7/2 Agamemnon's Castle, Tomb and Ithaka

Canal at Corinth, making the Peloponnese an island

Again on Saturday we feel a need to "get out of Dodge" and leave Athens on a bus tour, this time including the Corinthian Canal - which our cruise was scheduled to navigate, but which was canceled because of the Greek strike. We drive over it twice on the bus, have an opportunity to get out and photograph it, and rue that we had missed both the spectacular canal and the visit to Odysseus' home, Ithaca.

Remember, these posts are in reverse order. This is the end, not the beginning.

No locks, just a long, narrow, deep gouge through the rock. Apparently the Corinthian II is about as wide a ship as can pass through. Larger cruise ships and other vessels have to go around, as we ultimately do, too.

We visit Mycenae, one of the oldest archaeological sites in Greece and primary site of Mycenaen culture on the mainland.

Mountains and flowers everywhere!

Agamemnon's Palace - he ruled during the Trojan War

Agamemnon's tomb?

 Pictures from our last day are here.

We enjoy the short drive to the sea at Nafplio and its stunning views.

How could our tour be complete without ending our odyssey in Ithaca? Homer's (or whomever's?) version has the first four books covering Telemachus' short odyssey, then about the next 8 books on Odysseus' odyssey, then the next 12 are Odysseus' return to Ithaca and the wily warrior's defeat of the suitors who had been eating him out of house and home.

No Ithaca! Our trip cannot not be finished!

As we wander about the Plaka Saturday night casually seeking a restaurant that was neither the ritz of the GB nor the touristy side of the Plaka, a man about our age approaches us and says we look like we need a restaurant (he must be looking at John. I look like I need a gym). Having tired quickly of the restaurant hucksters last night, we follow him suspiciously.  He points to a restaurant in a nearby square, then walks away, so we kind of believe that he wasn't a frontrunner for the restaurant.

It takes me several minutes to decipher (in my biblical Greek from seminary) that the name of our restaurant is "Ithaka"! Not Odysseus' Ithaka, we'll need another trip for that, but a symbolic finish nonetheless. We made it!

7/1 - Delphi and the Temple to Apollo

Athens still feels a little threatening and the international news suggests a violent and disorderly protest, though that is not what we observe, but we nevertheless decide to get out of town. We secure front seats on the bus tour to Delphi and love the ride. Photos ofthe drive are here.

We're amazed at how rocky and mountainous the country is and can hardly imagine how it sustains sufficient agriculture to support its population. It obviously has managed to do so for many centuries, perhaps with greater trade with neighbors than we have imagined.

We tour the site, have a perfectly adequate lunch at a small, roadside resort, but realize how spoiled we have become by the fabulous excursions and tourguides we so enjoyed on the cruise.

The Treasury of the Athenians

During the Mycenaean Period, the female deity of Earth was worshiped in the small settlement of Delphi. The development of the sanctuary and oracle started in the beginning of the 8th century B.C with the establishment of the cult of Apollo. People from all over the Mediterranean would come to the oracle of Delphi to ask for advice from the priestess Pythia. Although many other oracles developed in Greece, this was considered the most accurate of them all.

Delphi and Apollo's temple were enriching and we learn that the oracles were women, high on various things that are no doubt illegal now, but whose visions were invariably "interpreted" by men. Photos of the small museum, temple and theater are here.

In contrast to our tourguides on the cruise tours, this guide understands that we need to sleep on the way back and is silent for the return trip. And doze, we do.

Back in Athens, the protesters are still milling about, but in a friendly way, so we feel comfortable walking around Syntagma from the drop-off point of the bus to our hotel. We wander in the Plaka looking for souvenirs and for a quiet place to dine. We find a lovely little outdoor place to eat and think we might actually be getting real Greek food for the first time. It's delicious!

6/30 Athens Archaeological Museum

Grande Bretagne broken marble steps

We feast at the Hilton's breakfast buffet (how is it that we go on a two-week all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink for free odyssey and John loses three pounds? I love what went into every pound I gained!)

The Grande Bretagne says it is finally okay to come to Syntagma. Our Rocky-bold taxi driver takes us on an extremely roundabout journey (required by many road closures) on lanes so narrow and bursting with parked cars that we're amazed the cab could fit between them. Most outside mirrors are tucked flat against their vehicles. Those that aren't are usually broken.

We eventually arrive at the GB and he drops us off right at the door. We can't  help but notice that their beautiful marble steps are damaged, but otherwise all is calm. We can smell the teargas, but it isn't overwhelming. After settling into our room, we board a hop-on, hop-off tour bus to ride around Athens.

We eventually hop off at the Archaeological Museum of Athens, the older, but nevertheless spectacular, main museum. We can't imagine why they felt that that museum was inadequate, but are  happy they now have two beautiful museums. This is definitely worth another visit!


