Running around the Peloponnese, Day 6: Delphi

The last stop on our Panhellenic tour was Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus and most famous for its Oracle (the Pythia). It was also site of the second-largest athletic games, after Olympia.

(the gymnasium and palaestra)

 According to myth, Zeus released an eagle at the western edge of the world and another at the eastern edge of the world, and the point where they met was at this exact spot. This sculpture therefore marks Delphi as the "navel" of the Earth.

 A treasury of Athens, for the explicit purpose of bragging to other city-states

 Temple to Apollo

 The Pythian (Delphic) Games included musical and theatrical competitions...this is a Roman reconstruction of the theater and its acoustics are pathetic compared to Epidauros...

 The stadium

 (The Egyptians weren't the only ones with sphinxes)

Another important sculpture, the Charioteer of Delphi

I have for the most part left out descriptions of dinner, because most of them were not particularly noteworthy (because it is now the off-season, most of the towns we stayed at were mostly shut down and eating options were severely limited). However, dinner in Delphi was fantastic. I got the wild boar (slow roasted in a rich wine sauce with pearl onions and roasted garlic and juniper berries...and naturally served with french fries on the side), but also tasted "rooster soup" (not just ye olde chicken soup here) and veal with handmade pasta. A great way to end the trip!

Running around the Peloponnese, Day 5: Olympia

Day 5 was the much-awaited visit to Olympia!

It was especially exciting after having learned so much about Olympia in class, but it's an incredible site regardless of your knowledge.

My professor guided us as if we were ancient athletes preparing to compete in the Olympic games. He led us through the gymnasium (where athletes competing in the footraces and pentathlon would train for the month prior to the games) and the palaestra (where athletes competing in boxing, wrestling, and the no-rules-bloodbath pankration would train)

We passed into the sanctuary, which held the Temple of Hera (the oldest Greek temple), the Temple of Zeus, a shrine to Pelops (who the games were originally honoring) and...the Philippeion to King Phillip II of Macedonia.

This is of course blasphemy, because Phillip was certainly not a god and therefore did not belong in the sanctuary...but who was going to stop Phillip? He died before its completion, but his son--Alexander the Great--ensured that it was built...no one, it turns out, wanted to mess with him either. (Can you tell that I just had a midterm about the Panhellenic games??)

We continued down the path lined with 'zanes' (statues to Zeus bearing the names of those who cheated and were caught...a walk of shame situation), through the vault, and into the stadium:

We were challenged by one of the other CYA groups to a race, and proceeded in the true ancient Greek spirit. My professor carefully announced to all of the runners that "the endline is clearly visible" and left it at that. What he neglected to mention was that there was a Roman end line that's about 20 meters short of the proper Greek end line. Tragically (for those in the other class) and humorously (for those of us in the know), our competitors sprinted through the first end line and did little victory jumps as we dashed past them to the true end. Ancient Greek sportsmanship was all about unfair play as long as it was clever!

Here's the workshop of the great Greek sculptor Phidias (who constructed the ivory and gold statue of Zeus which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This workshop was later converted into a Roman basilica...as many things were):

And a hotel (because every great sporting events needs great accommodation)

And at the Olympia museum...the fantastic pediments of the Temple of Zeus:

Also saw Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxiteles--which I do have a picture of but it is an insult to the artwork, does no justice whatsoever. Suffice it to say it was one of the most perfect sculptures I've ever seen.

Running around the Peloponnese, Day 4: Methoni Castle

This post is for my dear brother, because it was probably the first (and only) thing I've done in Greece that he would have enjoyed (other than eating):

Perhaps my favorite site was Methoni Castle, an awesome Venetian castle on the Ionian sea.

Things that made it awesome:

1) Winds so strong that they practically blew me over

2) I had the chance to scale actual castle walls

3) I was the only person in this castle after everyone else (or at least everyone within my sight) lost interest in playing in the castle. I contemplated ditching this whole "study abroad" thing and holing up in here for a while.

It was all mine...

Then we went to Pylos, had a little history lesson at the fort of Pylos about two major naval battles that happened at the port (one in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, one in the war for Greek independence from the Ottomans). Then we were given the option of checking out the tiny museum on underwater archaeology. We were given a tour through the one-room exhibit by the head archaeologist of the site, who showed us artifacts found in various ancient shipwrecks and then casually told us that 15 days ago he had discovered  the remains of an underwater city dating back 5000 years. Atlantis anyone? Also, if we had been a week later, we would have been able to see these remains by means of scuba diving or a glassbottom boat!

