Welcome to the first day of the CYA Peloponnese Vacation! Today, after an exciting take-off at 8am from the CYA Academic Center, and an exhilarating bathroom break in Corinth at about 9:30, we landed in Mycenae at about 11am. Mycenae is (as the name might suggest) the first and largest Archeological site from the Mycenaean Age. The site is big and the scenery around it is relatively impressive, but the lecturer/tour guide we have is completely inaudible in the outdoors, and anything I have heard form him has been either uninformative or uninteresting, which is a bit of bummer after Crete. But the site is still cool, and the weather held up, so again - no complaints!
The Lion Gate, with Scale Tourist. We would have a hard time carving, moving and lifting that huge block with modern technology!
The Site of Mycenae from above. This is one of those few sites (thanks in part to the grass) that looks slightly more organized than your average pile of rocks, even on film.
Some of that fabulous scenery. The Peloponnese is known for its amazing mountainous landscape and sudden cliffs over the water. It's really stunning. Those mountains are SO TALL!
An underground cistern in Mycenae that is open to tourists (oh yeah, we went inside!) Here is a prime example of the difference between American safety regulations and Hellenic safety regulations. There are none here.
The supposed grave of Clytaemnestra: the spouse-icidal wife of Agamemnon, who lead the Greeks in the Trojan War. That's one heck of a tomb for a condemned murderess. Scale Lecturer for reference included.
Clytaemnestra's grave from inside.
More amazing landscape (there will be a lot of these this week, I feel...)
A full view of the Mycenaean Citadel.
This style of architecture is known as "Cyclopean". It was so named by the Ancient Greeks, because it seemed to them that no one smaller than a cyclops could move the blocks. This seems as good an explanation for how the Mycenaeans moved those blocks as anything else. Look at the size of that thing!
Entrance to the supposed tomb of Agamemnon - buried not so far from his killer. Family graves were common, but this might be taking it a bit far for me. Although, if you notice, this grave entrance is even larger than the last. And you didn't think that was possible. :-P
After we headed out from Mycenae, we drove the 45 minutes south into the modern town of Nafplio. It's a thriving, artsy city with some of the best gelato in the world. It's also almost completely deserted this time of year, which makes it a little spooky, but cute. We had a little time to spare between checking into the hotel and our walking tour, so I went up to their Venetian Fortress Acropolis. Of course.
View of the Fortress from below.
View of the town from above.
An attempt at a Panoramic shot of a highly decorated Venetian Fortress wall and doorway. The whole place was like this. There are over 850 steps going up to it, and it took me over 45 minutes to explore maybe a third of the area on top of the mountain. It's like Fort Morgan or Fort Gaines (in Daphne/Dauphin Island, Alabama) for giants. And there remain no safety regulations so you can suddenly find yourself on a cliff face or in a dungeon without warning. Best 45 minutes so far!
Then the walking tour began, and there were many cute streets like this one.
And this one.
And looking out over the streets.
Flower pots on the side of a street. This whole town is adorable!
Looking out over Nafplio at sunset.
Epic Sunset. Thank you, Zeus and Helios.
After the walking tour, JK, JF, JS, AS and I (lots of new initials!) went and got more Gelato than we could eat, and went shopping until we collapsed. New dress, new hair-toys, and a touristy replica ancient terra cotta plate. I am very happy with this trip so far. Tomorrow: Epidaurus, Frankthi Cave, and another night in Nafplio.
Καληνύχτα!
No comments:
Post a Comment