Photos from Thursday day are here.

The last set of photos in the set above are from the Syntagma metro stop.

Syntagma Square from Grande Bretagne 8th floor terrace

We return to the GB for a cocktail at their stunning rooftop bar. They are quite annoyed at me for taking pictures of the demonstrators - they want my camera solely aimed at the brilliant view of the Acropolis. The view is so astounding that we stay and enjoy dinner there as well. Pricey, but safe.

People in Syntagma Square milling about - no violence or even excitement

GB evening pics.

6/29 Athens Acropolis and New Acropolos Museum

We dock in Athens sometime in the middle of the night, apparently very lucky to find (no doubt generously paid!) deck hands to help us dock. Every time we had docked (or de-docked) there were four men on shore who caught the little lines with monkey knots (solid knots about the size of a fist, so you can throw the rope).  Those slim lines are attached to much larger ropes that are then pulled to shore and secured on giant cleats.

Some last pictures of our boat are here.

By the time we wake, all that work is finished and the port area is completely deserted. The strike, in its second day, seems to have stopped everything. The schedule of stoppages at the airport is that all is to stop between 8 and 12 am and again 8 and 12 pm. The dock workers may be on a similar schedule. No wonder we went so fast! Cruise Director John and the other cruise personnel regularly give us updates on the situation, especially for those planning to fly home today.

We feel more relaxed, knowing we have four days in Athens. Of course, the main demonstrations are in Syntagma  (“constitution” in Greek) Square, exactly where our hotel is, but we aren't worried. We board a bus with about 10 other boat passengers who will be staying in downtown Athens and are eventually delivered to a Divani Hotel with Barbara and Joe. They're staying at a different Divani hotel, but will make the transfer later in the day. Our guide, Smaro of the beautiful voice, calls our hotel and gives us specific instructions about how to have our taxi driver call the hotel and arrange a meeting place where a hotel person will meet us to transport our luggage, the streets around the hotel being closed.

Other Acropolis pictures are here.

Parthenon - always being rebuilt

Temple of Athena on the Acropolis

We're  fine with that, check our luggage at the hotel where we were dropped off, and walk up the hill to the Acropolis. Yet again, I have no words to describe how wonderful it is to see such beautiful structures built more than 2600 years ago! There is much re-construction going on (apparently there always is) and in some places you can easily see the new, white marble that replaces missing pieces. According to an international treaty signed in Venice, they can only reconstruct parts where they have 70% of the original pieces. For those pieces on the ground, it’s like trying to put together a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.

The Parthenon is the main building on the Acropolis, but not the only one. We circle the Temple to Athena (neither building interior is accessible to tourists) and see several other buildings in the distance, including two theaters.

I hadn’t realized that during the Ottoman occupation of Athens, ending in about 1830, the Turks used the Parthenon to store explosives. At some point, it was accidentally lit, and much of the Parthenon exploded!

New Acropolis Museum

We visit the New Acropolis Museum, built, some say, to show the British that they could, indeed, house those pieces that Britain has refused to return to Greece, in a style appropriate to their majesty. No photos are allowed inside, but the floor, both inside and outside, is clear material, permitting one to view the excavations going on below.

The top floor of the building is oriented spacially, and is sized exactly the same, as the Parthenon just a few hundred feet above it. They display, where they have them, the pieces from around the top of the Parthenon. It's splendid! You really get a feel of the immensity of the work.

View from our balcony at the Athens Hilton - Acropolis and Syntagma smoke

By the time we return to the hotel where we left our luggage, the Grande Bretagne says "don't come." Teargas apparently is very strong in Syntagma so they arrange for us to stay at the Hilton, actually within about a mile of the center, but far enough away not to be bothered by the gas. Our taxi ride to the Hilton is roundabout, but still relatively quick. We settle in for a quiet evening with lovely, but distant, views of the Acropolis.

Hilton pictures are here.

In the photo above, you can see the Acropolis, smoke from Syntagma Square, and police lining the street waiting for action. Periodically a large band of police on wailing motorcycles circles past the hotel, presumably just in warning, but we never feel threatened in any way.

6/27 Messina and Taormina

 We go through the Strait of Messina during the night, presumably passing the Island of Stromboli, a sparking volcanic cone. We didn’t get up at 3 am to see it, but a few people did. Some say they saw sparks, others say they didn’t. 

Click here for photos.

We have an early departure, at 7:30, for the tour to Taormina. After going through 36 tunnels, we arrive at this charming town on the edge of the sea. Do see the pictures or google it! It's spectacular!

We walk to the Greek/Roman amphitheater, a structure that at one point could seat 5000, and learn the differences between how the Greeks used theater and how the Romans used the space for gladiator fights and spectacle.

