Our final day on tour took us from chilly Arachova back to Athens. We saw beautiful snow-capped mountains off to the north as we headed south, then turned off the highway to visit one last Mycenean site.
Gla, or Glas, was a large Mycenean fortress that was the center of a network of forts during the end of the Mycenean era, around 1300 BC. We saw the remains of imposing gateways through walls of huge stone quarried nearby and rolled into place.
One of the four main gates of Gla
Having just visited beautifully restored Mycenae, the Treasury of Atreus, and the Palace of Nestor, we didn’t take a long walk at Gla. Perhaps we should have. This lesser known site may be the ancient city of Orchomenos, now attributed to a nearby locality. Archaeological research that began in 2010 has shown that the extensive city walls (seven times the length of Mycenae’s) enclosed houses, shops, and small fields. Two structures may have been for agricultural storage, and the collection of taxes (in goods). Most Bronze Age sites like this one are mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, and during excavation yield offices full of clay tablets that provide names and dates. An intriguing suggestion is that the single badly eroded corner of Gla held records that were destroyed in the collapse. Thus, Gla has remained unidentified. An article that digs into the mystery of the site and how it is being unraveled is below.
Our final stop was the Archaeological Museum in the city of Thebes. Like other museums, it has some spectacular items on display collected from sites in the region including Orchomenos. It may add pieces from Gla in future years. I particularly liked the depictions of sea creatures, octopus, squid, and fish. The dolphins are painted in Minoan style similar to the wall paintings at Knossos on Crete.
As always, there were many beautiful objects, mostly from tombs, that showed the artistry of people long ago.
Every different style that we associate with ancient Greece was represented in the collection at Thebes.
It certainly looks like the designers from Star Wars stopped by to take notes. Eventually, we had to keep going. There was lunch on the horizon back in Athens at Strofi, a very nice restaurant with a view of the Acropolis that George was able to get us into. It’s moussaka is legendary, and was absolutely delicious.
Overall, our trip around the Peloponnese was magical. We saw all the archaeological sites we had longed to see, and others like Gla that we knew nothing about but were glad to be introduced to. The museums hold so many treasures that we become jaded by yet another lifelike sculpture, golden bead, or signet ring carved with a team of horses. We are grateful to Aristotle and George for making it all work.
Tour Manager:
George Gaitis, Pictours of Greece, 0030 697 2026 519
It rained overnight in Nafpaktos. I went out to the shore in the morning between showers, saw some fishermen heading home, and the remains of a Venetian fortress, but didn’t find any beach glass.
We headed for Delphi to hear from the oracle. Delphi is located in rough country, a lovely drive when someone else is at the wheel.
We visited the museum first, where we admired relief carvings made for the Sifnian Treasury. Treasuries held donations and offerings to the temples from specific localities. The Athenian Treasury at Delphi was known for displaying items captured in the Battle of Marathon.
Upper L: The Athenian Treasury; All others: Panels that surrounded the Sifnian Treasury.
Cities vied for position–Sifnos hired famous sculptors, Naxos installed a Sphinx atop a column 36 ft (12 m) high. Other offerings included a life sized bull made of beaten gold and silver, and three ivory and gold statues (Apollo, Artemis, and Leto).
In the museum at Delphi: The Sphinx of Naxos, down from its tall perch; the beaten gold and silver, bull; and a goddess feeling rather smug because she’s made of ivory and gold.
We stopped for a late lunch at Baxos (Bacchus) in Delphi and went on to the site. Delphi stretches up the slope of a mountain to the base of a cliff. It reminded me of Kayenta, AZ.
This looks just like parts of northern Arizona (just add a Greek oracle and her temple!)
Despite its location on a rocky hillside, Delphi had all the features of a Greek city. In addition to its agora and theater it had a stadium, a bouleterion (council room), asklepion (for healing), lots of treasuries, and a remarkable number of inscriptions by those who visited.
(Clockwise from L): The Temple of Apollo; the theater; a view over the agora at Delphi.
In Olympia, each dedication might have been part of a freestanding monument, but at Delphi there are so many that a carefully constructed stone wall turns out to have inscriptions carved into many of its component blocks.
