Mycenae

I've been fascinated with the neolithic up to and including the bronze age for years, what really appeals to me is there is so little that has been established for sure. The things we read and see are often just assumptions based on scant evidence and in some cases just someones opinion. The fact is that many of the finds from this period are discoloured, so to speak by modern ways of thinking. And when I say modern I'm thinking established pantheons of gods, monotheism and the existing understanding of labour divisions in society.

Basically I like making up my own theories.
More about that later, for now the touristy stuff:

The Plain of Argolis

The citadel on the climb upwards

The site of ancient Mycenae is a good distance from the ancient shore and surrounded by towering peaks and sheer drops on all but one side where the visitor still approaches along the modern road. I'm quite glad I got there slowly on foot because I got a fantastic impression of why the first builders chose this place; it is very easy to defend and very hard to attack.

The road continued on it's uphill gradient for 2km before reaching the first of the monuments. 

looking pleased

Oh no! School trip with 90 uninterested noisy city kids!

Because low season is the best season as well as not sweating half my body-weight out on the climb up, I pretty much had the place to myself. One school trip could be easily avoided though I could here them for miles. Other coach trips came and went with alarming rapidity, the poor souls, what if some of them actually wanted to see the place? I guess that's why I'm doing this whole 'slow travel' thing.

The great walls

The iconic 'Lion gate'- it was incredible

Detail, see where the heads were attached?  

Grave circle A, formerly outside the fortifications but brought inside with the second phase of construction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_Circle_A,_Mycenae

The foundations of the palace area near the summit, the central hearth is under the little roof.

The palace foundation, I think they built in a big window overlooking the plain.

A gorge protects this side.

I must say, I love this picture.

The acropolis and the reverse side of the citadel were incredibly quiet, I could here a little birdsong, the wind moving around the rocks and through the plants and some goat bells from the mountainside across the gorge.

Inside the tunnel to the underground cistern.

The emergency exit 

The beehive grave chamber with the best acoustic properties

In the tomb chamber closest to the lion gate I discovered that in the center of the chamber sound is reflected inwards to a focal point. The sounds my feet made on the gravel were eerily muffled but also concentrated in certain frequencies. This gave me an idea that perhaps the walls were built to reflect a certain kind of sound rather than white noise. Perhaps this was an attempt to re-create and better the acoustic properties of a earlier burial cave. Recent conversations I had with Alex during those long rainy camping nights about the use of sound in meditation and the opening of the human mind to new perceptions mixed together in my mind with my ideas about religious continuity, the worship of earth deities underground, caverns acting as a womb to return the dead and ancestor worship. It's good to think and come up with crazy theories! So here's mine:

The subterranean beehive tombs were constructed to provide a place to intern the heroic dead of a particular dynasty in the womb of mother earth, and most importantly, their essence could be contacted or even joined with in the dark caverns by certain members of the society during meditation that probably involved continuous low pitched humming/singing that focuses very well in the exact center of the tomb.

Sounds crazy but I had fun trying it out.

Me too!

Development of the female deity

Remember the Minoan snake goddess statue?

Friendly Kitten

The 'Cyclopean' walls

A coach trip of Italian tourists trying to get over finding an insane Englishman humming like a maniac in the middle of a dark tomb... 

The 'treasury of Atreus' was not so good acoustically

I had a great time at Mycenae, I'm off to Patras next, then Athens where more shameless tourism may follow...

Hania to Mykines

Today was a good day; I rarely do touristy things but today I visited a place I've wanted to see for years and years and years. That's why I'm the only outsider (tell a lie, there is a German archaeologist staying in another hotel) in the village of Mykines, a village who's economy is entirely based upon visitors to the archaeological site.

Hungry-looking restaurant owners line the single street, standing beside lines upon lines of dining tables, each decked out with immaculate linen flapping in the breeze. Cutlery for two, four, six, napkins, upturned water glasses, salt, pepper. 

No customers.

Hands wringing at the sight of the stranger approaching. Knuckles white, fingernails cutting into palms, anxious looks across the road to the competition, smile nicely. Cook reading the paper in the back, side-whispered angry words across the quiet to him, teeth brown from coffee, old dog lifts his head.

Souvenir shops, postcard racks, anachronistic reproduction sculptures and 'This is Sparta' t-shirts part to reveal more smiling faces with pleading eyes.

