Mycenae and Epidaurus

 Sunday, February 22

12C today.  We saw our Canadian friends Robin and Pierre at breakfast and were happy to learn that they are on the same bus as us for the next few days.  Pierre and Anton have started to call Frankie and Robin sisters because they have so much in common.  One of which is that they are both gluten free!  

This morning we started our pre-tour with Viking.  Everyone had to meet in the lobby at 7:30 am.  We had 2 tour guides, Andreas and Stati. Not sure if that one is spelled correctly!

Today we were exploring part of the Peloponnese Peninsula.  It's shaped like a hand, and today we were in the thumb.  It was about a 2 and a half hour drive each way.

imagecredit https://www.britannica.com/place/Peloponnese

imagecredit https://xirokambi.com/southern-peloponnese-travel-guide/

We drove to the Corinth Canal, built in 1893 to connect the Peloponnese Peninsula with the Greek mainland.  Nero tried to build it in the 1st century but didn't get very far.  

The canal saves ships a 700 km journey around the Peloponnesian coast, and it services 11,000 ships per year.  It is 6.4 kms long, 24.6 m wide, and 8 m deep.  The walls rise 90 m above sea level, making it the world's deepest canal.  It takes 30-60 minutes to go through it.  We would have loved to have gone through it, but the tour bus doesn't float 😏

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal

Our tour guide noticed some guys with hoodies lurking around and warned us about pick-pockets.  He called the police and apparently they drove away in a very nice vehicle.

Next we visited the Sanctuary of Asklepios in Epidaurus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was the most famous healing center in the Greek and Roman world.  Asklepios, the son of Apollo, was the ancient Greek god of medicine, healing, and physicians.  His symbol was the serpent entwined around a staff,  a symbol which is still used today in modern medicine.

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_of_Asclepius,_Epidaurus

The Sanctuary of Asklepios is most famous for its remarkably preserved amphitheater, constructed in the late 4th century BC.  It has 55 rows of seats and yes, we climbed all the way to the top.  It is considered the best preserved ancient theater in Greece.  The acoustics are so good here that locals still stage shows here.  The round part at the bottom is actually for the orchestra.  The rectangular part was the stage.

Next, we visited the archeological site of Mycenae (pronounced my-seen-ay).  This was the city where King Agamemnon ruled (he was the commander who led the Trojan War).  After he returned in victory from the Trojan War, he was killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.  Perhaps she was a tad upset that Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter in order to obtain favourable winds to reach Troy?  Clytemnestra was later murdered by her son Orestes to avenge the death of his father.

imagecredit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9nwYpjbsB8

The Tomb of Agamemnon was discovered when a goat accidentally fell into the hill.  The entryway has impossibly huge rocks.

Inside, it was completely circular.  When it was discovered, it was completely empty, so it must have been looted at some point.

The city of Mycenae dominated the eastern Mediterranean world from the 15th to the 12th century BC.  It was known for early Greek writing, advanced architecture and artistry, and a strong warrior culture.

We entered the city through the Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC using massive stones and the image of two lionesses.

The city walls are so impressive that ancient Greeks believed them to be constructed by Cyclops, mythical one-eyed giants.

imagecredit https://easydrawingguides.com/how-to-draw-the-cyclops-from-the-odyssey/

Mycenae was destroyed in about 1200-1100 BC, possibly from invading Dorians or from natural earthquakes.  There also seemed to be a lot of internal strife within the city.  The inner citadel was violently burned, but there is evidence that people continued to live in the outer city.

Mycenae was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.  Today the city continues to undergo extensive excavation and preservation to conserve its ruins.  Gosh, it looked like a long way to walk back to our bus!

Lunch was included in our tour, at a restaurant called the Agamemnon Palace, of course.  Big chunks of lamb, Greek salad, and honey drenched dessert for Anton.  Frankie and Robin received a bowl of fresh oranges instead, but they were the yummiest oranges, fresh from the tree in season.

The bus ride back was very quiet as everyone snoozed, including the tour guides.

When we got back around 4:30, the Syntagma Square across the street was packed with thousands of people.  Apparently we are here during the peak festival of Apokries, celebrated just before Lent.  People dress up in costumes, there are parades and much celebration.  

We went out for gelato since we were still stuffed from lunch, and all at once the square emptied out and all the people proceeded down Mitropoleos Street, which is a pedestrian street.  There were streamers and confetti everywhere, and guys with vacuum trucks cleaning up.