Then we went to Nestor's Palace, another Mycenaean settlement. (Not photogenic enough to warrant any pictures, especially because I was at this point concerned that my camera battery would die before we hit the big guns of Olympia and Delphi)

Running around the Peloponnese, Day 3: Mystras & Messene

Day 3, we visited the fortified town of Mystras, built on a hillside overlooking the Laconia valley. Scrambling up to the castle keep, and then winding our way back down, stopping along the way to look at monasteries tucked into the hill...I'd say it was a morning well spent.

Due to an unfortunate case of guards-deciding-to-do-what-they-want-to-do-despite-the-official-posted-hours, we were going to arrive at our second planned site, Messene, the ruins of a Classical Greek city-state, after it had closed. But once again proving it's all about knowing the right people and saying the right things (which in this case included my professor pulling the "oh by the way I excavate here, bitch please" card), we were let into the site specially.

This gives some idea of the site, which is 25 acres. We saw only a small portion: yet another stadium, as well as an agora (the judicial, administrative, social, and religious center). Really well restored, as you can see:

This site was particularly fun because the head of excavations follows the belief that sites should be as interactive as possible, and there were therefore no ropes, no restrictions, and no rules. Our professor explicitly told us to frolic and misbehave.

Running around the Peloponnese, Day 2: Epidauros & Mycenae

The second day, we started off with the archaeological site of Epidauros, the largest healing sanctuary of ancient Greece. It was an expansive site, and beyond having the hospital ward and the temple to the demigod of healing, Asklepios, there was the largest hotel in antiquity, an athletic stadium, and--most famously--the Theater of Epidauros. Standing at the very top row of the theater, one can hear a coin hitting the ground or the ripping of a piece of paper on stage. One of the few places where you can literally hear a pin drop.

Then we drove over to Mycenae, one of the administrative centers of the Mycenaean civilization in the late Bronze Age. They were known for their "Cyclopean" architecture (referring in this case to the size rather than the one-eyed-ness of the Cyclops)--massive blocks forming massive tombs and walls.

This gives a sense of size: you can barely see the figure of a person? That's the tallest guy in my program, he's 6'2ish. Not only is the tomb huge, the blocks used are individually huge. That slab of rock creating the top of the doorway is massive. We're talking 120-tons-massive.

The Lion Gate at Mycenae...it's kind of a big deal to Art History buffs...

The citadel of Mycenae

We ended up in Sparta for the night, which was somewhat disappointing considering its fame in antiquity. But there were the "best donuts in the world" according to Nadia (I'm starting to sense the main determinant of where we stayed each night, and I'm very okay with it).

Running around the Peloponnese, Day 1: Nemea and Nafplion

Sorry for the long silence, I've spent the past week running around the Peloponnese (and Delphi). Literally running--on the tracks of various ancient stadiums--for my "Sports, Games & Spectacles in the Greco-Roman World" class. It was the second of our program-organized, program-wide trips (the first being Crete), and was awesome in all ways.

Things didn't seem very promising at the start, as we drove out of Athens and into torrential rain. We stopped at the Isthmus canal, which I'm afraid I could not appreciate fully due to the weather (though it is quite an impressive feat, I can say that much). We had to cancel our first scheduled stop at ancient Isthmia (site of one of the four "Panhellenic Games," which also includes the more well-known Olympic games) because of flooding. Nemea (another of the Panhellenic Game sites), we were told, was also flooded and inaccessible. But as one of the professors cheerily said, "If you don't like the weather in Greece, wait a minute." And indeed, as we drove on the weather cleared off and it became a bright sunny day. We stopped at Nemea anyway for a visit with the head excavator on the site and a presentation about the re-creations of the Nemean Games (which are held every four years and look quite fun). Once we were there, with a little string-pulling we were allowed onto the sanctuary, dedicated to Zeus:

With a little more string-pulling, the track was opened specially for us (there were hardly signs of flooding there anyway...)

The vault (it was originally though that Romans were the first to master the barrel vault. This clearly proves that to be false...this is arguably the first vault in history! Well, a reconstructed version) that lead from the "locker room" to the stadium.

 The stadium

The original starting line! ("valvides"); runner placed the ball of one foot in one groove, other foot in other.

Then we drove up to the top of the hill and walked around the Venetian castle overlooking the original capital of Greece, Nafplion.

In the evening, we had a brief tour of the town, ending at a gelato shop where our professor bought us all gelato (insisting it was the best in the world). Then we went to a wine tasting where I finally got to experience some real Greek wine (not just the cheap house wine we usually order at tavernas or the oversized plastic bottles we usually buy from the grocery store).