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| Corinth as seen from Acrocorinth |
Our hotel doesn’t offer breakfast, but they have a deal with a restaurant a couple blocks away. The restaurant didn’t open until 8:00 (I think) so we went for a walk down the oceanfront.
We found a beautiful view of the Bourtzi Fortress just off the coast. The sun was just rising and highlighting the fortress, so we took some pictures before turning around for breakfast. I don’t remember what we ate, but it was probably good.
Mike drove for about 30 minutes to get us to Mycenae. Mycenae is another acropolis, a city on top of a 900-foot-high hill. It was first occupied around 4000 BC and changed hands among many different groups over the millennia. It is about 12 miles from the sea with a broad view of all the approaches so any attacking army would be obvious for hours if not days and give the defenders time to prepare.
The famed King Agamemnon, of the Trojan war, was supposed to be the king of Mycenae. When we were at the Athens Museum, we saw a golden mask that they call “The Mask of Agamemnon”. But that’s only what they call it, it doesn’t carbon date to the right time.
We arrived right around 8:00 as the museum and site opened. We started in the museum, and as I’ve already discovered about myself, I took no photos. I just browsed through trip advisor images posted by other visitors to remind me what we saw. There were thousands of artifacts that have been recovered. Some artifacts date as far back as 3000 BC. The site contains thousands of burial sites and some very prominent tombs that also yielded artifacts. We must have spent an hour in the museum because the first pictures I have outside the museum are an hour later.
We took pictures of the views around the museum, then walked over to a tomb just outside the museum. The Lion’s Tomb is typical of many in the area. It was a 40-foot-wide circle with 10-foot-high brick work lining the walls. A large passageway led to the tomb's entrance. It was originally topped with a brick lined dome, then covered in a thick layer of dirt. This tomb’s dome had collapsed and been excavated in modern times. That just left an open circle in the ground. We took pictures but decided not to walk down into this one.
We didn’t really know our way around the site, so we followed the crowd into the city. I think we completely missed the front gate, or maybe there were so many people we decided to come back later to get pictures. Anyway, the first pictures I have are well into the city beside a massive burial site. I can’t remember all the details now, but trust me, it was very cool.
There were paths leading everywhere so we started following what seemed to be the main path. For a while we (unintentionally) followed a family with a private guide. I remember the family for 2 reasons. First, the guide gave great descriptions and interesting facts, and second, because the father had a bright blue cowboy hat on. I don’t know why, but I really like the look of the hat even though I never took a picture of it. I think we saw him several times throughout the day and even in Nafplio later that night.
We meandered all over the site as the day got slowly hotter. I could really feel the sun starting to give me a light sunburn. I really wished I had some sunscreen, or something to keep the sun off my ears… like a bright blue cowboy hat. All I had was a dark blue baseball cap that makes me shudder every time I see it in a photo.
Eventually we walked most of the way around the perimeter until we reached the North Gate. There was a steep staircase down a narrow passage that led to the city’s emergency water source, but we opted not to go down there. Seeing the North Gate (back gate) must have reminded us that we hadn’t taken pictures of the Lion's Gate (front gate) because we made it from the back of Mycenae to the front in about 4 minutes and it’s several hundred yards between them.
After the pictures at the front gate, we decided to leave. I think I was too hot and I had a mild sunburn that I didn’t want to become a major sunburn. We walked down the ramp toward the other tombs. We took turns walking down into the tombs and standing at the top to get pictures. The last tomb we went to still had an intact dome over it, so it was fully enclosed and had a thick covering of dirt over it. Luckily the entrance faced Southeast so the sun was able to shine almost directly into the tomb, making it possible to get good pictures inside. It felt very weird standing in a place that you know was a tomb 2,000+ years ago.
We walked back to the car, but we didn’t drive very far. Just a quarter mile away there was more ruins and another tomb, but this was a special tomb. This was the tomb of Agamemnon. He was killed by his wife after returning from the Trojan War proving the adage “If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy”.
Agamemnon’s tomb was facing due east so the sun couldn’t shine in. It was too dark to get a good picture. But we were in a perfect place to get a picture back towards Mycenae on top of its hill and the even bigger mountain behind it. As I said earlier, the landscape prevented attack from behind and funneled any attacking army to march from the sea, and they were visible the whole way.
We got back in the car and headed down the hill toward a small town we could see in the distance. I wanted to find a drug store to grab sunscreen. We needed it If we were going to be out in the sun the whole day. We did find a drug store, but they looked puzzled when we asked for sunscreen, as if they’d never heard of such a thing. We eventually found a single tube of sunscreen and the lady looked surprised when we showed it to her.
We thought about getting lunch but the few restaurants in town didn’t look very inviting and most had empty parking lots. One good rule of travel is, don’t eat at an empty restaurant. Besides, they looked like the tasteless gyro place we ate at in Athens, so we skipped it.