Our gelato was great, but according to Andreas we picked the wrong place, so we will just have to try again tomorrow ha ha.

We headed across the square to the Parliament building to watch the changing of the guard at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.  This is right around the corner from our hotel.  The Changing of the Guard happens every hour.  These are working soldiers called Evzones (Presidential Guard).

There is a memorial here to the victims of Greece's deadliest rail disaster.  On February 28, 2023, a high speed collision occurred between a passenger train and a freight train, killing 57 people (many of them being young university students).  The station master misrouted the trains.  The combined speed of the crash was 240 km/hr.  The incident sparked protests of tens of thousands of people here at Syntagma Square (Andreas says over one million), with accusations of government cover up of illegal cargo due to the rapid cleanup and lack of transparency regarding the crash.  Every year there are mass protests on the anniversary of the crash, we are glad we will be gone by February 28!

Interesting Facts About Greece

Friday, February 20

Hi, just a reminder that we are not receiving text messages while on our trip.  The following will work:  email, Facebook messenger, and WhatsApp.

Tonight we flew out of Toronto at 6 pm, another red-eye flight.  We are trying KLM because they gave us FREE seat choice.  

It was a 7 hour flight.  We landed in Amsterdam at 7 am (1 am our time).  We had a 5 hour layover here which is quite long, but we were not brave enough to leave the airport to see anything.  Besides, we've been to Amsterdam twice before.  We walked around for a bit (the Amsterdam airport is HUGE!), then we found some cushioned seats and crashed.

We had to go through passport control for our next flight.  When the worker saw that we were Canadian, he was super friendly and chatty with us.  Welcome to Amsterdam!  We noticed he didn't say a thing to the Americans.

In the waiting area, we sat next to a couple who are from Ottawa and are taking the exact cruise and pre-tour that we are taking.

The flight from Amsterdam to Athens, Greece, was 4 hours long.  This is the first flight ever that we slept THROUGH THE TAKEOFF!  We don't remember much of that flight at all.  Finally the flight landed in Athens, Greece, at 4:30 pm local time.  

imagecredit https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/cartoon-hand-holding-greek-flag-isolated-vector-drawing-gm1421847213-467347033

We are doing a 10 night Greek Islands cruise with Viking.  More about that later.  But the cruise does not start until the 25th.  We decided to take the Viking pre-cruise so we could see some of the interior of Greece.  That meant that we got picked up at the airport and transferred to our hotel, yay!  It was only a 25 minute drive to the NJV Athens Plaza.  Too bad there was an American in our shuttle bus who made a comment to us about Canada being the 51st state.  We quickly shut him down as did an American lady in the shuttle.

imagecredit https://ik.imgkit.net/3vlqs5axxjf/external/https://media.iceportal.com/123269/photos/65087281_XL.jpg?tr=w-1200%2Cfo-auto

The hotel is super nice.  We ventured out and found a place to eat. 

 

We had no idea what we paid for.  The 3rd item turns out to be bread and olives.

We also discovered that this is NOT olive oil for the bread..... The waiter finally told us that it is hand sanitizer.  Oops!

The streets are paved with marble slabs and stones.  Slippery when wet!

Before we get our energy back and start our group tour tomorrow, here are a few interesting facts about Greece:

    - Greece was the birthplace of democracy.

    -Western philosophy began here with Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.

imagecredit https://bestedlessons.org/2023/01/14/50-most-influential-and-famous-ancient-greek-philosophers-scientists-and-writers/

    -Greece has over 6000 islands.  Only 227 are inhabited.  We will be visiting 6 of them.

imagecredit https://www.tripsavvy.com/maps-of-greece-1526137

    -The Olympics began here in 776 BC

imagecredit https://elxis.com/what-were-the-olympics-in-ancient-greece-like/

    -Ancient Greeks invented the yoyo AND cheesecake.

    -Population of Greece is 10.5 million people.  Compare that to 41 million in Canada.

    -It is EXTREMELY rude here to hold up your hand like a stop sign and show people your palm.  Don't do it!  It goes back to Byzantine times when people taunted criminals by smearing dung in their faces.  Ewwww!

    -Athens has buildings surviving from 1200 BC.

    -Greece has one of the longest coastlines in Europe.  Greece is in purple at the bottom.  We're not counting Russia.

imagecredit https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/w8fv9o/the_length_of_the_coastline_of_european_countries/

    -Mountains cover 80% of the country.

