed a huge theater.  The rest of the city is still buried.

Epidaurus is the home of Asclepius, the mythological god of medicine (who carries around a stick wrapped with a snake).  Ill and infirm came from all over Greece to his temple here to be healed.  Oh yes, Apollo was the father of Asclepius.  In true Greek mythological soap opera style, his mother was unfaithful to Apollo while pregnant, so Apollo killed her just after Asclepius was born.  Zeus then killed Asclepius for raising someone from the dead.

Give that lady a wreath

J;  Next stop, Olympia.  This was known as the place where the Olympic Games began.  Athletes from all over Greece walked here for the festivities (major party time).  Athens is 336 kilometers away and some came from Thessalonica in the far north.  They really wanted that olive wreath.  Olympia was not a town but rather essentially a religious retreat center, with major temples for Zeus and Hera, his wife.  They did have a stadium that seats 45,000 (sitting on grassy slopes).

Here's Gretchen at the finish line.  Some ran around the stadium.  We chose to walk. 

















The Olympic torch is lighted at a rather modest "altar of Hera".  It's the roped off area in the photo.  A small group of young women in white togas hold the torch next to a metal cone shaped contraption, and the sun lights the fire.  Then it is carried to Athens by runners, each getting a one kilometer leg.

From the Olympia museum:  Hermes of Praxiteles holding Dionysus

Next to the ruins of the temples there is a new museum, with room after room of artifacts uncovered in the temples.  The Michael Jordans of that day were permitted to erect marble statues of themselves, so the place was littered with headless gold medal winners.

At the Temple of Apollo, and home to the Oracle

The next day we visited Delphi, according to the ancient Greeks the belly button of the world and the home of the famous oracle.  Like Olympia, there was no town in ancient times, just a religious site.  This time the temples were for Apollo and Athene.

The Treasury of Athens at Delphi

So many brought gifts to the gods, that many city-states built "treasuries" to hold the stuff.  And, where there is old stuff, modern Greeks build a museum.  Both Olympia and Delphi have extensive collections.

Delphi also had "games" like Olympia, called the Pythian Games and only held once every seven years.  The site is on a steep mountain side, with the stadium (bench seating) at the top, and a theater just beneath the stadium.  Here the prize was a laurel wreath.  Apollo favors the laurel tree, while Zeus in Olympia likes olive trees???  .

One of the Meteora Monasteries

The last stop on the tour was in central Greece at Kalambaka.  Just outside of this town there are extensive rock formations -- pillars with sheer vertical sides.  Greek Orthodox monks and hermits chose these rocks to build monasteries.  Originally there were 12, but today only six are occupied.  Five of the six allow tourists to visit (for a small charge of course).  We toured only two, and now rather than mythological stories, Lea filled us with tales of the saints and martyrs of the Orthodox church.  James Bond climbed one of these pillars in one of the 1960s movies.

Ok, now it's time to leave Greece.  We are going to be on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship until November 19.  We will leave it in Cadiz, Spain.  The lack of an internet connection means that we will take up with this diary when we're back in an apartment in Sevilla.  Til then.......