More Ancient Greece

Ancient Corinth
Nov. 22

We've seen a lot of ruins now, but they all have a different story to tell, and every time we pass through I like to imagine the other feet that have passed where mine now walk.

The ruins here in Ancient Corinth stand out to us for a couple of reasons. The first is that this was the home of Jason, of "Jason and the Argonauts" fame. He made a bad choice in his first marriage to Medea, a witch. However, monogamy NOT being a law in those days, his second wife, Glauk, promised to be a much kinder mate. Sadly for poor Glauk, Medea wasn't ready to share. The evil first wife sent Glauk a cloak as a wedding gift, when GLauk put it on as she walked through her new home, the poison that the cloak was soaked in set her on fire. Poor Glauk leaped into a large fountain in a futile attempt to douse the fire. The fountain (or it's base, anyway) still stands for us to muse over several thousand years later, long after Glauk's earthly remains and resting place have been lost. As I pointed out to the boys, this is also a poignant little reminder that monogamy makes for a happier life, all around!

More recent history makes this the site to which St. Paul sent his famous letter about love. My Biblical knowledge is not all that it should be; perhaps this question is already answered for me right there in the Bible, but what did the Corinthians do that prompted that most beautiful of admonishments? Did the behaviour of Jason and Medea set a standard of unhappiness that shaped behaviour for millennia to follow?

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge;
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Loves bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
1st Corinthians 13, 1-8

When I read that, then reflect back or the violence and tragedy of the pre-Christian millennia (not the post-Christ times haven't been filed with bloodshed), I can't help but think that humanity is advancing, one slow and torturous step at a time.


Nov. 23

In a particularly courageous mood, we braved the traffic and headed into Athens today. Originally, we had intended to move camp out of Ancient Corinth and closer to Athens; it's actually too cold to be tenting, and our digs on the first night in Corinth were pretty yucky, and quite pricey. However, as we were packed up and ready to head out of Ancient Corinth after seeing the ruins, we stop for a gyros, which was the most delicious yet. The "gyros guy" just happened to have a room to let, so we moved to his place, and decided it was easier to just keep our base here rather than try to find somewhere closer to the city.

We'd planned to take the train in to Athens, but we were told it would been very costly for the five of us, and that service is pretty erratic. So we got up early this morning, and since it is a Sunday, the traffic was light. I made copious notes as we followed the signs in to the centre, and we were able to find our way back out with relative ease.

Of course, the great thing about Athens on a Sunday is that the museums and attractions are free, so we were able to wander in and out of wherever we pleased, and not feel a great pressure to "get our money's worth"! With kids, this is such a better way to approach things! But we sure put on many, many miles on foot. The Acropolis is at the top of a significant hill, so it was a good thing we had the previous months of athletic training before attempting today!


Puffing our way up the side of the hill to the Acropolis, the trip was punctuated by many interesting, half-excavated ruins, including two beautiful theatres, so it wasn't a hard journey at all. We were shocked and surprised however, when we had made it to the top and were sitting on the steps for a rest before going in, to hear someone yelling and hollering and realise it was directed at us. Cachell's Paddington Bear, picked up at the Tower of London many months earlier, had been accompanying us on our tour, and it turns out he was the source of the trouble. No effigies are allowed in the holy site!!! He had to be stuffed deeply into a backpack before we were allowed further access, much to his -- and his owner's -- great indignation!! (You can just see the offending bear if you look in Cachell's lap in the photo!)