The Temple of Apollo was the place from which the oracle delivered prophesies. Sadly, there was no oracle in attendance. We enjoyed the sun and the whispering of the breeze, but couldn’t make out the words. There are many theories about what made the oracle at Delphi so highly regarded for so long, from at least 800 BC to around AD 600. A favorite is that vapors emerging from the crevices in the earth below the Temple of Apollo put the individual into a drugged state from which their speech emerged. Others say the oracle spoke gibberish, and priests translated her words into poetic, enigmatic prophesies. Both of these interpretations are highly contested. Probably neither is true.
We may not have seen the future, but we enjoyed the day very much. It was a highlight of our tour, not because it was different from many of the other ancient cities we visited this week, but because it was Delphi, the Delphi, where the oracle spoke. I stood on the hillside and looked out and thought about all the people who have been in the same spot wondering about the world, themselves, their future. It makes you feel like part of something bigger than yourself. I could feel the continuity of history.
We eventually left for our overnight spot, Likoria Hotel in Arachova, a ski resort part of the year. We saw a bit of late afternoon sun and stopped to take pictures.
L-R: The town perches in the background of the Arachova sign; Our hotel.
There was time for a stroll through town before sunset. Arachova is a pleasant small town. Most visitors to Delphi are on day trips from Athens and don’t stay overnight in the area. The town was not thronged with visitors in the evening, though that could change in the summer. We enjoyed our stroll to To Tsoukani, where the proprietor sat down with us to go over the menu, to make sure we got what we wanted.
Pre-dinner stroll through Arachova after the rain; Reviewing the menu at To Tsoukani.
Our walk home in the dark highlighted different parts of town.
We realized that our visit to Delphi was the last full day of our tour with George and Artistotle. It’s been a long week, but a lot of fun and a true busman’s holiday for us as archaeologists.
Another beautiful day in the Peloponnese began the view out our hotel window over the water looking tranquil in the rising sun. Our first stop was the fortress of Pylos and the small museum. The view over town was gorgeous.
The museum had a few lovely examples of the fine crafts that were traded in and out of Greece in ancient times, glass vessels, fine pottery, a bathtub similar to the one we saw in Nestor’s Palace, and a rather insouciant god leaning on a tree trunk (Bacchus, naturally).
On our way out of Pylos, we stopped at the beach that was probably the “sandy Pylos” mentioned by Homer. The modern city is on a rocky promontory, but along this nearby stretch of coast there are beaches where boats could have landed easily, and a large marshy area that would have been a shallow bay two thousand years ago.
It’s a beautiful spot for birdwatching. We saw a greenfinch, a Sardinian warbler, and a woodchat shrike with a bright red head in just a few minutes. We were on our way to Olympia, so had to tear ourselves away from the beach and the birds.
We stopped in Olympia for lunch and then moved on to visit the site and the museum. The ruins of Olympia are enormous. The original games were part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus. There is a sacred precinct, and a huge temple of Zeus. To support the athletes who lived and/or visited, there was a large gymnasium, a palestra (an open area surrounded by colonnades where wrestlers practiced), and a very large stadium. The site was named Olympia after the home of the gods, Mt. Olympus in mainland Greece, as another way to honor Zeus. 776 BC is considered the date of the first Olympic Games, though there is discussion of whether athletic competitions may have been held much earlier there, and whether there was continuity in the games. Olympia has the distinction of being considered the home of Olympic competition, whatever details may turn up over time.
The Olympic Games were held every four years through AD 393. Rome conquered Greece during the 2nd century AD and the games dwindled away after that. Roman emperor Theodosius I banned all pagan cults, and some interpret that to mean the Olympic games were banned, though there are Roman additions to the site that include Christian symbols. The top photo above shows Roman construction with crosses in the decoration.
The stadium at Olympia was the heart of the Games, and had its entry tunnel, as every stadium did.
Jonathan and Aristotle staged a brief reenactment of the original Olympic footraces.
The museum at Olympia is full of objects–as a religious center, people brought offerings, often small statues, and these have been excavated and picked up from the area of the site and its surroundings.
Small, medium, and large offerings of horses by visitors to Olympia–possibly praying their chariot will win the race.
Sculpture on the pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia is much like the sculpture on the Parthenon. The East pediment depicts Zeus with Pelops and Oenomaus. Pelops killed King Oenomaus in a chariot race to win the hand of the king’s daughter Hippodamia.
The West pediment shows the battle between the Lapiths of northern Greece and the Centaurs (half man, half horse). This was symbolic of the Greek victory over barbarians, or perhaps reason over savagery. Both of these pediment sculptural friezes are better preserved than the Elgin Marbles. The battle scenes are wonderfully detailed.