    -Greece is the English name.  The natives call their country Hellas, and they are known as Hellenes.

    -The word "barbarian" was invented to describe people who do not speak Greek.

    -Famous Greek actors include Telly Savalas, John Aniston, and John Stamos.

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stamos

Greek Mythology

Today almost 90% of the Greek population is Greek Orthodox.  But they have a rich history of mythical deities that are still known around the world.

Greek mythology is thousands of years old, going back possibly as far as 3000 BC. It developed as oral stories which were eventually written down by Homer and Hesiod about 800 BC.  Greek mythology is at least a thousand years older than Roman mythology, and the Romans "borrowed" and adapted Greek figures to fit their own history and society.

Below is a VERY brief summary of just a few stories from Greek mythology.  

How many Greek gods were there? So so many!!!  There are basically three "sets" of gods.  First there were the Primordial Greek gods, the ones who created the world.  A few examples you may have heard of are Erabus, the god of darkness, and Tartarus, the god of the underworld.  Basically, any natural phenomena was given a god.

imagecredit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qOWFIbnBxE

After the Primordial Greek gods came the Titans. A few examples are Cronos, the leader of the Titans, and Rhea the goddess of fertility.

imagecredit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML8v5wNQDOE

imagecredit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMP0F94vqzc

What happened to the Titans?  In order to gain power, Cronus had overthrown his father Uranus.  Now Uranus prophesized that Cronus would be overthrown by his own children.  Cronus' solution?  Every time his wife Rhea gave birth, Cronus ate the child.  He did this to five children.  The only child to survive was the youngest, Zeus, because Rhea hid Zeus on the island of Crete and tricked Cronus into swallowing a rock instead. Zeus grew stronger and managed to free his swallowed siblings.  The Titans lost an epic battle, which led to the rise of the Olympians.

imagecredit https://englishpluspodcast.com/clash-of-the-titans-and-gods-unraveling-the-epic-titanomachy/

They are called the Olympian gods because they lived at the top of Mt Olympus (except for Hades, the god of the underworld).  The Olympians looked like humans except perhaps stronger.  They also had the same inclinations and flaws as humans, including jealousy, spite, arrogance, pettiness, lust, anger, and selfishness.  That is very different from the Christian God who declares:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," Isaiah 55:8.

Thanks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians for this list:

Greek	Roman	Image	Functions and attributes
Zeus	Jupiter		King of the gods and ruler of Mount Olympus; god of the sky, lightning, thunder, law, order and justice. He had many affairs with goddesses and mortals.
Hera	Juno		Queen of the gods and the goddess of marriage, women, childbirth and family. Being the goddess of marriage, she frequently tried to get revenge on Zeus' lovers and their children.
Poseidon	Neptune		God of the seas, water, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes and horses.
Demeter	Ceres		Goddess of the harvest, fertility, agriculture, nature and the seasons. She presided over grains and the fertility of the earth.
Apollo	Apollo		God of Sun, light, prophecy, philosophy, archery, truth, inspiration, poetry, music, arts, manly beauty, medicine, healing, and plague.
Artemis	Diana		Goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, virginity, the Moon, archery, childbirth, protection and plague.
Ares	Mars		God of war, violence, bloodshed and manly virtues. The son of Zeus and Hera, all the other gods despised him except Aphrodite. His Latin name, Mars, gave us the word "martial".
Athena	Minerva		Goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare.[28] The daughter of Zeus and the Oceanid Metis, she rose from her father's head fully grown and in full battle armor.
Hephaestus	Vulcan		Master blacksmith and craftsman of the gods; god of the forge, craftsmanship, invention, fire and volcanoes. His Latin name, Vulcan, gave us the word "volcano".
Aphrodite	Venus		Goddess of love, pleasure, passion, procreation, fertility, beauty and desire.
Hermes	Mercury		Messenger of the gods; god of travel, commerce, communication, borders, eloquence, diplomacy, thieves, and games. He was also the guide of dead souls.
Most lists of the "twelve Olympians" consist of the above eleven plus either Hestia or Dionysus
Hestia	Vesta		Goddess of the hearth, fire and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family.
Dionysus	Liber		God of wine, the grapevine, fertility, festivity, ecstasy, madness and resurrection. Patron god of the art of theatre.

And how do Anton and Frankie feel about all these gods?  While being entertaining stories, Isaiah 45:5 gives us a clear message from the One True God: "I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god."