Greece - Day 7 - Athens

So, Athens. One of the great cities of history - and yet everyone tells us that a day will suffice. I'm guessing that those people don't like museums as much as I do, but it's not actually that far wrong. We start off the day trying to book our train tickets to Thessaloniki, which is a bit of a mission due to the nationwide public transport strike - we end up having to book an extra night in our Athens hotel, and get a next morning train to Thessaloniki, which isn't too much of an imposition, I guess.

From there to the touristing, which means starting with a trip to the Acropolis museum, which is large, well presented and rammed with fellow tourists. The museum is built on glass over an archeological site - you can look down, and twenty metres below your feet, there are partially excavated buildings. Fascinating place. It's crammed with statuary, most of it of stunning quality. I got lost well behind Dave pretty quickly, due to my slow reading speed and my tendency to read, look at exhibit, re-read, and then look again, and then go back to another one that I thought was nice... Quite interesting were the many signs up stating the case for the Elgin Marbles return. These were very strident about the Marbles "theft", but the signs were very careful not to mention that they were lying in ruin when they were taken, nor that they were taken with the blessings of the legal authority at the time, nor that the nation Greece, from which the Marbles were "stolen", did not in fact exist at that time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sure that it's right that the British have the things, but if you go about with weasel words and half-truths, you certainly get no sympathy from me.

That said, the bits of the facade left in Greece are well-presented and great to look at; really fascinating.

Anywho, after wandering the museum for a while, it was time to head out onto the site itself; brave the beating sun and climb the Acropolis. The feeling of climbing onto one of the most famous sites in the world was special, though the heat was rather hard to deal with, especially with the stone radiating it from below. The Parthenon is about as impressive as you'd expect - very - though it could do with a little less scaffolding. Still, spectacular stuff. We wandered around it in a pretty leisurely manner, taking some obligatory tourist photos and looking out on the rather spectacular view of Athens that you get from that high up. We stopped for a while to watch some musicians practising in one of the ruined theatres (the Odeon of the ubiquitous Herodes Atticus, I think - seriously, that dude basically just seems to have gone everywhere in Greece, and put up buildings. You can't go more than half a day without hearing about him.) which was pretty cool.

Later in the afternoon, we walked up to the archeological museum, which was honestly one of the biggest museums I've been in. We spent hours in there, and covered maybe one wing. By the time we left, I had aching feet, I was kind of sick of pottery shards, and I was under the impression that 3,000 years ago was pretty recent. Wow, just wow. The Zeus throwing the lightning bolt (sans lightening bolt, sadly) is amazing, considering it spent millennia at the bottom of the sea. There are many pics on Dave's camera, which I'll have to get him to make into a book for me....

We finished the evening with dinner in a nice restaurant, charming the waitresses with our three words of Greek, and then headed off to bed, via a few bars and a fair bit of beer.

Greece - Day 6 - The Acrocorinth

Ok, I'll just put this out there: most impressive fortress ever? Acrocorinth. If I were invading Greece at the head of an ancient army, and I saw the Acrocorinth in my path, I'd give up, turn around and go home. Actually, I'd probably settle down for an awfully long seige, but... there you are.

The thing is amazing. It's a huge flat-topped stone overlooking the Isthmus, fortified with a few walls, just in case the general badassitude of the natural hill wasn't getting the message across. Ancient Corinth sat in the shadow of this behemoth. We spotted it on the car ride up pretty early, and it just kept rearing higher and higher. Incredible!

Ancient Corinth was interesting - a romanised city, with a decent collection of statuary in the museum. Was interesting to wander around the excavations and try to picture it as it must have been. We got to watch some archaeology in progress, which consisted of sitting in the shade with running water and scraping dirt off blocks, but was somehow cool to see anyway. Got a few pictures of temples and water and the omnipresent Acrocorinth, avoided the strange east Asian Christian group who had a singing prayer session half way through their tour, and then went on our merry way.

Our merry way included a drive up a winding road to the gates of... you guessed it, the Acrocorinth. Have I mentioned that it was impressive? The view was amazing. We got to watch a thunderstorm roll it's way slowly across the plain towards us - Dave got a couple of decent photos of it, all dark brooding clouds and photography 101.

We made our way towards Athens, having decided against really pressing and trying to get down to Epidaurus, which is apparently impressive, though... well, you know, Athens! We dropped off the car, after a few utterly mad trips around the airport motorway system, missing turns, finding gas stations, missing turns, missing turns, and finally getting rid of the car, which had definitely been through it's paces, and was starting to make the occasional odd noise.