Biting was a technique of the brawlers on both sides, as was pinching, punching, and throwing an elbow.
Exhausted by watching the battle, we retreated to the car and headed for our next stop, Nafpaktos. Like Pylos, Nafpaktos had a different name in the past. It was Lepanto, known for the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Where the battle off Pylos (Navarino) in 1827 was the last fought between sailing ships, the Battle of Lepanto was the last major battle fought between rowing ships that were based on the earlier Roman galleys. After the Greek Revolution, Nafpaktos reverted to its Greek name.
Nafpaktos is across the Strait of Corinth from the Peloponnese, so we bid farewell to the principal area of our explorations by crossing the spectacular Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge–the world’s longest fully suspended multi-span cable-stayed bridge [that’s a mouthful]. It is also very attractive, and has improved access to the Peloponnese since it opened the day before the start of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
We stayed at the Nafs Hotel in a room that overlooked the water. We had a rare evening of not choosing well for dinner at Sousouro, but called it a night after a piece of chocolate cake on the way home.
My first exposition as an artist was this week. I participated in North Coast Open Studios (NCOS), an event that invites people to visit the places artists work to see what they do and how they do it. There is the opportunity to purchase finished work, too. The event starts with Eureka’s First Friday art night in June, and continues over the first two weekends in June. Anyone in Humboldt County can register and participate.
We arrived in Eureka last year just as NCOS began, and visited a number of artist studios. On the very first night we went out, I met the event’s organizer, Monica Topping, an energetic artist with a couple of day jobs, one of which is coordinating NCOS. (I am a big fan of her work, beads made from recycled glass)
This was the first necklace that I sold during NCOS
When we are out, I always wear one of my necklaces. They’ve become a good conversation starter. As we visited the studios of NCOS artists last year, a number of people asked about my jewelry and encouraged me to join the event this year. I registered to have visitors for one of the two weekends of NCOS 2023. I also submitted one piece to be shown in the Brenda Tuxford Gallery in downtown Eureka for the month prior to NCOS.
We went to the opening of the exhibit on May 6, part of the local Arts Alive, first Friday night event in Eureka. A good crowd came to see the preview. Lots of them were like me, people who had a piece on display, plus their friends and family. It made a for easy conversation, by asking “Which one did you make?” I was surprised and pleased to find that my necklace was photographed for the 2023 NCOS poster! It looks wonderful.
I was out of town from mid-May through June 5, arriving back in Eureka just in time to prepare for my NCOS weekend. I set my jewelry out and put out my signs directing people from our front door to the alley behind our house, where the garage door opens and my “studio” is located. Our neighbors don’t drive in and out very much, so when the occasional visitor pulled up and stopped in the middle of the alley, it didn’t matter.
I was very happy with the weekend’s visitors. More than 40 people stopped by on Saturday and Sunday, Lots of questions led to lots of discussion. Many of my visitors are artists themselves. It was fun to hear about other peoples’ projects.
The weekend paid for itself, too. I sold a few necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and pins. I made a few hundred dollars, enough to pay for the NCOS registration, and jewelry supplies for the rest of the year. Whether or not I participate in more art fairs this year, I plan to be part of Open Studios again in 2024.
We drive to Santa Rosa once a month to see doctors, and rather than spend 8 hours in the car for a one hour appointment, we stay overnight, have dinner at a nice restaurant, and do a bit of exploring and wine tasting. It keeps us both much happier about the scarcity of medical specialists in the Eureka area.
We stay at the Best Western Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg. Formerly a tiny farming settlement, Healdsburg is now a real wine town, full of restaurants and boutiques. It can get hot in the summer, and the motel has a pool.
Del Rio Woods Regional Park
On this trip, we looked for a place to explore after my appointment, and found Del Rio Woods Regional Park just a few miles away. The park surrounds a stretch of the Russian River, and the gravelly banks have become a local beach. You can tell that the area was underwater earlier in the year, but now that it’s June the water has receded to its normal banks. There are warnings online about taking care when swimming because of the speed of the current. In the Del Rio Woods area, though, the river is so shallow that all you’d need to do is put your feet down and stand up to get out of the current. Kids might enjoy a life vest for some floating fun, walking upstream and then zipping to the opposite end of the beach.
