From Ancient Athens to the Modern Olympiad 3

Mycenae: City rich in gold

The third day of the tour dawned early and bright.  That morning we were going to the site of ancient Mycenae to see the former palace.  Many years ago I studied a year of Ancient History at St Andrews as a minor subject as part of my degree and I remember clearly Professor Rickman lecturing us about Schliemann and Evans'  discoveries but not the details.  Whilst I teach English literature and Law, History is possibly my greatest love: to the point where I couldn't ruin it by teaching it. Due to the passage of years since I studied it I had forgotten much of the detail of the Mycenean civilisation and it was a real pleasure to go to the site and be reminded.

The first part of the visit was to a tholos or beehive tomb at a distance from the site.  It's known as the Treasury of Atreus after the somewhat bloodthirsty Homeric story of King Atreus who had his nieces and nephews cooked and served to their father, his brother, in revenge. The photos cannot hope to make clear how huge the rocks that form the tomb are or just how breathtaking it is inside, particularly as it would have been constructed somewhere around 1500 BC.

The photo below shows the entrance (or dromos) and the lintel above the door is a single slab of rock estimated at 120 tons in weight. This weight is incredible when you consider that this was constructed in the Bronze Age before any mechanical heavy lifting equipment was available. It is believed that the triangular shape above the lintel was put there to ensure that, when an earthquake occurred, the forces would crack the lintel to the side and preserve the doorway rather than in the centre, which would bring the entire structure down. If you look carefully at the left of the lintel you will see a crack which was caused by an earthquake and it follows the line of the triangle above.

The main acropolis of Mycenae was across the road and is a stunningly beautiful place, built high above a gorge on one side for protection and with views across Greece to the sea in the distance.

Mycenae was the city that Homer described as 'rich in gold'.  In the Homeric epics it is where Helen is kidnapped from Menelaus, her husband, by Trojan prince, Paris.  If you don't have time to read the Iliad at the moment you could use one of the two sources I used on the holiday to remind myself of the stories: the first is the brilliant Orange prize winning novel The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller which is a truly beautiful retelling of Homer or the utterly brilliant Horrible Histories retelling (please watch this, it's hilarious). Schliemann named many of the sites after the rather unpleasant Atrean kings and queens, but as the Myceneans only used writing for business, not history, it's impossible to tell whether Agamemnon, Klytemnestra or Menelaus were ever real.

The Grave Circle A is where the Schliemann uncovered a death mask and a body so well preserved that, for a second, he could see the facial features of the warrior before it turned to dust.  He sent a wire to the King of Greece claiming 'I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon' but whether it was, who knows?

Grave Circle A and the death mark (now in the Archaeological museum of Athens)

Mycenae also has the famous Lion Gate which is one of the earliest remaining pieces of representational art in Greek culture.  The lions' heads were originally separate and possibly gold, certainly by the visit of Pausanius in the 2nd centure AD they were long gone.

The rest of the site is beautiful but not a great deal remains. We looked around and my son had a brilliant time pretending to 'take' the postern gate.

Later in the day we travelled to Sparta for an overnight stay. Sparta is now a modern city built near the ruins of the Ancient city.  Fascinatingly, it has not been excavated and I do feel that part of the reason is that Sparta has had a terrible rap from history in comparison to the much-admired Athenian society.  The Spartan ideal of the warrior is certainly alien to us: they studied from age 7 and did not get their freedom from the army until 60.  However, women in Spartan society were certainly much better treated than Athenian women as this Horrible Histories Historical Wife Swap demonstrates. My son and I went to look at the statue of Leonidas and then to look around the unexcavated, but still evocative, ruins of ancient Sparta.

From Ancient Athens to the Modern Olympiad 2

The second day of the tour we became starkly aware of the difference between travelling independently and being on an organised coach tour 'wake up call 6am, suitcases outside room at 6:45, breakfast at 7, on coach at 7:30.  Don't be late'. I had a sense of gathering doom at being up so early on holiday and there was no way I could get any breakfast down except juice and coffee. I don't eat breakfast usually in order to give myself as much sleeping time as possible but, when in hotels and it's paid for, I try to cough down a croissant.  At 7am: no chance.

The value of the early start became obvious when we arrived at the Acropolis at 8am.  It was still very cool and there was nobody around. When we descended later the hordes of tourists toiling up in the broiling 11am heat made me aware that sometimes tour companies know best.

The Acropolis is stunning. Truly stunning.  I admit that as I stood and looked at the Parthenon for the first time my eyes were pricking with tears as I was so overwhelmed to be there. Another lifetime prejudice against tour guides was sorted out too: the lady showing us around contextualised everything very well and the ugly rock with steps was transformed into the areopagus rock which St Paul used as his pulpit.

Further round we came to the propylaea which was the ancient entrance to the sacred centre of the Acropolis. It's stunning now: what must it have been like when Phidias had just completed it?

