Our flight from Crete touched down early in the morning in Athens. We grabbed our rental car and hit the road – we had some ground to cover. The map below shows our wandering through the Peloponnese over the five days.
Map of our travels in the Peloponnese
Technically the Peloponnese is now an island and no longer a peninsula having been severed by the Corinth Canal, a four mile long and 70 foot wide gash through the Isthmus of Corinth. The project was started in earnest by Emperor Nero in 67 AD but not completed apparently due to Rome burning and all that fiddling and debauchery and such. The canal was completed by Greek engineers in 1893. It was plagued by closures due to landslides and as commercial ships got bigger and unable to use the canal its economic importance receded and it is now used mainly for tourist traffic. Still it was a massive undertaking and you can see from the map how it could save a ship a fair amount of time. So now it is just something cool to see, especially if a ship is passing through (we weren’t lucky enough to catch one passing through when we stopped).
The canal was dug at sea level and so no locks are necessary – either just tall bridges or submersible bridges like the one we stood on to take this photo
From Corinth we powered on in our frisky Ford Fiesta diesel to ancient Mycenae. Diesel fuel is almost a half a Euro cheaper per liter and so if you can rent a diesel it is quite a savings. I had to revisit my history book to get the time sequence but the Mycenaens were the dominant civilization from about 1600 to 1100 BC having taken over from the Minoans who go back as far as 3650 BC – truly ancient.
The acropolis at Mycenae
The ruins at Mycenae are a World Heritage site and are fairly extensive but most of what remains are the foundation stones of houses and Agamemnon’s palace. There are some large well preserved tombs, a few circle graves and the main gate pictured below and called the Lion Gate due to the stones at the top of the gate picturing two lions.
The Lion Gate at ancient Mycenae
The architectural style at Mycenae is referred to as Cyclopean masonry as legend had it that the Mycenaeans used the mythical Cyclops to build the structure. Huge limestone boulders were fitted together without mortar – some of the stones seen in the picture below supporting the Lions Gate were over 20 tons.
One of the grave circles uncovered at Ancient Mycenae
The Palmidi Fortress towers over Nafplio
Then it was on to Nafplio, beautifully situated on a gulf in the Aegean Sea. It sports two fortresses on the hills above the town and a third fortress in the harbor.
View of Nafplio from the Palmidi Fortress. The Bourtzi Fortress sits just offshore from the harbor.
We loved the harbor and the old town with its quaint pedestrian side streets and active bar and restaurant scene.
The Lion of the Bavarians, created in 1836 as a monument to the soldiers of the Bavarian Kingdom who died of typhoid in 1833 to 1834
We hit the WWII Day holiday celebrating Greece’s independence from Germany in Nafplio and watched school children and soldiers march in a show of Greek patriotism
On a day trip from Nafplio we visited the charming island of Hydra just a short ferry from the port of Ermioni. Cars are not allowed on Hydra and instead they use foot power and mule power to move around and get things accomplished.
The picturesque harbor at Hydra
Hydra’s landscape includes several retired windmills
On another daytrip we visited the ruins at Epidaurus which is known for having one of the best preserved and accoustically impressive amphitheaters in the ancient Greek world. The theater holds 13,000 and is still in use today. We arrived before the tour buses and had the entire theater to ourselves for 15 minutes – one of the benefits of traveling in the shoulder season. The fine acoustics were confirmed by a happy birthday serenade to Julia by yours truly from center stage in a soft voice that she was able to clearly hear from the top row. She confirmed that my singing was out of tune.
The Great Theatre of Epidaurus holds 13,000 and is still in use today
Epidaurus was a celebrated healing center of the Classical world, where ill people went in the hope of being cured.
That was it for the Peloponnese – we only scratched the surface and missed seeing Sparta and Olympia as well as several other treasures. All the more reason for a return visit!