We walked along the shore, not tempted by the water on this particular day when the wind was blowing. There are some substantial beach shelters set up by those who own houses nearby.
Along the Russian River at Del Rio Woods park
We saw a few birds along the river, too, though we heard many more than we saw. It was a lovely afternoon along the water.
We had dinner at Baci, and Italian restaurant in Healdsburg, sharing a generous salad, orechiette with broccolini, and saltimbocca. It was all delicious. Making a reservation was a good idea on a Thursday evening in the summer.
The next morning, we decided to stop and taste some wine on the way home. There are a lot of vineyards in this area, and many of them offer tastings, especially at this time of year when tourists begin to venture north. We stopped at the Graziano Winery Tasting Room in Hopland, CA, to chat with John, who is usually there and is always full of good humor. We picked up the wine we were due from our wine club membership, and added a few others (They have a new white, Greco di Tufo.). Then we went on to try a new place a bit further north, Nelson Family Vineyards, on the outskirts of Ukiah. We tasted and bought a bottle of viognier, petite sirah, and the sparkling rose. We won’t join the wine club, as we have joined two so far, and that’s enough. We spat most of our wine in the cups and buckets used for the purpose, which makes it possible to drive home afterward.
We arrived home in time for a late lunch around 3 pm, having made the most of my visit to the doctor.
Hotel: Best Western Inn Dry Creek, Healdsburg, CA
Dinner: Baci, Healdsburg, CA (we made a reservation)
Breakfast: Quail & Condor, Healdsburg, CA (best croissants this side of Paris)
It was quite a week. On Tuesday, we checked in to the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge, MA so that we would be walking distance from events, and for the next four days, we dove into my 50th Harvard Reunion.
It seems impossible that so many years have gone by since I graduated, and even longer since I arrived freshman year to take on the role of Harvard student. I’d always been a studious smart kid, and getting into Harvard was the culmination of my young life, when all I knew was that good kids went to college. I graduated with my class (1973), even though I took a term off, and stayed an extra semester at the end of my four years.
Reunions are a combination of convention, retirement party, and seminar. Even before the reception the first evening, we met old friends and began to connect with the group I know best. I found friends from Comstock (my freshman dorm) and Adams House (my upperclass dorm), and sure enough, everyone was recognizable, though name tags helped.
Women who lived in Comstock Hall my freshman year, fall of 1969. (L-R): Vivian Lewis, Sharon Shurts Tisher, Sophia Lee, Louise Reid Ritchie, Sandra Matthews. Far right photo top row (L-R): Christine Pittel, Leslie Tolbert, Winifred Creamer, Linda Jackson Sowell. Bottom row (L-R): Ann Fay Mick, Amanda Cross, Joyce Heard, Cyndi Mitchell.
After conviviality and dinner, we moved to the adjacent theater for the evening’s program, a documentary on the WPA project to record accounts by survivors of slavery. Created by classmate Donna Brown Guillaume for HBO, the show was moving and impressive. It didn’t need to take a side, it quoted directly from the narratives of former slaves as they described how hard they worked, how little free time they had, and how deep the cruelty of slave-owners could be, separating families, couples, siblings, friends. From there we went home to get some rest.
Annenberg Hall was a drafty, mournful cavern called Memorial Hall when we were undergrads. Now it is a Hogwarts-style dining room, a nice place for breakfast (Harvard Alumni Association)
Breakfast was each day’s first opportunity to find more long lost classmates. I have attended reunions of my class every five years or so, and find that as the years go by, people are increasingly friendly, and it becomes a pleasure to talk with anyone with whom I can find a common thread, whether I knew them in days past or not. One person I chatted with was in a production of Die Fledermaus our freshman year that remains the best English translation I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t in it, but I did attend several performances to see a friend in the chorus, and because there was a talented and handsome senior in one of the roles. I still remember it fondly.
The program began with the class survey. A general questionnaire is produced every five years. The results are always interesting–as a group, we are much more contented today than we might have once thought we’d be. A panel discussion on aging did not yield a new magic bullet to deter our gradual disintegration. Next up was lunch and more conversation. I enjoyed finding people I remembered and catching up on their families, the exotic locations in which they live or have lived, and their interests (travel, music, family, travel, and travel).