We braved the train/underground system and eventually found our hotel, which was in a pretty scummy area, but had a pretty decent view of the acropolis from it's rooftop terrace. We weren't too far from the bar/nightlife area, so we went out and got a few beers, and some food (though they seemed pretty unhappy about the idea that they might have to sell us food. Sometimes I wonder how some people stay in business...) After dinner, we switched venues to the one next door, having left no tip (if you're a dickhead, I really don't care about your country's tipping culture), and had a much more pleasant time, whiling away the evening in an exhausted and tipsy haze.

Greece - Day 5 - Mycenae

So having piled into Argos late the previous night, we woke up in the morning, full of plans to head to Mycenae and view the home of Agamemnon, and the centre of ancient ancient Greece. The day was pretty overcast, threatening rain for the first time since we landed in Athens.

The citadel sits atop a hill at the head of the valley that looks down towards Argos - it's an impressive structure, constructed of massive blocks of stone. We head into the museum, which is pretty cool; we spend a bit of time trying to work out where everything is from on the site, as the museum has one of those hit-a-button-light-up-the-location models, but either it was constructed incorrectly or some bored scamp has mucked around with the labels... Oh well, we got the general idea anyway, which is subsequently useful, when out a-wandering the site.

Which of course is the next option. Wandering in amongst the excavated buildings is pretty cool - I particularly liked going down into the cistern, which was deep, dank and chillsome. Somehow, Mycenae fails to be as stirring as the ruins of Troy, in spite of it being far more intact - it's a more functional-seeming place, and is somehow the only ancient city I've been to that is (to me) so resolutely unevocative. This is me, underwhelmed by the ruins of a storied ancient city. Go figure. The wind is getting up a bit by the time we're heading out, and a few errant drops of rain are flying about, though it holds off the threatened deluge long enough for us to have a look at the treasury of Atreus (which is actually a tomb) outside the walls.

By the time we get back to Argos, the rain is starting to come down, and our efforts to get to the castle overlooking the city are stymied by a combination of poor road-signage and Dave's poor navigating skills and lots of rain, so we head back, get beers, and have a quiet one with some food from the local supermarket, and Dave's new yacht-racing game on his iPad. My boss calls me to tell me I still have a job, which is nice of him.

Greece - Days 3 and 4 - Olympic games, Mystras

Alive and kicking on the third day, we headed out of Patra and made our way down toward Olympia. By this point, we were getting the hang of Greek driving, which basically has this extremely courteous habit of driving as far to the side of the road as possible, and thus creating a passing lane where none is marked out. Today we had a couple of incidents with driving, including potholeyness of doom (I swear this one was so deep I saw Elrond) which we failed to avoid, and a couple of crash-stops to avoid speed cameras (on my part - Dave was much more law-abiding in his driving).

Olympia is of course known as the birthplace of the Olympic games, but was a massive religious sanctuary as well, and we spent several hours wandering about in amongst the ruins of various spectacular-looking buildings. This is a place which once housed one of the wonders of the world, the Statue of Zeus, and the temple is still there. Well, kind of. You can definitely get an idea of how wow it must have been, how imposing. The sculptor Phidias made the statue on site, and his workshop is still there - they've found scraps of ivory offcuts. How awesome is that? So of the ancient wonders of the world, I've now seen the sites of four of them - can't believe I missed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, since I was basically right there in 2007. Oh well, I have to travel to Rhodes, Turkey again, and Iraq to finish the set. Hmmm, that last one might be a fraction more perilous...

Anywho, we wandered through the extensive ruins, only occasionally walking where we shouldn't. The heat was really oppressive - it was a dead still day, with the sun absolutely hammering down on us. We got all artsy-photographic for a while, but none of the shots looked as impressive as they did in my head, so we moved on.

The highlight of the visit, for me, was the stadium. Like, the actual stadium that gave birth to the Olympic games! It's a pretty big, open expanse of ground, with starting blocks, and a ring of seating, the ground is baked solid underfoot like pottery in a furnace. So, there's nothing to be done here, apart from run your own race. I mean, how often do you get to run on the ground that started the Olympics? So off with the jandals, line up on the starting blocks, get Dave to give me an "On your marks, get set, go" and I'm off! The heat is unbearable, the soles of my soft, city-boy feet are stinging, and bruising, and splitting on the baked earth and pebbles, and the general feeling is... well, indescribable. It's honestly one of the coolest things of done - the sense of place and moment are about as far from the humdrum, work-a-day life as you can get. It is for these things that we work, and it is this that we must never forget. One for the mental scrapbook, alongside the road at Ephesus, Ninety-mile Beach, mountain-tops in Switzerland, and Crak des Chevaliers.

We left Olympia and headed, making our way across the mountains towards Sparta. Well, where Sparta was. Our actual destination was Mystras, a Byzantine town perched on a hillside. Actually, that's misleading. It's a Byzantine town welded precariously to the side of a cliff, with spectacular views across the Spartan plain, and jack-all in the way of accessibility. No wonder the people gave up on it in the 1800s for the newly-rebuilt Sparti. We drove over the mountains, down the gorge towards Mystras in the gathering gloom, again marvelling at the sheer beauty of the landscapes that were unveiled at literally every turn. We mucked around with filters and the like from the top of the pass, and got a couple of decent shots at a random pagoda we found.

