Athens (Piraeus), Greece – Sunday, December 19

Day 2: After breakfast, set out to explore the Peloponnese peninsula, where you will see the Corinth Canal. Next, you will visit Mycenae to see the Lion Gate and the foundations of Agamemnon’s Palace and the Tomb of Agamemnon. Lunch is included. In Epidaurus, you will see the ancient amphitheater. Return to Athens for the evening. (Breakfast, Lunch)

The Peloponnesus peninsula, Corinth Canal, Mycenae, lunch at the Agamemnon Palace, Epidaurus, drive back to Athens along the Aegean Sea

After about 8 hours of sleep, we awoke more refreshed than Joyce expected considering the lack of sleep on Saturday. We enjoyed a breakfast buffet of just about any breakfast food you can imagine, definitely something for everyone. Alan especially enjoyed pastries and dates, while Joyce enjoyed cheeses, smoked salmon and olives. Olives available for breakfast made me think of Dennis Mahoney and our shared appreciation of all kinds of olives! 

We joined our fellow travelers at 7:45 am. Due the COVID-19 safety precautions , the 32 of us took 2 large buses, allowing us to have at least one row of seats between unrelated persons. Masks are mandated throughout Greece on buses and all indoor public spaces. Tara is our tour director and Laila is our local guide for our 4 days in Athens. We boarded the buses and headed out of Athens for the Peloponnesus peninsula. Our first stop was at the Corinth Canal, connecting the Aegean and Ionian seas. This canal is carved from shear rock walls. It is very narrow, so it is only used for small vessels. 

As we drove through the Greek countryside headed to Mycenae, Laila educated us on Greek mythology. We learned about Greek gods, semi-gods and their escapades with each other and with humans (mortals). Lots of rivalry, power grabbing, distrust, revenge and sexual exploits. Laila summed it up saying there is a reason Greek stories are mostly tragedies. It struck us that each culture is trying to explain God. To us it reinforces the truth of the Bible as the Bible does not need to resort to sensationalism,  such as eating one’s children, or pompous origins for their many gods. The weather started out misty, cloudy, windy and cold. By mid morning clouds began clearing but is remained windy and chilly. We drove by snow covered hills (mountains?), lots of olive trees, vineyards and citrus trees. 

Mycenae – Mycenae was excavated by a German, Heinrich Schliemann, in the late 1800’s after he excavated Troy. Mycenae is a Bronze Age civilization, 1700 – 1100 BC. I’ve decided to relate the timelines of historical events I’m learning about to the Bible to orient it in my mind. Moses’ life falls within this time period. Mycenae, a city state, was the home of Agamemnon, one of Greece’s most powerful kings. History and legend are combined in Homer’s writing about the Trojan War, with some of the history documented by the excavation of Schliemann. The ruins are quite large, containing graves and homes for merchants and artisans outside the city walls at lower elevations with the ruling class inhabiting the hilltop palace (acropolis) inside the city walls. We went inside a beehive shaped tomb containing a larger room for the most recently deceased to contain the weapons, food and drink he needed for his journey through the Underworld. On the side was a smaller room to serve as an ossuary for the bones of ancestors. The construction of the beehive was truly amazing, fitted, dressed stone with no visible mortar or supports gradually narrowing in diameter until the opening could be closed with a single stone. Above the entrance was a triangular opening for ventilation and light at the solar solstice. We climbed the steep stone path to the palace ruins, which was no small task. We walked through the palace ruins down and around the back side to the cistern. Most of the ruins in the area have a small archaeological museum at each site. Instead of visiting the museum we opted to spend our remaining time at the site at the grave circle ruins, used at an earlier time for nobility inside the city walls. Throughout the site and while walking back to the bus, we encountered several very friendly cats. If there is a cat around, Joyce will find is and if it is friendly, she will pet it!

The next stop was lunch at a relatively newly constructed restaurant build to resemble Agamemnon’s palace. The restaurant was a large airy room with large windows with a great view of the mountains and Greek countryside. We ate with Grace and Tom from Columbus, Ohio and Doris from Minnesota. Our meal was delicious with courses of spinach pie, Greek salad, roasted lamb with potatoes and orange cake. So far every meal we have had in Greece is accompanied with bread and Tzatziki sauce. Alan and Tom enjoyed ribbing each other about Purdue and Ohio State.

After lunch, it was off to Epidaurus.  The wind had died with the sky mostly sunny and the temperature had warmed to the low 50’s. We visited the 4th-century BC Theatre of Epidaurus, with its outstanding acoustics, which has to do with its construction and the properties of the limestone. It is one of the best-preserved ancient sites in Greece, seating 14,000 and still used for summer performances today. Outside the theatre is the Asklepieion, devoted to Asklepios, god of healing. The extensive therapeutic and religious sanctuary was active from the 6th century BC until at least the 2nd century AD. We visited the on-site archaeological museum containing both reconstructions and original statues, columns and cornices. Joyce was surprised at the sizes of statues varying from about  8 inches in height to 10 feet with several sizes in between. Many of the columns and cornices were the originals with some areas reconstructed so we could identify the flowers, animal heads, etc. 

We headed back to Athens along the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. It was a beautiful drive, with blue water dotted with small islands and a backdrop of hills and snow covered mountains. We enjoyed a quiet 2 hour ride with times of napping and reflection on God’s incredibly beautiful, diverse creation.