A memorial service was held in the early afternoon. Though not a churchgoer, I enjoy the memorial as a moment to think about the people who have not made it this far in life. Time takes its toll. I know the stories of only a very few: AIDS, murder, brain aneurysm, and have read about others in the compilation of personal accounts called the Red Book that comes out every five years for each class. The readings and music of the service were comforting as well as an opportunity to appreciate the vocal and instrumental ability of class members who volunteered their talents.
I don’t have a copy of our recent class photo. This is from our 40th, or 45th, or 35th………
Following the memorial service, we met for a class photo in front of Widener Library, the building that dominates Harvard Yard. Afterward, I gathered the members of my freshman dorm for a photo. From there, I scurried to the next event called “Me in Three”, when classmates were invited to spend 3 minutes talking about whatever they wanted to. As a member of the organizing committee interested in alternative programming, I was recruited to be one of the speakers, and I practiced my bit to fit in the time constraints. My talk was, “An Indelible Memory”, about move-in day of freshman year. It is attached at the end of this post.
I had to skip the end of the session to prepare for our next event, a dinner of former Crimson staffers, called Crimeds. I was a photographer for the Crimson (campus newspaper), even though not everyone could remember me. At the Crimson I learned how to roll bulk film onto a cassette for a 35 mm camera, how to develop and print black and white photos, how to dodge and how to burn. It was an important moment for me, both building a skill, and belonging to a group, (I failed in my initial effort to be accepted as a writer, and was very pleased to make the photo board). The Crimson Photo Board was essential but very much behind the scenes. I was often around as pages and pages of text were proof-read, laid out, and pasted up for printing, and I was there when the basement press was retired.
Crimeds at Class of 1973 Harvard Reunion (Harvard Crimson)
The dinner was excellent, and the company sublime. So many people from the Crimson had careers as writers, people whose bylines you’ve read in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Dallas Morning News; in addition to reporters and writers, there were politicians, ambassadors, entrepreneurs. The requisite documentary photo was taken, and we were all released back into our particular habitats, talked out for the day.
The benefit of the Sheraton Commander during reunion week is location, location, etc. It is easy walking distance to Harvard’s Science Center, ground zero for all things reunion, and made it possible to rush home and drop into bed, while still being able to arise for another day of earnest conversation.
So much to talk about, so little time. Thursday began with symposium on American democracy that didn’t have much new to say, but allowed people to express their concerns. This was followed by a symposium on the current state of the arts as a force for change, a session that I found gratifying. There are theater groups trying to become more inclusive, and museums trying to find new audiences. A different group discussed the cleanup of the Charles River and looked for threads of optimism in the area of the environment.
Another break for lunch and conversation, followed by a visit to what remains of Radcliffe, which is very little. The Radcliffe Yard was the administrative and classroom center when the two schools were separate, when I was a freshman. Today, Radcliffe consists of a post-graduate center, the Radcliffe Institute (recently renamed the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute), and a library of women’s history, though with the latest name change, Harvard seems about to execute the coup de grace and erase Radcliffe entirely. My visit to the Radcliffe Yard evoked pleasant memories, but by the afternoon (It was day three) I had to return to the hotel for some rest before the evening’s events. The weather was glorious, with higher temperatures each successive day, which put us in the 80s on Thursday.
There was a wine tasting, hot and crowded (the wine was good) and then a lengthy bus ride to travel a short distance (one way streets!) to the Radcliffe Quad for our dinner dance. A large tent and tables provided lots of space, and entertainment began with the Kuumba Singers, went to the Reunion Chorus, and ended with Sundance, the rock band of classmates that has entertained at every reunion I’ve attended.
Clockwise from upper L: Ron & Bob, Hurlbut freshmen, Sandy & Mara, Marc, me, Elizabeth, Ira, Ann, Ray, Michele, & Ron, Jonathan & Jeff
The evening was summery, allowing us to float around in our dresses and leave coats hanging on chairs. Even with all this chatting and sitting around, I still missed the chance to visit with some of the people I’ve known the longest. Perhaps I can pick up via email with those I missed, or with some of those who were unable to get to Cambridge on these particular days, though I am not sanguine about seeing Larry-who-moved-to-Australia any time soon (but I’ll read his latest book).
By Friday, the final morning of the reunion, many friends had already departed for home, vacation, or on their way to other places. I still managed to meet a few old friends and make a new one. The final symposium was one of the best, focusing on efforts at Harvard and elsewhere at racial reconciliation. Each speaker had a different perspective, a black woman who has headed a largely white prep school (Rebecca Sykes), a white man who led Harvard’s defense of affirmative action in admissions before the Supreme Court (Seth Waxman), a young Harvard chaplain, a member of the Harvard Remembrance Project, and another classmate as moderator (Sylvester Monroe).