Mystras, when we found it, was breathtaking. We arrived as dusk was falling, and ended up next to the palace at the very top of Mystras. We managed to get a couple of nice shots of the palace overlooking the Spartan plain, and then headed in to New Mystras (i.e. a town next to Mystras, but which you don't have to be a mountain goat to live in) to find our hotel.

The next day, day four, by my reckoning, we headed up into Mystras. Up is the operative word. We effectively climbed a cliff for a couple of hours. There is still a working monastery amongst the ruins, so we visited that, and then climbed further up through the ruins, as the views got more and more spectacular. The castle at the top (ow, my thighs!) must have been the most redundant structure ever created - if I had an army, I'd look at that hill and think "there's got to be a better option than trying to take that." I guess that in the middle ages, it paid to be ridiculously over-careful.

So anyway, having got back down the hill, and got ourselves a nice lunch from a nice restaurant, we headed off. We went into Sparti, to sort out a few administrative details (like cash, and ice cream), and to see the archeological museum, which unfortunately was closed. So we got on the road, and headed on up to Argos, where we were staying for the night.

Greece - Day 2 - On Delphi, and trespassing

On day two, the plan is pretty ambitious in terms of schedule - head to Delphi, have a pretty thorough look around, then push on all the way to Patra. The day starts well - we manage to get up relatively on-time-ish, get ourselves onto the task of finding some butane fuel for my cooker thingy, so that we can make road coffee, and thus survive, and then we head out of town.

Unfortunately, we're following signposts, so we manage to take a b-road out of town, rather than the "big" roads. This actually doesn't change the windiness of the road, as there's no way of going over terrain like that in anything that even vaguely resembles a straight line, but the quality of the road deteriorates swiftly, passing quickly through poor, dire, and abandoned and settling on wtf. It winds it's way up the cliffs, with missing sections on the outside balanced by half the cliff-face encroaching on the inside half; some of the potholes are so big that I expect that asteroid monster from Starwars to come out of them any second. Scariness! Anywho, we make it over that somehow, and make coffee at the top of a gorge in a windswept pass. Every turn of the road has Dave and me looking out across the plain and having to resist taking even more photos. The condition of the road is explained - the roadworkers get sent up to the heights, but just get gobsmacked by the views...

Finally make it to Delphi, which is breathtaking for a number of reasons - firstly for it's amazing ruins, but it stands head and shoulders above other ruins that I've seen because of the setting - perched on top of a hillside, with stunning views of valley, which contains even more ruins. We took a simply ridiculous number of pictures of pretty much the same view. Anyway, we went to the archeological museum (wow), to which I forgot to take my shiny new glasses, so didn't get the best view of things. Amazing how immaculately the Greek sculptors showed the human body, considering how long it took painters to do likewise. Also amazing that those things survived 2500 years in situ, considering that every classical source ever was telling you exactly where it was, and what was there! I can't imagine that the wealthy of the region wouldn't have liked a genuine ancient masterpiece sitting in the backyard (or courtyard, or whatever). Still, stunning stuff. Then, out into the site itself, where the view takes your breath away. So we climb the site, each twist and turn presenting a new take on the vista, and head on up to the stadium, right at the top of the complex. It's an amazing setting, but one has to wonder why they put it right at the top - maybe they got sick of asking the atheletes if they'd warmed up properly. The stadium is roped off, because of the danger of falling rocks, but we're feeling anti-authoritarian (we've been listening to Twisted Sister in the car - "We're not gonna take it, No! we ain't gonna take it!") and skip over the rope, outside of the viewing arc of the watchful attendants, for a sneaky "lining up for the race" photo. Spend the way down discussing further trespass opportunities, including the idea of bringing some bread, cheese and ham and a sleeping bag, and hiding out in the ruins for a night. I'd swear it's warm enough... You didn't hear it here!

Suitably impressed by the scale and majesty of Apollo's temple, and can easily imagine it in it's pomp, dominating the scene bordered by that glorious backdrop. We spend a bit of time working out where each of the statues came from, and trying to imagine them in situ (a bit harder than the big temple). Get ourselves confused about the difference between the Pythia and the Sibyl of Delphi, and have to look it up later on. Classical education, fail!

We leave like good boys, and boot it down to Patra, aided by some relatively straight roads - I don't fancy driving at night in Greece, it's difficult enough to miss the potholes during the day.
In Patra, we find that our hotel is some serious way off the main strip, which at first seems like a bad thing, but in the end leads us to a local restaurant situated in what seems to have been originally designed as a garage. There's not an English-speaker in the place (which is packed) and we have a delicious meal, ordered through the medium of mime, and a few beers in a leisurely fashion. Beautiful!

