Saturday - Argolis (Theatre of Epidarus and Mycenae)

[dramaturgy]

Mycenae was especially exciting, because I can remember sitting in Western Civ I last fall, while Dr. Burke showed us slides from his trip to Mycenae all those years ago (it was practically still a thriving business center - LOLZ no not really, but it was a few years ago). I sat there in my seat and thought, "Man, it'd be really cool to go there someday." Needless to say that someday came a lot sooner than I thought it was going to. Not that I'm complaining. It was every bit as awesome as I thought it would be.

So, traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it was on Friday, which was really nice.



Beautiful countryside!



This is the Corinthian Canal (or maybe it's the Canal of Corinth...). It connects the Aegean and Adriatic seas down by this Peloponnesian area. It's pretty deep. Which was why I didn't stand on the bridge too long.

More country:











Then we arrived at the Theatre of Epidarus. It's HUGE. It seats 14,000 people and is something like 2400 years old. I mean. Crazy. You have to find a football stadium to seat that many people, and I'm not sure that you could get that many people to come to a theatre production at one time if you tried. It's still used for a festival that they have, and they put on Greek tragedy and comedy. There are a couple places where it's restored, but otherwise it's all original.











:D





This choir of Australians stood center stage and sang. It was awesome.















This view isn't even from the tip top.



Behind the seating is some pretty cool scenery.





We left after forty minutes or something, and it still wasn't enough for me. Gah. We drove then to Mycenae, where we would stop in the village for lunch.





Now, I have been eating oranges practically every day since I came to Italy (which is strange because I never did before), and this is easily the best orange I have ever, ever had. It was so fresh that there were leaves still attached to it.



That, my friends, is a fresh orange.



The first sighting of the palace complex!



Archaeological work is ongoing.



And the scenery's not bad either.



It's up the hill quite aways. But that's what a fortified fortress of the ancient world needs, neh?







This is what's famously known as the Lion's Gate, for obvious reasons. This was the only gate in and out of the city (which makes traffic in and out easy to control, and it also meant that we as tourists couldn't get lost, short of falling off the side of the mountain), and those two headless figures are lions. Hence, Lion's Gate. The walls on either side were ten meters tall, and if you weren't supposed to be getting into the town but were trying anyway, they could kill you from above. :D







This hole in the ground was a burial chamber of royalty, and when they excavated it, it yielded fourteen kilos of pure gold. Which is a lot of gold.





There was a walkway but apparently we couldn't go down there today. :(







I tried to get a better view into the grave from higher up, but I don't think it worked so well.



You can see the shadow of me taking the picture in this one. *dork*









(Those're all for you, mom.)











Me, seated at the top. I was dumbstruck by the view. I think I'd choose to build my town there too. Provided I could have internetz! This is where the actual palace was. There's evidence of staircases so they think it was two or maybe even three stories.



















Oh, this is nice. No, that's not the royal swimming pool, that was a reserve of water that they could use if the city was under siege so that they wouldn't die of thirst and have to surrender. Awesome. Not sure I'd want to drink it now...



Okay, this is a queue to that cavernous entrance, which was stairs leading down to where they kept food stores and such. I went down the first flight of stairs but then it turned and went further down, which was really really really dark and steep. I decided that was a broken ankle waiting to happen (and you know that if it were going to happen to somebody, it was going to happen to me) so I turned around and went back up.













Not my best photo, I don't think, but I did manage to get both myself and the lions in the photo, finally. (Downside to traveling alone: no one to take your photo.)





After we finished at Mycenae, we went to the nearby Beehive Tomb of King Agamemnon (no joke), or they also call it the Treasury of Atreus, who was Agamemnon's father. They're not really sure who was buried there. It's never been underground and I think it was found grave-robbed. So how they can call it a treasury I don't exactly remember. I'm sure that Dr. Burke had a really good explanation for it. It's called a beehive tomb because of the shape, it's quite amazing: a conical shaped tomb. It's a feat of engineering excellence. Not that I know much. Read Brunelleschi's Dome and all of a sudden I'm an expert, psh.



It consists of this main conical chamber...



... and a smaller one off to the side.







Awesome.

There's not much to report on returning home. I figured out how to use the metro in Athens without a problem and so made it back to the airport with plenty of time to spare, Rome's airport is massively huge, and small planes are worse than big ones. Thank you.

But I am back in Firenze now, and back to work. Bah. But less than a month until I'm home!

Comments

[occultebelta.livejournal.com]

I feel the need to ask: do you keep a straight face when you talk to Dr. Burke? Because I know that I could not. >_>

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

I do. Except for when he's being dry and laconic, which is very nearly all the time. I personally find it funnier that his name is Edmund Burke, but that might be just me.