Peloponnese: land of the gods

  Nafplio, Greece
Monday, April 17, 2006

After great times on the Greek Isles I felt it was best to head back to the mainland and pursue some of the major historical sites that Greece has to offer. With around a week to get back to Turkey I'm starting to run out of time.

Leaving Paros on a monster Blue Star ferry at the ungodly hour of 2am saw me arrive in Athens four hours later. I'd heard that it would be difficult to get accommodation due to Easter celebrations, so being the bright spark that I am I decided to head out to the Peloponnesus and try to catch some of the big sights there - possibly Mycenae, Sparta and Olympia.

Whether it actually was Greek Orthodox Easter this weekend or not didn't compute at the time (I'm going to regret that next Thursday as I head through Athens when it really is Easter in Greece), nor did the logistics of travelling without a guide book (which I was planning to pick up in Athens). So I didn't really have a clue where I was going and would just have to play it by ear and find out later.



Trains and buses over the Isthmus of Corinth worked nicely. I missed the wafer-thin Corinth Canal, but the crisp spring air enlivened my sleep-deprived senses as we snaked through mountainous countryside - peppered for miles with groves of ancient, gnarled olive trees.

The Peloponnese, a large lump of land hanging off the southern tip of the Greek mainland, was the birthplace of the first recorded Greek culture and mythology, and the timeless land I was travelling through seemed to fit my expectations of it nicely. Distances to cover were not great and well before midday I found myself in the seaside town of Nafplio.



Which is when the first major hitch of the day occurred. Murphy's Law says if you have a guidebook then there will always be someone waiting at the bus station to offer you a cheap room, but if you don't have one, no-one is there and you're stuck wandering the streets with all of your gear for a couple of hours trying to find suitably priced accommodation. It's back-breaking work in the mounting heat and you always end up walking in circles around residential areas. Oh well, I got to see how pretty Nafplio is in the meantime.



Sitting at the apex of the Saronic Gulf, evidence of Nafplio's importance as a port over time can be seen through its vast Venetian Palamidi citadel and other forts dotting the surrounding area. It claims to be the first capital of Greece, although I don't know if that refers to those misty times a couple of thousand years before Christ, or in more recent history. Either way, some unusual and striking architecture can be found wandering the the streets near the port and the class and tidiness of the place indicates that old wealth has probably resided here for quite some time.



After recovering from the accommodation ordeal it was time to set off exploring. For a while not much else went right either - the tourist office was on siesta, I couldn't find out about trains, no bookshops, no internet cafe to look anything up, almost got run over - annoying stuff like that. But as the afternoon progressed pieces of the puzzle started falling into place and Nafplio began to grow on me.

So the natural thing to do was stuff it all go directly to the base of the Palamidi and climb the 999 stairs to its summit, more than 200 metres above sea level. Which is exactly what I did. Who said it was only mad dogs and Englishmen eh?



This vertical hike wasn't as great an ordeal as I make it out to be and the reward was a bizarre collection of geometrically challenging bastions covering a sizable area of the peak, all interlinked and surrounded by immense walls. It was built by the Venetians in the late 17th century to compliment their earlier sea-level fortress that sits in the middle of the harbour below.



Now the wildflowers run riot in the brickwork and craggy ground it sits upon, whilst the wind howls through the slowly crumbling fortifications. 360 degree views of the surrounding mountain ranges and waterways are expansive and stunning, so I spent quite some time up there late in the afternoon. Afterwards I rewarded myself with a pizza, a large beer and a good night's sleep - because it had been a long day...



Around 20 years ago now, back in my first year of high school and in one of the very first history lessons I took, we learned about a powerful tribe of ancient Grecians called the Mycenaeans. All (well, vague details anyway) came flooding back as I approached the ruined city of Mycenae (about 25km north of Nafplio) early next morning.



Greek myth has it the Perseus, son of big-wig gods Zeus and Danae, founded Mycenae after giving up the Kingdom of Argos because he had accidentally killed his grandfather (inadvertently fulfilling a prophecy to do so). Sounds complicated, especially when he then employed further legends - the Cyclops - to build the walls of the city. The result probably looked like the artist's conception above and note that the first city was constructed around 2,000 BC - hence the sketchy details.

The famous Lion Gate was the only entrance to Mycenae and if I remember rightly from my schooling, many an army threw themselves fruitlessly at it throughout the ages. The size, preservation and quality of the masonry is quite amazing for something that challenges Egyptian constructions of a similar age. The size of some of the rounded stones that make up the walls are huge - hence their name, Cyclopean.

Agamemnon, leader of the epic Greek expedition to Troy, was also a local boy. His wife Clytemnestra, aided by a crafty lover, murdered Agamemnon on his return. This worked out well for the lovers - they both have tombs dedicated to them here whereas Agamemnon missed out.



A number of unusual features stand out when you walk around the ruins. First are the giant 'Tholos', massive beehive tombs that ring the site just outside the walls. Up to 15 metres high, some have collapsed whilst others remain complete. Nothing like I've seen as yet and quite immense in their scale. These guys liked to build big!

Another is the underground cistern constructed in later periods of the city's development to secure the water supply. It's basically a narrow stairway passage starting from within the walls and carved through solid rock to access a well located in the valley beyond the walls. It descends into pitch darkness for 18 metres, twisting and turning to make the descent less steep and dangerous. Despite an anti-climactic end (a bare wall) it's quite an experience to feel your way down there in the dark.



But the most impressive is the museum that's attached to the site and which contains a vast array of artefacts from the entire period of the city's occupation (roughly 1,900-1,100 BC). I believe that much of it was excavated from the tombs and the range and quality of the finds is quite superb, which makes you wonder how the tombs survived for so long without being plundered, as they were in most other ancient civilisations.



The museum contains many rooms of pottery jars and jugs, statues and figurines, bronze weaponry, seals, Linear B tablets (the Mycenaean form of ancient Greek writing as shown above) and much in the way of jewelery and adornments. The gold items found here, including the world-famous Mask of Agamemnon, are replicated as the originals are in the National Museum.

This extensive collection of treasures, found in such a mighty city, which, in turn, was set in the magnificent surrounds of this ancient land, would have made Mycenae and jewel of early history and a pleasure to excavate in modern times. Those archaeologists that have been lucky enough to work on this job...

Phew, that one was hard work to write so will wrap it up there and hope they get easier again. With a bunch of possible places to go I will let fate decide where I end up next.

Next entry -> ?

Words from the Wise # 74

"To me, travel is not about rest and relaxation. It's action, exertion, motion, and the built-in delays are longueurs necessitated by the inevitable problem-solving of forward movement; waiting for buses and trains, enduring breakdowns that you try to make the best of."

Paul Theroux - Dark Star Safari (Overland from Cairo to Cape Town)