We had to leave before the end of the session to get to our scheduled visit to the Harvard Art Museums. There was an opportunity to see a series of prints by Edvard Munch. Though he’s best known for The Scream, Munch was something of a mad printmaker, often changing prints as they were about to go to press. Parents of classmate Phil Strauss collected many versions of some of Munch’s prints and eventually donated them to Harvard. The staff were informative and welcoming, and pointed out characteristics of different time periods in the various works. I include two images that show the broad range of work that Munch produced:
The final day had many events, as the end of our 50th reunion overlapped with the new Alumni Day begun two years ago when reunions were moved away from graduation weekend. From the Art Museums, I went into Harvard Yard and heard Larry Bacow give his final remarks as president of the university. I haven’t been much of a fan of Bacow as president, not just because I was looking forward to being at graduation for our reunion (Tom Hanks spoke). Others have pointed out that Bacow was not a Harvarad undergrad and will never understand why the 50th reunion (and possibly others) want to be at graduation. I’m also disgruntled at how Harvard has handled the allegations of improper behavior among Anthropology professors. We’ll see how the new president does. Claudine Gay starts her term as president of Harvard on July first.
Mary Louise Kelly (Harvard Alumni Association)Larry Bacow (Harvard Alumni Association)
After the platitudes, there was some good music, but the invited speaker, NPR reporter and host Mary Louise Kelly, didn’t get to speak until almost 1 pm. That was when lunch began all over Harvard Yard and in the adjacent buildings. Thus, the most interesting part of the program began as people started to drift toward the food trucks invitingly parked nearby. I heard a bit of her talk, though I had agreed to meet Jonathan at 1 pm and could only push the time a few minutes.
We left Cambridge after lunch and headed back to Boston for our final day and a half. I was exhausted from all the visiting and walking back and forth, but happily so, and an afternoon nap fixed me up. I am glad that I went to the reunion. It was wonderful to meet up with old friends. I stand by my assertion that people grow kinder and friendlier as they grow older. If you have a notable reunion coming up, high school or college, I highly recommend attending and talking to absolutely everyone.
We’re in Boston, having a look around before my reunion gets underway, and it happens to be Memorial Day Weekend. The city is in high gear, as this is the official start of summer.
On Thursday, I saw the display of 37,000 American flags planted on Boston Common to honor Massachusetts residents who died in combat. A military brass quintet played lovely music on a beautiful sunny day.
I also walked past the most recent sculpture added to Boston Common, the first in 100 years, and the only one that isn’t a sober-faced white man, from the look of it. Naturally, these bronze arms, modeled after a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr and Coretta Scott King, is controversial. I’m not sure I like it, but it is impressive.
The weather is glorious, Boston at its best.
We are staying at the Godfrey Hotel, centrally located and comfortable. We walked to Boston Common, the Public Garden, and along the Charles. Another day, we walked to Long Wharf by way of Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, and the farmers market. The farmers market has amazing prices, shop there if you are staying at a place where you can cook.
We’ve eaten at Jumbo Seafood in Chinatown (try the clams in black bean sauce!). The sushi was good at Irashai on Beach St. (pink lady roll++). French Quarter, just down the street from the hotel, was also good.
We tried Ruka, the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant next door to the hotel. With our long experience in Peru, it didn’t seem very Peruvian, and our waitress explained that they used Peruvian ingredients in Japanese style food. In that context, the menu made more sense, and we enjoyed sushi with a few Peruvian touches. It’s not Peruvian food, but Peru-inflected Japanese food, worth a visit.
We woke up to a clear day in Kalamata and set out for Messene, ancient capital city of the SW Peloponnese, a rare ancient city that was abandoned and not covered with later structures. Founded during the Bronze Age (3000-1000 BC) at the foot of Mt. Ithome, the settlement prospered based on agricultural richness of the region. Around 800 BC, Sparta began conquest of Messene, and after a series of wars, subjugated the area. People went into exile or were made serfs (helots) to Spartan landowners for the next 400 years. At last, in 369 BC, Spartan rule was overthrown and the city of Messene was founded to be the capital of the region.
