10 Days in Greece
It was a windy little ferry across the Straight of Corinth, and our eyes oggled over the Grecian landscape and the famous Harilaos Trikoupis Bridge, currently the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world (the bridge is behind those silly girls).
After eating at a restaurant, we wandered a soft stone beach along Mediterranean, which continued to extend as we attempted to reach further inland toward Delphi.
The Temple to Apollo rests atop a very interesting place on the earth’s crust, under which four seismic plates collide at one level or another, which, thousands of years ago, caused a strange gas to surface. Ancient Greeks centered the temple above this and let the priests and control it. The gas gave them the ability to predict other’s future paths…or it just sent them on a strange psychedelic trip. Whether it was a grace from above or some serious kind of high is beyond me, but it certainly makes for an interesting story.
As an American traveler from the 21st century, I can certainly say that it was worth going to Delphi just for this view. I didn’t need to be cleansed and told how to solve my problems like they did in antiquity. But then again, I didn’t have to climb over mountains upon mountains by foot like they did.
Hosias Lukas, a Byzantine monastery in the mountains of Greece, was revolutionary in term of church architecture.
In Ancient Greece, you could vote on a pot shard as a ballot to banish someone from the city. These are example of this procedure, which is called ostracism, except these were doctored by a small group of Athenian citizens who forged them in order to kick someone out of Athens quickly. It didn’t work, though. Eventually they were caught. Oh, Athenian Justice!
Greek ouzo is an experience. According to the locals, if you drink too much, you loose feeling in your leg, and if you drink it without adding water and ice, you get immediately classified as an alcoholic. They seemed like important warnings.
In almost every picture I’ve seen of the Acropolis, construction surrounds the Parthenon. I guess it’s a work in progress when you’re trying to keep a building on its feet that was built in 500BC.
Mycenae, one of Greece’s pre-Athens civilizations, built these huge tombs for the city’s royalty, which also served as large treasury. I don’t suppose they did this around 3000BC, but we reveled in the echo the cave produced when we shouted Irish songs at the top of our lungs.
In my opinion, the Theatre at Epidaurus is one of the greatest architectural marvels. Everyone sitting in the theatre can hear any noise from the center of the ground-floor stage, even a penny drop. The Drama major inside of me loves it.
On the Venetian Fortress in Napflion. We went exploring in the bowels of the castle, got lost, burned out our light source, almost fell in a 10 foot trap, and somehow came out the other end unscathed. It was so much fun.
More castle action. This fortress took three years to build, but only three days to take. Ouch.