Mike headed for Ancient Corinth in the hope that it would be open this time. As we got into modern Corinth, we decided to look for lunch. We found a parking spot in the downtown shopping area. Just across the street was a Gyro shop but this one was filled with people, and you could smell the spiced meat cooking so we jaywalked over to it.
It was called Souvlaki Stephanos. The owner and his son were there. The son spoke pretty good English and seemed a bit surprised to see Americans in the shop. He took our order then his father cooked it for us. The son kept asking questions as we ate. I think he was practicing his English on us. We got lamb gyros, chips, and diet coke on ice and enjoyed it all. We also enjoyed the stream of people that kept coming in. The son kept pointing to us and telling everyone we were Americans. He also kept translating some of the conversations for us. It was pretty fun, but we finally had to get going.
Back in the car, we headed for Ancient Corinth. As we pulled into the parking lot, we could see the same note on the gate saying that it was closed. I wondered just how long that “1 day closed” note had been on the gate. This time Mike took a picture over the fence, so we at least have that.
We sat in the car for a while wondering what else we could go see. The most obvious place to go was the massive fort dominating the horizon southwest of the city. It was called Acrocorinth and we headed that way.
The drive up Acrocorinth wound around the hill climbing steadily almost 2,000 feet. We had to park well below the main city and walk up a steep cobbled road into the ruins. My knee and feet were already a bit sore from all of the walking this morning, so I gingerly took the climb trying not to fall and hurt myself. Not very far up was a little viewing area with a Greek flag and a fantastic view of Corinth behind it. I don’t know why we didn’t get pictures of us standing by the flag, but we didn’t.
We continued climbing up to the city. The first part of the road had smaller cobbles with dirt well packed around them, so the road was steep but smooth. After a few hundred yards the road deteriorated. The rocks got bigger and there was no dirt packed around them. This made the surface very rough, and it got a lot harder for me to walk. I had to really pay attention to where I placed my feet. Add to that the fact that the road didn’t just climb, it also sloped heavily away from the fort, and it felt downright treacherous to walk.
We had passed one gate into the city early on and now we came to a second, more substantial gate. I really hoped it would open out to a smooth area, but no, that was even more climbing. I made it another few hundred feet up to some buildings and contented myself with wandering the room there, sitting in the shade, and reading the placards. I waved Mike on and he continued up into the city. He came back after 20 minutes and said the next 2 rings of walls were still nowhere near the top of the hill. So, we turned around and headed back down.
If I thought climbing up felt treacherous, going down was worse. My foot slipped once and to catch myself I had to quickly move forward faster and faster. I wound up running about 30 feet before it flattened enough that I could stop. Sorry to whine so much but I just felt completely out of my league in this place. I probably would have done better with a walking stick or even better, trekking poles to help me feel more stable. Plus, an aching knee sure didn’t help.
We spent just 2 hours in Acrocorinth but could easily have spent much more time if I wasn’t such a wimp.
Our next stop was just 30 minutes away, the Ancient Temple of Zeus and the Archaeological Museum of Nemea. Once again, I took ZERO pictures in the museum even though there was probably a model of the original temple and grounds.
Three of the original pillars were still standing. They have stood since ancient times and never fallen. But archaeologists have restored a few of the other pillars of the temple. There are still many more pillars lying in pieces around the area. The temple once held the Statue of Nemean Zeus. Note that Nemean Zeus is not the same as Olympian Zeus. Nemean Zeus is the god of shepherds and the second is the philandering king of the gods.
This whole complex used to be the site of ancient athletic games. There is a stadium nearby that we missed and didn’t go see.
The drive back to Nafplio was about 45 minutes. I think we just went to the hotel and rested for an hour or two. It was after sunset when we left to find dinner.
There were so many restaurants along the harbor front that we were sure we’d easily find something. We walked up and down Boumpoulinas Street from end to end twice before we settled on a place. We hadn’t counted on just how touristy it all was, or on half the restaurants being full and requiring reservations. Even after picking a place, we weren’t that happy with it. The food was fine, but we were stuck up against the plastic sheeting that lined the outdoor seating area. I seem to recall having the open flame heater on one side of us and chilled by the plastic wall on the other side. If we could have slowly rotated it would have been fine, being scorched on one side and chilled on the other was less than ideal.
Oh, and add to all that, France was in the middle of civil unrest. I think the government was trying to raise the retirement age by two years. So, a general strike was scheduled for the day we would be flying back through Paris airport, or more likely, wouldn’t be flying back through Paris. Mike spent a good part of the meal talking to a Delta agent trying to figure out how to get us home. Eventually he got us on flights straight from Athens to New York JFK, but more about that in a later blog.
After the meal we went back to the hotel and I think we watched “My Life in Ruins” starring the same actress from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but it was about touring Greece. It was fun seeing sites we'd been touring and some of the hotel fiascos compared to our own from yesterday.
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