Nafplion & Katakolon, Greece
Trip Start
May 30, 2009
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Trip End
Jun 24, 2009
Corfu Town, Ionian Islands, Greece
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
This morning I am sitting out on our balcony overlooking the beautiful hilly harbor of Corfu Town on the Greek island of Corfu. Tough life eh? It's probably 72 degrees now, going up to 78 or so, although in the sun it feels hotter. We are taking a tour at noon, so I thought I’d catch up again. I’m trying to do longer, fewer posts because the internet is so slow here it takes 25 minutes just to get online and upload what I have previously written offline. And since they charge by the minute…
So, we left off at Nafplion. Our tour was for Epidaurus and Mycenae, 2 ancient Greek sites. Epidaurus is a World Heritage site for a Greek theater which is the largest untouched theater in Greece. The Romans, who didn’t understand the acoustical properties the Greeks built into the theaters, liked to muck about with the theaters and change them into gladiator shows. Anyway, it was amazingly intact. Then off to Mycenae.
We went to 2 sites in Mycenae, which was exciting to me, since I have wanted to see these excavations since I read about them as a kid (yeah, I was a strange one). The first site was a huge beehive tomb. It originally looked like a big hill, but when the archaeologists uncovered it, they found a cut stone (huge blocks) entrance of about 50 feet I’d say, leading to an enormous round room with a ceiling that rounded to a point. All in beautifully cut and fitted stone. Amazing.
The second site was the fortress which contains the famous Lion Gate over the front entrance. The fortress is on a high hill with a view that goes on for miles. The Lion gate is a carved lintel over the entryway. It is the oldest carving in Europe, and it is amazing that ii is still here. The heads that may have been bronze or gold have been gone for centuries, but the carvings of the bodies are still clear. Heinrich Schliemann was the one who excavated the area (he is the one who discovered Troy) in the late 1800’s. He was a self-taught archaeologist who is controversial now since he made a lot of mistakes and destroyed many artifacts while digging and did not maintain the site. He did find 5 gold masks among the artifacts, which are now in the museum in Athens that we will be visiting.
Then off to lunch at a restaurant and back to the ship to cool off – it was around 90 degrees that day –
The next port was Katakolon on the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece. The town there is very small, just some tourist shops and houses. But the bay is very pretty, hills and lots of trees down to the beaches. This area of Greece is much greener and more wooded than Nafplion.
Our tour was to Olympia, the site of the original Olympics, and also the cult Zeus. The archaeological park was very nice – lots of shady pine trees (thank goodness) and wild flowers. Earlier in the year it must be beautiful with all the flowering redbud trees.
The ruins are amazing. Lots of columns are partially standing; a few have been rebuilt so you can imagine what it looked like. The large temple to Zeus has an amazing number of collapsed columns and huge stone blocks around it – it must have been enormous. There are several temple sites, including the temple to Hera, where the Olympic flame is lit every 4 years by using a mirror to start the flame, just as it was done originally. We were lucky in Olympia that it wasn’t more crowded – there were plenty of tour groups, but you could still wander around and get pictures.
Then we went to the new Olympia Museum to see the sculptures and artifacts that were discovered here. Pretty amazing – the sculptures are beautiful.
When we got back to the ship we cooled off by drinking our champagne that our lovely travel agent sent us a relaxed for a bit before cleaning up for dinner. Our dinner companions were great fun – one was a couple from Waltham Mass., which is where some of John’s relatives live, and the fellow from the other couple used to work with my Uncle Bob at Rockwell! How’s that for a small world? (Mom, his name is Dave Morris – see is Uncle Bob remembers him!) What a hoot!
So there we are for now – have to get ready for our tour around Corfu…