Delphi
Nov. 24, 2008

Lochlan's current favourite god is Poseidon, so we took a family vote and decided it was worth the extra couple of hours driving to head down to the tip of the Attica peninsula (south of Athens) and check out the Poseidon Temple right where the land ends and the sea spreads in all directions for miles around. It really was very beautiful -- except for the Parthenon, it was the largest collection of standing pillars that we have seen. And the setting was so spectacular... legend has it that it was here that King Aegeus stood day after day, watching for the ship to return that had carried his son Theseus away to Crete to battle the Minotaur. The deal was that if Theseus survived and was on the returning ship, he would change the sails from black to white so Aegeus would know immediately how he had fared. Of course, Theseus being a teenager, the celebration party on their return voyage was a little exuberant, and the sails were forgotten. Standing on those cliffs the lure of the sea below was enticing; I was mesmerised by thinking about Aegeus standing there, seeing the outline of a ship on the horizon, realising that it was the one... his heart beating faster, willing it closer, close enough that he could see -- and the piercing spear of agony when he saw the colour black. It would have taken very little, really, in that initial wild upsurge of grief, to follow the call of the waves and simply fly forward, into the oblivion below...
rainy dark,

It was a long drive up here to Delphi once we left the Poseidon Temple, but we managed to navigate a bit more successfully through Athens by skirting the east side, rather than the west side which we went through this morning. (The athens part of our journey alone took 1 1/2 hours!!) Not surprisingly, it rained for most of the afternoon and evening, so we arrived into Delphi in the dark, cold and wet. We had thought we'd try camping one last time here, but had failed to realise that this town -- home of the famous oracle -- is halfway up Mount . When we crested the summit, it was actually snowing! So camping was out! Nothing daunted, we just headed for a gyros and asked the owner... and although he didn't have a place, he and the other customers flipped out their cell phones and had us fixed up in a really lovely family hotel within 15 minutes. If in doubt in Greece, always go to the "gyros guy"! (And gyros are delicious, cheap, and really vary from region to region and chef to chef, so they're worth sampling often!)

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This sign was at the bottom of the lane (a T-junction), where we stayed in Ancient Corinth. It pretty much sums up trying to navigate in this country of crazy drivers and oddly labelled signs!! In Greece, the shoulder is the driving lane, and the driving lane is the passing lane! And they pass everywhere -- the favourite place being blind mountain corners!

ancient greece

Ingrid's Bungalow's
Ancient Asini
Nov. 12, 2008

Mitch was up early this morning, searching for better accommodations -- he found a bright and sparklingly clean blue and white bungalow in the middle of an orange orchard, which is perfect! We'll stay here for a week -- it's supposed to rain for a few days (no surprise there!), so a roof over our heads and a little kitchen will be the ultimate luxury!


We went into Nafplio, the 'big town' nearby, to quickly get groceries and to try and catch the local market before they packed up at noon. I LOVE markets -- as Lochlan and I were wandering through he said "I don't really care of we go anywhere else, Mom. I love this!" There is just such a sense of community in a market; here, all the local farmers have come down from the hills with their produce, which is absolutely terrible in the stores. Once they get over their initial shyness (which I think would be a factor in any country, speaking any language) I marvel at how all three of the kids will fearlessly pick out the fruit they want and then haggle for a price -- all in Greek! How do they do that?! I will never be that brave, but I am very proud of them (and when I have them with me I don't need to be brave!)

And perhaps the greatest thing is that we're literally in the middle of an orange orchard -- the trees touch the bungalows on all sides -- and so we are eating our fill of excellent mandarins! Yum! We offered to help with the harvest but there is apparently a knack to picking, so we'll have to content ourselves with watching and feasting.


Nov. 15, 2008

We took a little day trip today. We're down in a draw between the mountains here, and it is lush and green with irrigated orange groves. As we went up into the hills, east towards the coast, the landscape became much more rocky and desolate. Tucked away up here is the World Heritage site of Epidavros. There is a spectacular theatre here, which is still used for performances in the summer. In ancient times, however, the theatre was secondary; this was the centre of healing, and the site of an enormous Sanctuary of Asclepius, the God of Healing. It seems that most ancient settlements had an "Asclepion", which would have been the equivalent of a hospital or clinic. Epidavros was the main one, however, and people used to flock here to spend a night in the temple, where Asclepius would come to them and heal them in their sleep... although other types of healing, from soaking in mineral waters to blood-letting and leeching were also practised. Poor Asclepius had his heart in the right place... he became so saddened by the suffering of humanity that he wanted to eliminate mortality. For this dangerous idea, Zeus sent him to his own ignominious death... but I can sympathise with this most compassionate of gods; it is a terrible thing to watch others suffer.