The first building we visited inside the site was the Parthenon; one of the great buildings of antiquity. It's devastating to know that a building that was constructed between 447 and 432BC was still largely extant until the 17C when the Ottomans stored gunpowder in it, which exploded and knocked much down.  Then Lord Elgin harvested the friezes and metopes. Fascinatingly, it's not designed in parallel lines but with imperceptible curves and wider pillars to give a more beautiful, unified whole. It might have been damaged and ravaged over its millennia but its still a privilege to visit it.

Also, on the Acropolis is the Erectheion, a temple which commemorates both the first king of Athens and the battle between Poseidon and Athena over who would be worshipped by the people of the city.  Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and salt water sprung out, Athena caused the first olive tree to grow and was declared the victor. My son loved looking for the hole where Poseidon struck and at the olive tree that is there for Athena. Of note architecturally are the caryatids which were pillars sculpted in the shape of women.  Three are now in the Acropolis Museum and one in the British Museum.

After we descended from the Acropolis we went on a coach tour of Athens and visited the Panathenaic stadium where the first modern Olympic games were held by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896. It's a beautiful construction of marble and we got to start our build up of excitement to London 2012 there.

After we left Athens the coach took us for lunch by the Corinth canal. Photos cannot adequately cover the shock of the depth of the canal as you walk over it on a bridge.  Each person exclaimed 'oh my god!' as they stepped over and saw the plunging depth. It's a truly amazing piece of 19th Century engineering.

The journey continued to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus, an amphitheatre that has incredible acoustics.My son and I had excellent fun sitting on the top step and reciting things to the other on the stage and vice versa.

Our overnight stay was at Nauplia, a city I had never heard of, but that was the first capital of Greece following liberation from the Ottomans. It's very beautiful and we went on a cheesy but enjoyable tourist boat ride on a caique out to a fort and then had dinner with all the other coach tourists.  A long, tiring and utterly amazing day.

From Ancient Athens to the Modern Olympiad 1

I have been very remiss about writing this blog for a very long time. It almost seems that my son and I haven't been doing very much at all but in fact we have been incredibly busy. Inspired by my friend Highwaylass I am going to endeavour to do a lot of homework and catch up on the wonderful experiences we have had recently enjoyed.

As the title suggests we have been to Greece this summer.  A couple of years ago we were caught in Crete by the Icelandic volcano eruption and this caused my son to become interested in the stories in Greek mythology; you can read about it here. I promised that when he was 9 I would take him backpacking around Greece and we would see some of those places for ourselves.  However, with the economic crisis in that country I decided not to risk getting caught by strikes etc and we booked on to a managed coach tour.  For the next few days I am going to blog about that trip and share some of the wonderful places we visited. For the record there were no problems with strikes or unrest whilst we were there and, if you are looking for a holiday, I would say go to Greece.  It's a beautiful, inspiring place and they need your tourist euros.

Day 1: The Acropolis of Athens

The first day was meant to be a free day and our Wonders of Ancient Greece tour wanted us to pay the optional 88 euros extra to go on a cruise around Aegina, Poros and Hydra. However, I was in Athens and nothing was going to stop me going to see the Acropolis. Our hotel was on the Saronic Gulf and about a 45 minute tram ride from Syntagma square.  I have to say the tram was clean, cool and efficient.

On arriving, we were blown away with out first view of the Acropolis. It's an unbelievable evocative place and for all the controversy about the Elgin Marbles etc the Parthenon is imposing and breathtaking. We knew that we were going up the Acropolis the following day as part of an included tour so we stood at the bottom and gawped.

Entirely accidentally, we crossed Syntagma square, wandered into an archaeological site and found the Temple of  Olympian Zeus, started in the 6th Century BC and completed by Hadrian in the 2nd Century AD. Next door was the Arch of Hadrian, through which you could see the Parthenon. It was wandering around this site that I recollected how easily countries like Greece and Rome carry their ancient heritage.  In Britain the smallest section of Roman wall is carefully displayed and wondered over. Here, in Greece, parts of huge temples are still extant. It is mindblowing.

Our main objective, particularly in the searing heat, was the Acropolis museum.  It's a fairly new museum and they don't allow photography inside. It's built on top of part of the ancient city (as, indeed, all central Athens is) and the designers have installed glass floors so that you can see them clearly. Inside are stunning sculptures and cult items excavated on the Acropolis.  The top floor is set out as the Parthenon with parts of the frieze removed from the temple to preserve them. There is also a video about the temple with a fairly hard line commentary that says that Lord Elgin 'plundered' the Parthenon and making a very clear case that they think the British museum should return them.  I don't know what to think.  Part of me thinks they belong in Greece but, equally, all museums across the world have artefacts from a variety of non-native civilisations and if they were all returned then the museums would be much the poorer.  Can you imagine the Louvre or the Hermitage if they returned everything that wasn't French or Russian? It's certainly controversial.

When we left the air-conditioned museum we were hit by an enervating wall of heat that our poor northern European bodies couldn't cope with and so we caught the tourist train around the Plaka district, looking at the shops, buildings and view. Incredibly, it was only 7 euros for both my son and I: in England a similar journey would be far more expensive. Greece is a great country for tourists - it's got so much to offer for really very little money, particularly in comparison to Italy which can be eye-wateringly expensive.