Ancient Greece was a democracy and required an educated citizenry and at least its voters - free men - needed to be educated. Every man who was not a slave had a single vote. The theater provided that education. Comedy, tragedy, it all was used to educate its citizens. Women seemed to have been allowed, but I don't recall where their seats were. The era of Greek dominance was approximately from the 7^th century to about 150 bc. Romans took over but were significantly “hellenized,” that is "Greek-ified."

Rome, on the other hand, ruled by brute force. It amended the ancient Greek theaters to use them for gladiator fights and the persecution of people it deemed worthy of death. Also an education, the example shown was a fight to the death. Apparently, the gladiators always began as slaves, but those who continued to win their fights could work their way out of slavery. Of course those cases were rare.

We were originally scheduled to travel the 270 miles to Ithaca, Greece after departing at noon, but around that time we learn  from the cruise director that all Greece is going on a two-day strike so we can neither stop at the island of Ithaca nor make our way through the Corinthian Canal. Instead, we will sail 500 miles around the Peloponnese and arrive in Athens about 3 am on Wednesday, with disembarkation later in the morning. We’re heading full speed to make that destination, and rocking and rolling a lot in the process. Winds come from the north in this part of the Ionian Sea, and we are heading roughly west-to-east, so we roll with the swells.

At every port, a local person boards our ship and performs the role of pilot. We learn that the pilot never actually touches the controls on our boat, but guides our captain into and out of the harbors. The two boats don't seem to even slow down for the step from his boat onto ours (docking), nor to slow again when he leaves our boat once we clear the harbor on departures. Below is a video of one of those events:

Though not our last night at sea, we still have the Captain’s dinner tonight. The original reason for the earlier special dinner was that the captain would be required for our trip through the canal at Corinth, but the lobster has already been purchased for tonight so we celebrate now, even though we will miss the canal.

6/26 - Pompeii

The day is much like the others we’ve enjoyed: arrival in port about breakfast time, a tour in the morning, lunch back on the boat because it’s quickest, another tour in the afternoon, a brief siesta, departure from port, a lecture or two by one of the outstanding scholars traveling with us, cocktails (today with the Yale group, including singing) dinner, and a film available in our cabins relating to the events of the day.

To be more specific, because today is so very special, we sail into Naples harbor during breakfast. The gangway has obviously been repaired from the incident in Malta and we depart from the port side again. We board buses with our guide Carmine (and yes, he wears bright red pants!) and head for Pompeii. Unlike some of the other archeological sites we’ve visited, Pompeii is a major tourist attraction and draws many (millions? I don’t recall what we were told) of visitors each year. Our group stays together successfully, but we are given a place and time to meet in case we become separated.

Pompeii is also very different from the other sites we’ve visited because it was buried literally overnight. Instead of being abandoned, as Nestor’s Palace, or overlaid with subsequent cities, as Troy, Pompeii simply disappeared under many feet of ash that quickly solidified into stone. Its art and artifacts were (nearly) perfectly preserved, as were the shapes of the people engulfed in the ash/stone.

An Ancient Winebar - Pompeii had 82 of these sidewalk refreshment centers!

Our first stop is a bypass of the tourist areas and a special greeting by Dr. Stephen Ellis of the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project and insight into what his group will begin tomorrow. Would you believe it sounds incredibly familiar? In about 150 bc, in the area of a blue collar neighborhood where they’ll be excavating, families made fish sauce at home: some for home use and the remainder for local sale. Apparently, Spain (or what is now known by that name) began making fish sauce by some vastly cheaper method and underpriced the local Pompeiian fish sauce makers. So they changed. They bought their fish sauce from Spain and the area became one of service providers: diners, wine sellers and winebars, and other forms of service businesses rather than manufacturing. By 75 bc, fish sauce production had ended in the neighborhood and they continued to prosper in their new businesses. I think we now call it outsourcing. We didn't invent it.

Pompeii was also a city (20,000 people) of wanna-be’s. They weren’t Romans. There is much evidence of “putting on the dog” by various families who decorated their homes to appear larger, donated to their local theater foundations to win elections, and built columns of cement or, in repairs of brick, overlaid with materials to make them appear to be marble.

More pictures from Pompeii are here.

They also had some warning of the catastrophe that was to come. In 62 ce, there was a significant earthquake that caused great damage to the area, but repairs had apparently been completed, or at least were well underway, when the volcanic eruption that killed and covered the city in August of 79. The Roman red bricks (of renovation after the 62 quake) are visible everywhere, augmenting the earlier gray stone of the original construction.

There are two theaters, one for plays and musicals(?) and another, much smaller, for musical performances. We spend some time in the smaller one. There is a small (4”) black stone embedded in the performance area and we each stand at that spot and say something. We hear our voices as we speak! Not as echoes, but our own voices exactly as we speak them. My brief message: “May it please the court.”