Greece, days 0 and 1

Day 0- day1

Off to a poor start. The day in the office is pretty busy, and as I'm already a bit sleep-deprived (last minute packing? After midnight? Me? Never!) I'm feeling pretty ropey. Add to this the fact that the tube is rammed, it's stinking hot, and it decides to stop half way there. Then I pick the slowest line at the bag drop, and get told off for having a butane canister in my bag (yes, I'm that guy that made the slow line even slower), I'm feeling pretty frazzled by the time that I meet up with poor old Dave, who's been hanging around waiting for me for about an hour by this point. On our way through security, I say something to the bomb detection guy that I realise, the moment it's out of my mouth, could be interpretted to mean that I have a bomb. Way to try for the shortest holiday ever! Turns out to be the nicest security guy in existence, and he doesn't make a fuss, but... not the brightest. Get on the flight after a pint, and read my way to Greece. Getting off at the other end, we... don't find the car I hired waiting for us. After ascertaining this as throroughly as we can, we sit down to wait the 6 hours that it's going to take us to find out where the hell it is (all the offices open at 8am, which is reasonable to anyone who is not stuck at the airport at 2am, but is THOROUGHLY unreasonable to us). Long story short, the rental company decided to cancel our hire, and "sent me an email" telling me so (which "never made it to my inbox" - still haven't checked if they billed me - either way, never hire through CarDelMar, just saying). So we hire a car and head out of Athens; the plan for day one is Marathon, Thermopylae, and sleep.

Work out the Greek roadmap (not detailed) and Greek signage (well-nigh non-existent) and get to Marathon. Are shocked by the paucity of tourists - if you go to Greece, go in September. Weather is good (well, oven-like, clear blue skies, much water a necessity) and there's no one else there! We go to the archeological museum (you'll be reading that phrase a lot) and have a look at the tumulus of the Plataeans, both of them out in the middle of nowhere, and then head, via a number of unplanned detours to the site of the battle, complete with the tumulus of the Athenians. It's a mound in the middle of a field, so not exactly the most visually inspiring thing in the world, but given that it's the site of a battle which has echoed down the ages for nearly 2500 years, it still feels pretty cool to be there. Gives a sense of perspective to the history (and also a huge amount of respect for Philippedes - if he existed - the ground between Marathon and Athens is the polar opposite of flat, so to run that in full armour... yikes!)

So we piled into the car, feeling remarkably fresh considering that we'd not slept for about 30 hours at this point, and headed off towards Lamia, which is near the pass of Thermopylae. Almost passed the pass by, as it turns out, because it turns out that the pass wasn't a mountain pass as such, but a narrow neck of land skirted by sea on one side, and mountain on the other, and in the intervening 2500 years, the sea shore moved. About 9km. So Thermopylae isn't even slightly impressive anymore - it's a pretty hospitable plain with a great big motorway running through it. By this point, Dave and I are pretty tired, and just not feeling the gravity of the place, so we head off to Lamia for the night, find some food, and bask in the warmth of the evening, before heading to bed to sleep like the dead.

So, uh, updates, then...

Yeah, I've been a little slack...

In the past year, the following has happened:

I went to Scotland, to visit Claire in Glasgow and Benn in Edinborough.

I went back to NZ, to see Jungin get maried to Lorraine, and James get married to Viv.

I went to Brugges, at Easter, with Gareth K. That was great, though freezing, and I really enjoyed it. Kind of like a recreated city, except of course that it's not recreated. Crooked cobbled streets, churches, canals... Wonderful. Oh, and the beer and the chocolate...

I went to Paris, and did some of those touristy things you do.

I went to Syria. This was fantastic, friendly, food was awesome, the place was just mind-bogglingly interesting. In Syria I went to Damascus, the world's oldest continuously-inhabited city, to Palmyra, the ruins of the Romanised city once ruled by Zenobia, and to Krak de Chevaliers, a mammoth castle on a mountaintop overlooking the Syrian plain.

I went to Jordan, and was again blown away. In Jordan I floated in the Dead Sea, which was more awesome than can be decsribed, I went to Wadi Rum, the desertscape immortalised in Lawrence of Arabia, and I went to Petra, which was as cool as you'd expect.

I went to Egypt, went swimming in the Nile, saw ancient stuff, and got thoroughly sick of the smell that lingers when thousands of people shuffle through a small, poorly ventilated room every day. The Pyramids are more impressive than you'd think.

I went back to New Zealand, and got a new work visa for the UK. I'm now looking for a job...

I may write this up more fully, or post my photos, but given my track record, don't hold your breath...