Ancient Corinth
Nov. 22, 2008

Everyone I've ever talked to about Greece rhapsodised about the islands they went to (and how great the beaches were) or asked me which ones we're going to. This being the off-season, most of the ferries out to the islands aren't even running, but we're really not feeling the lack in any way. It has been an amazing voyage to just really get a feel for ancient history, and we've explored the Peloponnese pretty thoroughly.

An easy walk from our bungalow was the ruins of Ancient Asini, which was built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea, and was great fun to clamber over and around. A little further inland, we walked through the hills and discovered all sorts of strange holes dug into the hills; it turns out they were burial mounds (or tholos), and in typical fashion for Greece, they had been excavated by the Swedes, and then left unfinished and emptied (the locals have been told they cannot build there, and the hills have been empty for years now).


The biggest burial mound in the area, and one of the world's most famous, was about 50 km away in Mycanae. This is an amazing place; it's the old palace of Agamemnon, and the stone lions that guard the entrance to what was the palace complex are the oldest building sculptures in Europe. The dogs are missing their heads, but they are still clearly recognisable as dogs; and they're several thousand years old. It was here that a sense of time really became hard to gauge; Mycanae has been settled since the 6th millennium B.C.! And one of the most exciting things about this place -- for us, anyhow -- is that the walls are said to have been built by the tribe of descendants of the Cyclops that lived up in the hills above. Certainly, the size of the blocks that the walls were constructed of seem to defy mere human powers; they are extraordinarily huge. And the landscape is so jagged and barren all around -- it's easy to imagine the hills swarming with one-eyed giants, clumsily lifting enormous boulders like children's building blocks.

And this palace was the site of such tragedy -- told and probably untold over the many centuries as well. Agamemnon was the brother of Menalaeus -- the old king who Helen betrayed when she had her fling with Paris back in Githio. When Menalaeus went on the war path (literally) and wanted to mobilise a fleet to Troy, he called on his more powerful brother for troops. We followed Menalaeus' trail in reverse as we came up from Gythio, through Sparta, and on to Asini and Mycanae. The problem for Agamemnon (and Odysseus and the others who were to sail to Troy in pursuit of the young lovers), was that the ships sat languishing in Asini, unable to sail because of the lack of a breeze, and Agamemnon got desperate. An oracle told him that if he wanted the fleet to sail, he'd have to sacrifice his daughter. With that strange Grecian acceptance of life as dispensable, he went ahead and sacrificed her. Although the goddess Artemis reportedly stepped in and spared the girl, sending her to be a priestess rather than taking her life, Agamemnon's wife discovered what he had done and went slowly mad. She waited the many years till he returned, and then murdered him his first night back in the castle. And it's Agamemnon's burial mound which is so famous -- it's a huge, beehive shaped mound erupting from the earth. It's totally empty now, but we were able to see many of the artefacts from here -- including Agememnon's gold death mask -- when we went to the National Museum in Athens. Somehow seeing the real-life 'props' for these tales makes them more believable, and sad. An exciting antidote to the tragedy, however, was that the original line of kings thought to inhabit Mycanae came from Perseus, and included King Eurystheus, who sent Herakles on his labours! We loved to think that Herakles himself may have passed under the Lion's Gate, with the Nemean lion's pelt flung over his shoulders, sending the cowardly king scarpering for cover...

