This was the first day of our CHAT tour. A CHAT person met us at 8 AM in our hotel lobby. The tour bus couldn’t make it down our narrow little street, so we walked out to the square to get on the bus. The bus was big and contained about 25 other tourists. Our tour guide’s name was Irini and our driver was Socrates. We found our way out of Athens during rush-hour traffic and finally picked up one of the new roads that the Greek government built for the influx of Olympics tourists. We drove across the bridge over the Corinthian canal into the Peloponnesian peninsula and made our first stop at the bridge for refreshments. Then we drove on to Epidaurus, an ancient center for healing. The acoustically perfect amphitheater there is still intact and still in use. We drove through beautiful countryside and stopped at the port of Naufplia long enough to take pictures of the Doges island palace and the Venetian fortress on the hill. A variety of foreign powers has occupied Greece from the time of the Romans until the mid-1800’s, and Venice controlled this particular corner of Greece at one time.
Then we drove on to Mycenae to look at the Mycenaean citadel and beehive tomb—dating back to 1250 BC. Homer told the story of how the Greeks at Mycenae under King Agamemnon went to Troy and fought the Trojans for ten years to reclaim Helen from the Trojan prince Paris. The German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann found and excavated Troy in the late 1800’s proving once and for all that Troy was not just a mythological city. In 1874, he began to excavate Mycenae and found a city that matched Homer’s descriptions perfectly. He also uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts, including gold death masks that are now on display at the Archeological Museum in Athens.
We stopped in Megolopoli for coffee in a nice little town square park, then drove on to Olympia. We got to the Amalia Hotel in Olympia late, had an 8:30 dinner (so-so fish, rice, and vegetables), and then went to bed—a long day.
Then we drove on to Mycenae to look at the Mycenaean citadel and beehive tomb—dating back to 1250 BC. Homer told the story of how the Greeks at Mycenae under King Agamemnon went to Troy and fought the Trojans for ten years to reclaim Helen from the Trojan prince Paris. The German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann found and excavated Troy in the late 1800’s proving once and for all that Troy was not just a mythological city. In 1874, he began to excavate Mycenae and found a city that matched Homer’s descriptions perfectly. He also uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts, including gold death masks that are now on display at the Archeological Museum in Athens.
We stopped in Megolopoli for coffee in a nice little town square park, then drove on to Olympia. We got to the Amalia Hotel in Olympia late, had an 8:30 dinner (so-so fish, rice, and vegetables), and then went to bed—a long day.
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