HillsStonesStatues

The last excursion our group went on was to Epidavros, Mycenae, and Ancient Olympia. We also visited the wonderful cities of Galaxidi and Arahova. Here, I am tempted to write a generic list complete with bullet points of the things I saw. This is only because the whole weekend was so packed with new things that it is exhausting for me to even think of writing about it. It actually took me a while to convince myself to post another blog. Obviously I've been slacking because I didn't even blog on my trip to Mykonos last weekend ....(and don't think I will either).

So at the first site, Epidavros, we got to see the famous and fabulous Epidavros Theatre where they put on plays and such both in ancient times and in the summertime in modern day. Twice they have had opera singers there. Our guide strongly advocates for more opera shows there because it is the perfect setting for such type of music.The acoustics are what it is so well-known for. If you stand in the middle of the stage area and speak or shout you can hear yourself echo back from the auditorium. They say it is even better when the theater is full of people. I think he said it holds about 11,000. We climbed the millions of steps to the top and a girl at the bottom stood in the middle and sang. All of the tourists quieted down immediatley as she sang for a minute or so. We could hear her all the way at the top! Incredible.

Our giant bus headed out again to Mycenae. Here we saw quite a few beehive tombs. We went inside one of them which they believe to have been the tomb of king Agammemnon. It was cool to see it from the inside because I actually remembered learning about beehive tombs from my terrible art history class a few years ago. But it truly was awesome. A bunch of those tombs were around the site we were going through but some of them just looked like giant holes in the ground because the tops had fallen in. I learned that tons of gold jewelery and gold face plates were found in the tombs. Much like the Egyptians.

Oh, I have learned the story of where the Cyclops myth came from:
Once upon a time, some people called the Egyptians wanted to trade with the Greeks who lived just a stone's skip across the Mediterranean Pond. So they did.
One day, the Egyptians brought some elephants over for the Greeks to use (probably in exchange for some gold and olives).
The Greeks were happy because they could use the strong elephants to help them build all their elaborate and crazy palaces. But they were quite ignorant of the ways to care for such ginormous beasts. So the elephants died off soon enough.

Time Passes...

Greeks who had never seen an animal like the elephant before came upon elephant skulls. These skulls were huge and featured a big hole in the middle similar to the eye socket holes in human skulls. And so the Greeks feared this great monster of a man that had one large eye in the middle of its head- the Cyclops.

The end.

So we traveled up a hill where the palace area was. To enter the main palace area you first go through the Lion Gate. In ancient times the Mycenaeans had the advntage if enemies tried to besiege the castle. If intruders did get through the Lion Gate, they would be badly burned with boiling olive oil from 3-sides on top of the walls. This is not suitable conditions for trying to attack a city.

angrily taking a picture at the top? what is going on in this one.

We climbed up the pathway to the top of the hill. The mountains in the area where we were the whole weekend were incredible. The views were spectacular. It doesn't even matter that I say that because you really can't be told that and really understand how it is. I tried though....



windy- im standing in the entrance the olympic stadium area (facing the stadium).
behind me is where the temples and other buildings and structures are.



The next day we went to the site of Ancient Olympia. Where the Olympic Games originated. Most of the site is reconstruction but they chose to do minimal reconstructing of buildings with 100% authentic material,etc. So like maybe they make one column for the Temple of Zeus in entireity and a few broken columns on a platform that is the area of the building so we can imagine what the whole thing probably looked like. But anything they do make would be using the same marble, etc. from the same location that the ancient Greeks would have gotten it from. I thought that was pretty cool. And in the beggining- all the temples were to goddesses, no gods. So the Temple of Hera was the first one made there and then a bunch of years later someone came up with the idea of deity couples and Zeus became her husband and he got a bigger and better and more central temple for some reason. Meh. Not that it matters.

 Gymnos, the root of the word gymnasium, is a Greek root that means nude. Gymnasium literally translates to "school for naked exercize". I can never spell that word. All the men during the Olympics practiced, trained, and competed nude.

I feel like I learned so much at those tours but it probably isn't very interesting to hear it all if your not on an awesome tour in the original olympic site of the Greeks. I guess it's all stuff people can find on the internet.

Oh but also, a big reason they came up with the Olympics was because there was so much division between Greek communities and they wanted to bring everyone together where everyone was treated equally and having a good time and enjoying themselves so that people could make friends and ties with the other greek people. Alcohol and lots of food were plentiful because they wanted to make an atmosphere where people could talk and be happy even if they initially didn't like the person sitting next to them. Political strategy. Verrrry interesting. Ok I'll stop with random facts.

We stayed in pretty nice hotels and ate yummy food and had wonderful continental breakfasts. In Mykonos our breakfast was terrible coffee and 2 pieces of dry bread with jelly. So these ones were incredible for us.

Tonight we are going to a film showing of a movie called king of the pastries or something. But after the showing is a cocktail party of some sort where we get to eat pastries that a chef makes for us. Should be delicious.

I should just start writing about my day each day so these things dont end up being so long and chuck full of crazy stuff. Something normal would be nice.



My photo uploader is frozen now but I will try again later to add more than just the one awkward picture of me. Come back then :)