Wandering through the Peloponese

Gythio (the old Port of Sparta), Greece
Nov. 9, 2008
I am cross-legged on my bed as I write this, looking out across our 18 inch balcony to the sea. It's lovely... I could sit out in the sun but it's too bright to see the screen! Rain drove us south from Olympia -- they were desperate for it, and we knew if we stayed long enough it would be sure to follow!! Guess we'll need to do the same now here; they haven't had any rainfall to speak of since April, so the olives and apples are really suffering.


I am looking across the little harbor at the tiny island of Marathonisi. (It's actually connected to the mainland by a short bridge now, so it's not really an island.) Local folklore says that this was the spot where Paris and Helen of Troy consummated their love affair, and so began the Trojan War. It's amazing to be living, however briefly, in a land where legend & history walk the streets alongside us.


We're staying in "rooms" run by a lovely older Greek lady, who is enchanted by the kids and keeps popping up to the nearby bakery to buy them treats. (They want to stay here forever!!) It's a nice, homey feeling place... and while there is not much to see in terms of actual sites, the sea beckons, and it is warm enough to at least paddle!




Grease
Tolo Beach, Greece
Nov. 11, 2008

I love our kids -- they're such good sports. We're here in a real pit of a 'bungalow' in Tolo, Greece. We ended up here in the dark... it was cold and we were tired and this seemed our best option but its pretty gross. Think mint green walls but worse than that, a thin layer of greasy grime that holds the dirt and is hard to shake coating everything. But the kids are just quite happy wherever we end up; once we spread out our cheerful blue and purple sleeping bags and have the smell of a home-cooked meal wafting through the air, they are 100% happy. They're sitting on the beds right now composing stories set in ancient Greece...

And I am happy now. We've cleaned the bathrooms with 'Meister Propre' ('Mr. Clean' bought in Germany) and paper towels, gone over the floors, and scrubbed out the sink and small counter space -- I debated washing up their dishes, but there is no running hot water, and they needed some serious work. Never mind -- we have our own, anyhow. The beds are clean (although I'm using our sleeping bags on top of their sheets), and that's all that really matters. And we have plug-ins, hot water in the shower, and little perks that always bring a smile to my face in this kind of place; here it is a draining rack for the dishes (sanitized by me and M. Propre)! -- I haven't seen a draining rack for months!

It's been an adventurous day... we left Gythio and headed north to Sparta itself. Not much left to see therenow thanks to war, earthquakes and fires... but we stopped to get Caelan's sandal fixed (he's been wearing mine for a week and looked like Mickey Mouse!). As we wandered the shops waiting for the repair we discovered that the Greeks have more children's shops per capita than I have ever seen -- and boys suits are commonplace! (I think they get dragged to church and expected to dress up for weddings routinely!) So Calean has been kitted out in Sparta with full battle regalia -- for the dining room on the cruise! We now have frocks from France for Cachell and myself, shirts and ties from Spain for the boys and a Greek suit for one (couldn't find anything today that didn't billow on Lochlan, but we'll keep looking!). And of course Mitch has the full Italian look: suit, shoes, shirt and tie!


Then we headed slightly west of town to Mystras, an incredible Byzantine palace and fortifications structure built high (HIGH!) up on a hill overlooking the valley around Sparta. The site didn't offer much in the way of information, but we hiked in a vertical fashion for several hours, and the views were spectacular!! The kids -- despite an occasional groan -- are still happy to leap and feint through castle ruins, wherever we come across them!!


We had planned to spend the night there, but the area didn't really have anything open for accomodation, and it did not beckon us to stay. We continued up through the ever=changing hills and vegetation to Nafplio, reputedly one of Greece's most beautiful cities. It has another set of castles strung up along the top of the hill looking down over the town... it was actually founded by the Venetians, so it has a much different feel than the other Greek towns we have been to. It was also impossible to find a place to stay in town (everything is either very high end or closed!), so we groped our way through the dark out towards the beach until we found this campground... too dark to pitch a tent, but we'll need to look for somewhere better in the morning light!