The walls of Messene are impressive, and are reported to have been built in 85 days by the victors along with exiled Messenians returning from Sicily, North Africa, and elsewhere around the Mediterranean. That’s quite a feat for the time, as the walls encircled the city and Mt. Ithome, more than 5 1/2 miles of stonework and guard towers.
Inside the massive though collapsed Arcadian gate, all the elements of an ancient city of classical Greece are present.
The lintel of the Arcadian Gate, Messene.
The agora at Messene was the town square, shopping precinct, and civic meeting area. At the small amphitheater, or Bouleuterion, a council of citizens met to decide public affairs. Its tile floor is an unusually well-preserved checked pattern. There was also an Asklepion, or healing area, though healing was not the entire focus as it was at Epidaurus.
Messene had a large amphitheater built into an artificial hillside. The stage area included areas for dragging scenery on and off with large wheeled carts.
Messene also had a large stadium surrounded by colonnades, statues, markers, and stele celebrating those who participated in events at the stadium, offerings to patron gods, and efforts to invoke a winning competition. One of the monuments is unique in having a conical roof. The Messene stadium has its starting line in the curved end of the stadium, and the distance was always measured so that the finish line was in the same place–spectators got to see all the exciting parts.
Aristotle showed us a place where athletes sat and whiled away the time playing a game like checkers or tic-tac-toe on a board scratched into a stone step.
By the middle of the second century BC, Rome began to expand, and eventually took control of Greece. In Messene, that meant the addition of Roman villas to the city–the conquest seems to have been more economic than battle-driven. Some of the villas have been excavated, revealing elaborate mosaic floors like the one below.
We enjoyed the completeness of the city of Messene. It was easy to recognize structures and sometimes to distinguish their function. The Bouleterion, amphitheater, and the stadium show that it was large and cosmopolitan city, with people coming from all around to worship, take part in healing ceremonies, trade, or participate in games.
That wasn’t the end of our day, either.
We stopped for lunch in Chora, a town in the hills near Messene. Sitting outside, the view was lovely
In the afternoon, we drove across the hills to the coast to Pylos, another Greek city mentioned by Homer and Pausanias. On the way, we stopped at a large Mycenean (1700-1000 BC) site called Nestor’s Palace. In the Iliad, Nestor is king of Pylos, and though he could have lived at this site, it isn’t certain whose palace it was.
It doesn’t look like much now, but Nestor’s Palace was a grand place in Mycenean times.
Bathing facilities included a row of sinks, and even a bathtub.
There were stores of oil, grain, and perhaps wine, and lots of staff to keep the place going. During the excavations, stacks of dishes were uncovered, and a roomful of broken cups, possibly the result of an earthquake.
Nearby is a large domed tomb, a tholos. The large size suggests that a very grand person was buried inside. The top of the beehive shaped tomb is at least 15 ft high, and represents a lot of work. Though it was looted long ago, the tomb must have held fancy grave goods, perhaps weapons, gold objects, and lots of pottery vessels.
It was lovely to end the day in Pylos on the coast, looking out over the water. For centuries, the city of Pylos was called Navarino by conquering foreigners, from the Frankish conquest in the 13th century until Greek independence in 1830. The last naval battle between sailing ships, the Battle of Navarino, took place off the coast here, and was a crucial win for Greece in establishing independence.
We had dinner along the shore, and ordered a whole fish that the waiter boned at our table.
The Temple of Artemis Orthia is in a different part of Sparta, and waiting until the next morning to visit gave us a moment of sun at the site. This temple goes back to the 9th century BC and was in use for over 1000 years. It is where people went to make offerings to Artemis, where they left many of the votives we saw in the museum.
After lunch of grilled lamb, we moved on from Sparta to Mystras, a nearby site that is much later in time, occupied during the 14th and 15th centuries when the Byzantine Empire ruled the region, and continuing through Ottoman rule. Abandoned in the early 1800s when the city moved to the current location of modern day Sparta (Sparti), Mystras is unusually well preserved. We aren’t particularly interested in Byzantine and Ottoman sites, having seen some wonderful ones elsewhere.
If you have never visited a well-preserved archaeological site, Mystras is a marvel, with many structures still standing. Churches, a monastery, and a variety of houses. It’s a huge ghost town.
It was misty and drippy at Mystras, quite atmospheric, and we enjoyed our walk, though we did not hike as much as is possible. The hike is steep. From there we drove to Kalamata. Along the way, we stopped to see the theater at Megalopolis. Yes, there is a place with that name that is far older than any megalopolis.
