Istanbul Arrival

 Hotel Armada was nicely located, and we had a great room opening onto the back of the hotel One of my first actions in Turkey was to exchange some money. After trying some smaller credit shops, I went to the bank. While awaiting the calculation, I was given some tea-quite civilized.  The only trouble…

Goodbye Greek Island Tour

We had to get up at 6 AM for the one day “cruise with lunch”, basically a cattle car on the water. In Piraeus, by a destroyer in the harbor where we picked up the cruise, there was a model of an ancient Greek trireme. Our initial stop, Aegina, featured a model of the Parthenon…

Twilight Of The Gods

It was a long, drive back from Meteora and we got to home base at the grand Britannia barely in time to appreciate that our room was now a suite with extra fruit and red wine. We had just 1/2 hour to eat and pick up before a long walk took us to the spectacular…

Visiting Delphi

Delphi’s mythology, geography, architecture and history all combine to build interest In one of the worlds most unique areas. First Inhabited thousands of years ago in the Neolithic, and rebuilt on Mycenaean ruins, the oracle was founded in the eighth century BC when Opollo slew the serpent, python. Originally named Pythia, Delphi became known as…

Delphi And Greek Mythology

Zeus released two eagles from the “ends of the Earth”. They came together and crossed over Delphi, the center of the earth, its  omphalos or navel. Delphi became an important temple of many-talented Opollo, who among other diverse functions, was the god of prophecy. The inner sanctum of Opollo’s temple was in a cella, “dark…

The Landscape Of War

Ancient Greeks were either practicing to fight, as in the Olympic Games, fighting among themselves, or resisting larger, more unified neighbors such as Persia, Macedonia, and Rome. Famous battlegrounds decorated our way to Delphi.  As we left Olympia, we visited its port, Pirgos, the capital of the Elis prefecture. Next was Patrias, the site of…

Classic Olympia

The flurry excitement and action of the July and August Olympic Games in Ancient Olympia is hard to imagine looking at what remains; a few blocks of stone and fallen columns. The first stadium in the world was built there in 776 BC. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the giant, “divinely…

Across Arcadia To Olympia

Olympia is located on the west side of the Peloponnesian peninsula in the prefecture of Ilia, and required us to travel across the entire peninsula. Along the way, we found ripe cherries at Nafpolion and admired some interesting castle walls above 19th century neoclassical buildings. We passed a Venetian castle on the isle of bourtzi…

The Healers Of Epidaurus

The gods and mythological creatures came with us to Epidaurus. Asklepios, the child of Apollo and Coronis, was taught healing by Chiron, who was not at all the usual barbaric and chaotic centaur, but a good teacher, who also instructed Jason and Heracles. . The Snake coiled around Asklepios’ staff, still emblematic of the medical…

Mythology Or History?

Everything we saw in Greece was entwined with gods, heroes, and myths, so it was sobering to see an actual structure dated to about the time as the Trojan war, 1250 BC. Mycenae, on the Peloponnese, was the first ancient site we visited outside of Athens. On an outcropping of rock there( called the acropolis),…