Please spend some money.

Back to the journey...

I took the bus back over the mountains to Hania in order to meet my next host; Nikolaos. The bus broke down on the way and to my surprise the driver got out to fix it himself, which he did in a little over an hour. It seems the bus drivers here often own their buses and are entirely responsible for their upkeep and repair.

Passengers wondering if the driver left the handbrake on before he got out

Niko and his brother took me along to a Cretan going away party in a mountain village on the first night. This kind of thing is exactly the reason I'm travelling, to see and possibly take part in the customs of the people whose land I'm travelling through. No photos exist of that night. The good traditional food, strong wine,haunting songs,friendly people and shooting randomly into the air are all in my head.

Ferry to the mainland

Out of season is the best season

The ferry ride was uneventful and not at all crowded, which was just as well as I couldn't get to sleep in my seat with all the lights on, noise from the TV sets everywhere and people walking around the ship all night long. So I made a little nest under a row of seats and used my rolled-up hoodie as an improvised pillow and blindfold. By 6.15 am the next morning I was standing on the quayside of Piraeus harbour, and with the help of my smartphone I had navigated Athens and was by 9.30 sitting on a bus bound for Kalamata.

Kalamata bus station, torrential rain.

There's not much for a traveler to do in a rainy city when all the things to see are outside apart from sit in a cafe and wait for the weather to pass. I'm spending a lot of time in cafes at the moment...

Cafe culture, looks like Cuthbert has been talking too much.

Kalamata also has the church where the Greek patriots swore to free the Peloponnese from Turkish rule, as you can see I was wondering how they all got inside at the same time...

Small yellow car shown for scale

My host in Kalamata usually lives with his sister but this week they had their parents down, at first I thought the situation could be a little awkward, but I'm learning to drop that kind of knee-jerk reaction that has stopped me from experiencing many interesting things in the past

so I took the opportunity to stay with a Greek family.

Mixalis and Ioannis taking me on a trip to see the mountains.

Sometimes along the way you are moved by the degree of love and acceptance shown by a host, hospitality is a word to describe a welcome that in some ways we are conditioned by our society to give, and on some level although freely given, hospitality is taken as matter of course. I will remember my stay with Yanni and his family in Kalamata as an experience beyond hospitality; in that the acceptance given to me for the five days I spent in their home, the home cooking, the openness about the politics and problems affecting the country and the way that even with the odd language barrier there was still a friendly dialogue. 

Kalamata from above

The family Manolaudis and the intruder at dinner

Navarino bay

Yanni and his father took me on several day trips during my stay, up into the mountains to see the views, to such a high altitude I could feel the air was colder and thinner. To a beautiful bay village (Kardamyli) with original non-concrete architecture and to Pylos, to visit the Mycenaean palace, the castles and Navarino bay. All three were closed due to Monday. The funny thing is, it didn't matter.

The next leg of the journey meant three bus journeys taking most daylight hours. After a lift to the bus station via the supermarket for some emergency rations, just in case, I headed to Tripolis, then changed to a bus to Argos, and that's where the problems started....

The bus ride over the mountains- epic.

Not actually what I wanted to see; the castle at Navplion

In spite of me stating my destination to the driver clearly,and it's prominent position on my bus ticket, the driver took a short cut along the coast road and skipped my destination! Ten minutes after getting off the bus the penny dropped as I was standing close to a harbour while Argos is a way inland. The old woman in the ticket kiosk insisted the next bus north left at 10am the next morning and it was getting cold and dark. I withdrew some more money at an ATM, just in case, sat in a nearby park and ate some of my emergency rations and had tried to figure out the problem. After half an hour a group of buses pulled up. I put the salami away and walked around them and saw one bus had Αθήνα (Athena) written on the front, so I asked the driver if he went north, then said some names of places, Argos? Yes. To Corinthos? Yes. Stop at Fichtia? YES! It was the right bus! Even the ticket I had bought from the machine before I asked at the ticket counter was valid. It's funny how things just work out.

Walking the road from Fichti to Mykines

After several hours on buses, even more hanging around bus stations and a few moments wondering where the hell I was going next later I arrived.

Mykines is the closest settlement to the site of the ancient citadel of Mycenae, the reason I made this detour. Super-touristy pictures of the ruins to follow.