We arrived in Kalamata around 5 pm, and I found time to get out to the beach in front of our hotel for some beach combing. I found some beach glass, but it was starting to rain, so we cut our search short. Kalamata doesn’t really have a beach, it’s a gravelly shingle rather than sand. Usually, this kind of shore is good for finding beach glass, but I didn’t find much and decided not to get soaked.
We began the day with a stroll through Nafplio, a lovely seaside town, where I could easily imagine spending a couple of weeks in the summer. There’s even a seaside rock swimming pool that reminded me of the Sydney area. Nafplio was the first capital city of the modern Greek state, 1823-1834. It would be very different today had Athens not taken over as capital. We ended our walk at the fortress that overlooks Nafplio, and stopped in at the museum. As in other places, the Nafplio museum holds treasures from ancient sites. One of the best known is a full suit of ancient Greek armor including a helmet made of boar’s teeth.
Clockwise from upper L: Nafplio; Ocean swimming area; An Ottoman fountain incorporating earlier Venetian architectural elements; Ancient armor & boar tooth helmet; “Mycenaen” style bank building in Nafplio; Street scene; Our hotel.
From Nafplio, we turned toward our first monumental ruin of the day, Epidaurus. This ancient city claims to be the birthplace of Asclepius, a son of Apollo, hero and god of medicine. The shrine of Asclepius at Epidaurus was the largest and best known healing center of the Classical world. From 600 BC to AD 500, people came from all over to be treated. There was a large dormitory/guest house with 160 rooms.
The large complex of rooms for people seeking healing at the Asclepion of Epidaurus
Part of the treatment was an overnight stay in the “incubator”, the enkoimeteria, where supplicants slept and were visited in their dreams by the healing god who instructed them on how to cure themselves. After dreaming, people visited the shrine, made offerings, perhaps bathed in nearby springs, and were cured. Interesting to think about the placebo effect in this setting–did focusing on one’s illness and how to cure it actually help with a cure? The size of the site is what impressed us. Little of the major temple to Apollo still stands, but the site goes on and on.
The fame of Epidaurus as a place for healing made it prosperous. The theater seated 14,000 people and there are exaggerated claims of its excellent acoustics. When we visited, school groups were busy declaiming to the upper seats.
The theater of Epidaurus
We drove to Tolo for lunch, slightly out of the way, but it was worth it. Maria’s restaurant is a seafood place, and we shared marinated sardines, spicy shrimp, mussels in lemon sauce, and scallops served in the shell. They were delicious! For dessert, we had what they call spoon fruit, halfway between stewed and candied fruit. Ours was bergamot, which I only know from flavoring Earl Grey tea. Definitely an acquired taste.
Leonidas, the archtypal Spartan
A bit of a drive later, we reached Sparta. It was drizzling, but that meant we had the site to ourselves. Sparta needs no introduction, famed for conquest, disciplined troops, and competition with Athens. We wanted to visit, because it’s Sparta. Sparta! Aristotle provided a fountain of knowledge as we looked out over the theater. Much of the remaining site is covered by olive trees, and it looks untouched, though archaeological excavations have taken place periodically since the 1890s.
Perhaps because of the rain, our visit was a bit melancholy. Sparta was a world capital in its day, praised and vilified in myth and history, yet the archaeological site of Sparta is often skipped on a tour of the Peloponnese today, because the ruins are not on the same scale as other sites.
The theater of Sparta, a broad grove of olive trees that covers more ancient settlement, and the modern city of Sparta.
The museum at Sparta was full of rewarding things to see. Thousands of votive offerings from small cut-out bone and metal shapes to cast bronze figurines were buried over the centuries in and around the temple of Artemis Orthia, by people who wished for a favor from the gods.
Other pieces were interesting for their detail:
(L-R): Mosaic of a triton; carving of wild boar; “Head of the goddess Tyche (Fortune), the city goddess of Sparta. Her tower-like turreted crown has relief representations of the walls of the city.
Our day ended on a drippy note. The entire week was forecast to be rainy, yet only the afternoon at Sparta and the next morning at Mystras were wet. I can’t complain.
Lunch: Maria’s, Tolo
Dinner and Overnight: Mystras Grand Palace Resort and Spa
Llywindatravels 2025 