After the museum in Olympia, we were scheduled to all meet up for lunch and then a bit of shopping before heading out east to Nafplion for the night. As a group, we started catching on to the fact that the tour guides were obviously being coached to bring us to various places for lunch and dinner. This isn’t a crime, but the food and atmosphere starts to get pretty lame pretty quick so a few of us staged a little insurrection and ended up getting our own lunch at a really pretty street side café under mossy oak trees. This didn’t go over all that well, but hey, we’re the ones paying the bills so in the end, all was forgiven. I have no regrets.
Olympia is on the western side of the Peloponnesian peninsula and Nafplio is further east. Between them lie mountains. The two routes are either a longer route around the mountains or a shorter but harder drive through the mountains. I think the original intention was to go around them, but road closures or something caused us to have to go through the mountains. I loved it. There were a few wrong turns and some very scenic overlooks that seemed more like what I’d expect from the alps than from southern Greece. Nonetheless, we took a few small breaks here and there to break up the monotony.
One of the places we stopped at was a tiny mountain village whose name I simply cannot find any record of in my photos or notes. It’s a shame too because it was really neat. The day was foggy and overcast with some drizzle and it added to the gloomy mood. Most folks hunkered down in one of the local cafes and chatted over cappuccinos while I and a few other adventurers climbed the steep windy cobblestone streets looking for the next exciting discovery. One of the really amazing places we found was a bar that looked like it was carved into the side of the mountain with rough stone walls and candles sitting in nooks in the stone surrounding a small dance floor with a bar on one side. Techno music was playing and the place was completely empty except for the bartender who greeted us with a smile. A couple of classic Depeche Mode records were hanging on the wall over a small DJ booth in the corner. The village had plenty of tourists, but they were all Greek tourists. Our tour guide told us that foreign tourists almost never see this village since it’s out of the way and off the main travel routes. I would have liked to have spent a day or two there, but the schedule was tight so off we went. If anyone can identify this place from any of these photos, please let me know.
We arrived in Nafplion after yet another long day on the road and it was starting to take its toll on all of us. We were sick of the bus and sick of tight schedules, but we were still friendly and joking with each other. We checked into our hotel and had dinner downstairs. It was a nice, but unexciting dinner and when it was done, Alida and I again found a few adventurous people to go out to explore the old town. Alida and I always managed to end up with different people for these off-hours excursions and it made for a different experience every time as each of us had our own different personalities to mesh together. We did a little bit of shopping and grabbed a gelato while checking things out. This went on for an hour or so until everyone started closing things up at 10pm so we went back to the hotel.
Nafplion is a seaside town overlooked by the massive castle of Palamidi that dates back to the early 18th century. I think visiting the castle was supposed to be one of the tour stops but because of a time crunch, we just got to drive up to it and take in the vista from the castle’s walls rather than a full tour. It was pretty, but off we went for another whirlwind day of Greek history and culture.
It was off to Mycenae and Epidaurus on Friday. Mycenae was the site of a collection of ruins that date all the way back to the 1100s BC—making them some of the most ancient architecture and design we’d see on the trip. I was kind of out of it for this part of the trip and while I did enjoy the ruins and the history lesson, I didn’t really take photos here. Epidaurus on the other hand, was pretty impressive. The theater at Epidaurus is known for its incredible acoustics. The theater seats about 15000 on limestone steps, but due to its design, a speaker onstage at one of several key acoustic points can be heard unamplified with extreme clarity no matter where one sits, even in the “cheap seats” up top. It’s uncanny how well sound carries there.
After this, it was north over the Corinth Canal and back to Athens to our new hotel and a pasta dinner. We stayed at the Park hotel on the north side of town and it was very modern and sophisticated. Friday night’s dinner was the closest we had to a “dress up” dinner even though I still wore jeans. After dinner, there was more shopping afoot and after-hours exploration. I suppose it’s the fact that our schedule was so packed with stuff to see that we had to sacrifice sleep time to get out on our own and see things without a guide. This was both good and bad.
Saturday morning was off to Marathon for the lighting of the flame and the historical pre-race presentation. To be honest, it was pretty lame. It was a bunch of tousists out in a field watching interpretive dance until a guy in armor finally showed up and lit a torch. Then we all piled back into the bus for the hour-long ride back into Athens before plunging ourselves into the race expo to shop and pick up our packets. Unfortunately, we had delayed the race expo so long that they had sold out of much of the official merchandise, which really pissed off some of the people in the group. Nonetheless, we all got some stuff and then we went to see the Acropolis: Athens’ most famous landmark.
The Acropolis is situated on a high hill right in the middle of the city and can be seen from a tall building anywhere in Athens. The Parthenon is the most obvious structure there, although there are others as well. Just below the hill is the new Acropolis Museum, which was only built a year ago. Because Athens is such an old city with so much history, the excavation for the museum ended up uncovering a whole set of ruins from the Byzantine period. Not wanting to destroy them, the museum was built over them and features many clear glass panels in the floor that allow you to look down onto the buildings and city below. I’m told that they are planning to finish excavation and add it as a whole new previously unplanned wing of the museum. The museum features many artifacts from the area as well as what is left of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles. Google them if you don’t know what they are because they are incredible to see. Unfortunately, we only got to see a tiny portion of them because the rest of it is housed in the British Museum in London, England. This is an extremely divisive and controversial issue and our tour guide made no attempt to mask her contempt for the current situation. My personal feeling is that they should be returned to be put on display at the Acropolis Museum along with the ones that are already there.
Back to the hotel for dinner and bed and then it was time for the Marathon race on Sunday morning.
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