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Trip to the Peloponnese
A four-day trip to the land of wine, fish, and mountains.
The view from atop the Palamid
After returning from our adventures over break, we had a pretty easy week with only class and a visit to the National Museum in Athens. We also had a Halloween party on the 31st – see the photo album for more on that. And then on Saturday, we once again hit the road for a field trip. This time, we were headed for the Peloponnese.
The Peloponnese is a large peninsula on the southern end of mainland Greece. It is attached by a small bridge of land west of Athens, and is very mountainous. Our first stop was Epidavros.
Epidavros was a healing center for Ancient Greeks – ailing persons would go there to enlist the help of the healing god Asklepeios. If the cure was successful, they would leave a statue or other offering (many of which are still there.) This is also the place that holds the best preserved ancient Greek theater. The open-air theater was built with such great acoustics that a person in the back row of the large theater can hear a penny being dropped in the “sweet zone” of the stage. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidavros for more pictures and information about this amazing theater. Our next stop on our travels was Nauplion.
The port city of Nauplion was notable for two reasons: The Palamid and wine. The Palamid is a fortified hill overlooking Nauplion. The site used to be the place of a Mycenean (a couple thousand years B.C.) fortification but was built over by a Venetian fortification hundreds of years later. That night, we went to a local winery for a wine tasting. Here we sampled different Greek wines and got a lesson on the basics of wine making and tasting. We also sampled the Greek hard liquors Ouzo and Raki, even though they didn’t quite fit into the “wine” category.
The next morning, we visited a Mycenean palace in Mycenae and then spent the night in a small mountain resort town. Since it’s the off-season for the town, there was very little open, and even less to do, except hunker down against the cold mountain air. I, for one, enjoyed being able to sit back and enjoy the mountain view without the obligation of having to explore a new town.
The next day, we drove out to the mountain temple of Apollon Epikurios. Work has been going on since the 70’s to reverse the damage to the temple caused by the elements. But there’s still a long way to go. According to our lecturer, Michael, the restoration won’t be finished for “many generations.” To me, that’s a huge testament to the Greek’s love of their history and heritage. The final leg of our journey was to Olympia, the city of the original, ancient Olympics.
The original Olympics were first officially held in the 7th Century B.C. in Olympia. The Olympics were a religious festival that included competitive athletic sports. City-states from around Greece would compete for the enormous glory of being an Olympic champion – some records, in fact, show that an Olympic champion was fed by the state for the rest of his life as a result of his victories. Unfortunately, no medals were awarded at these games. The games were forcibly ended in the 4th Century A.D. and weren’t taken up again until the 1880’s, in the form of the modern Olympic games. The first modern Olympics were held in Athens to commemorate Greece’s ties to the original games. The stadium built for this Olympics sits almost in the backyard of our apartments in Athens.
We returned home Tuesday night, and the rest of the week is looking to be uneventful, save for classes. Next week: field trip to Delphi.