Near the theaters is some scratched wall art and in one of the houses, mosaics cover the floors and walls. I am perturbed that these aren't better protected until I learn that all the good stuff has been taken to the archaeological museum in Naples. What remains at Pompeii is among the least and left behind so we might get a sense of the original conditions. 

Excavation to begin tomorrow - Mt. Vesuvius in the background

We find it fascinating that there was an established width for chariot axles. There were sidewalks everywhere and occasional walkways of stone, spaced so that Pompeiian chariots could pass but other chariots, of differing wheel widths, could not. We clearly see the ruts of chariot wheels in the stone.

After the usual delightful lunch, including today both a pasta bar and pizza, we take a short bus trip to the Naples Archaeological Museum. Pompeii stands as buildings, but its art, including its frescoes, has been relocated to the museum. The mosaics are exquisite! One room-width piece of mosaic art contains 1.5 millions pieces of stone! It is not completely intact, but shows a battle story in incredible detail. Other mosaics contain larger pieces and fewer colors, but the quality of the art is wonderful.

We also are fascinated by cement reconstructions of people and a dog. Pompeii was never covered by lava, only by ash. Its people died of poison gas, then were covered by a layer of ash between 9 and 21 feet thick. The cloud from the volcanic eruption created heavy rain of both water and more ash that turned to stone at some point. Fairly recent archeologists realized that there were cavities in the stone created by bodies. The bodies had completely decayed, but left behind holes in the now-stone in the shapes of their bodies. They found that if they filled a hole that they discovered with cement, it might turn into the shape of a body. We see the cement shape of a very pregnant woman, a dog in agony with a chain about its neck who could not escape the fumes, and a tree stump. Oh well, can’t win them all.

6/25 Trapani and Segesta, Sicily

Day 6 – Trapani, Sicily

Another lovely morning as our ship pulls into harbor at Trapani, on the northwest coast of Sicily. We quickly board the buses for the inland town of Segesta, where a splendid Greek temple, begun in 424 bc, stands sentinal.

A five-minute bus ride above the temple is a lovely amphitheater, dating from the same period, overlooking a pastoral landscape. Our guide, Smora, sings something (an anthem; an opera aria?) in Greek and we can all hear her beautifully. It clearly makes the point that the acoustics are stunning! There are many there besides our group and the applause was unanimous! How did they know about acoustics back then?

Lunch is off the boat at a charming spot along the beach.

We do a quick walking tour of downtown Trapani, then re-board the boat for a 4:15 departure toward Naples and Pompeii.

John remembers about today:

We notice that it starts with bigger rolls overnight and much of the early morning. For much of our trip the water has been very smooth. There are longer, deeper rolls in the sea. We're in rougher seas than we have seen before now. Anyway, it's rolley. We get back on schedule and it’s still rolley (9:50 pm between Trapani and Messina). We are in Italian waters; they drive on the right side of the road. As usual, we sail in the afternoon, arrive around breakfast.

Trapani is different because the land around it is so different. Enormous peaks, hardly mountains, but significant heights compared with where we’ve been before. The harbor, again, is great. There are two exits: one for commercial vessels such as ours, but another for smaller craft. Boats here are small boats, only one major yacht, some ferries. It is a working harbor. We dock on the side with the only working gangplank without issue. It’s still hanging out to the side, like a broken wing.

We arrive about breakfast. We board, then got off the bus. Because of a local antique car race, we know it will be unlikely to get to the mountain town. There are high ridges, somewhat like Tuscany, where we lived for a week in Montepulciano. Coaches are available, but the timing is tight. A delegation of nine people comes on board to clear us for disembarkation. There is a fair amount of diplomacy involved, but we are off the ship in good time.

We sit on the bus for 50 minutes inland, from Trapani to Segesta, a truly dramatic ruin in remarkable shape. All of its columns and all of its crossbars are in place after nearly 2500 years. The area is one that has earthquakes, but none has shaken these stones. Today it was spectacular against a crystal-blue sky that would have done San Francisco proud. The panorama is one of deep valleys and high mountains with dramatic clouds clinging to the tops. The temple is in a relatively low-level place; there were areas higher than it that were the sites of urban habitation. There is a spectacular amphitheater, a mile’s drive above the temple, what an incredible surprise! Built about the same time as the temple, it commands a wonderful view of a very deep valley with an expansive vista. Several of the members of our party climb up and down, but we take the bus out of concern that we’d miss the return bus.

On top of the site, there is extensive restoration taking place of another site. We have lunch off the boat. Our tour guide was clearly a gourmand, describing the meal we were likely to enjoy and, indeed, we did. A full meal that people would probably have eaten more, but most expected many more courses, so we quit and were a little surprised when the meal did, too.

There is a World War II gun placement and a stunning array of decaying wooden boats.