Greece Part II (The Mainlanding)
Well, having gone around the Islands and Athens for a period, we decided to jump a fair way north, and several centuries ahead, by going up to Thessaloniki and its surrounds - made famous, of course, for being where Alexander the Great had his start. Before getting there, however, we had a quick trip around Attica - taking in Marathon and Sounion. Marathon was really quite evocative; there wasn't much there, but you could see the whole plain, and they had worked out where significant events occurred, which made it very good. Sounion was also very nice - lovely scenery, and the view out to the Aegean was quite pretty. High enough cliffs for Aegeus to make a very nice dive too.
In the evening we braved the Greek Airport system to get to Thessaloniki - quite a journey as it turned out. To begin with, as we were going through the security checks, the guards decided to take my bag back through, and then pressed some buttons, and zoomed in on a bag with a gun-shaped object, and started pointing at it and me! Then they started saying that it wasn't me, but Mad whose bag it was. About this time I started thinking it was a wind-up, but it was still a relief when they came back with large grins and my bag. Then, when we got to the gate, we learnt our flight was delayed by 2 hours - meaning we didn't actually get to Thessaloniki till after midnight, and it was 1 before we got to our rather 60s-esque hotel rooms.
The next day we headed off to see Pella, which was not incredibly interesting, as it was only a quarter done, but will be when they do it all, as it was the Macedonian capital. More exciting was Vergina, and the tomb of Philip of Macedon. Really really fantastic - the grave goods were impressive, but the entrance to the tomb itself was the main attraction, and it did not disappoint. From there we went down to Dion, at the foot of Mt Olympus, which was unfortunately covered in smog, but still quite impressive. Dion itself was interesting for the amount of water in the site - the shrine to Isis has turned into some sort of idyllic pond, which was nice. Then we drove back to the airport to get a flight back to Athens. All in all, a good day.
From Athens, we drove off the next morning to Eleusis - which was atmospheric, but more open than I had expected, through the Isthmus to Corinth and then on to Nauplion, where we are staying for 4 nights. Nauplion's a cool little seaside town, but Corinth is nothing special. After dinner, we went to Epidauros to watch the Persians in the ancient theatre. The theatre was cool, but the play was a modernist interpretation, and a bad one at that. The choice of interpretation was stupid for the setting, and it would have been nicer if they had not been so wrapped up in their own cleverness that they forgot to actually do any acting. Still, the theatre was good.
Next day (Saturday) was a free day, which was good for me, because I am still not well, and I got to sleep all day, but Sunday saw us up and off to Mycenae, Argos, and Nemea. Mycenae had some very very impressive sights - the Lion Gate and the Tomb of Agamemnon in particular - but others that were quite disappointing. It was really quite small. Still, I suppose it was only to be expected given all the goods from the site were in Athens. Argos had a very interesting theatre, and Nemea still had most of the racetrack from the Nemean games, which was cool. It still had the starting blocks, and the foundations for the starting mechanism, so I got to put my feet where the ancients would have for the start.
largestprime, you don't get a very good start with the blocks, stick to modern ones in my opinion. Today (Monday) was also a free day, which we spent on the beach, very pleasantly, and that leaves only 4 and a half days in Greece left. I'll be sad to leave, but also look forward to getting back.