Day 5. Thursday. Mycenae and the Fortress at Nauplion

Lovely, simple table settings greet you after climbing the stairs

Thursday. To Mycenae.

We got started relatively early today. It was hard to leave the rooftop terrace at the Mariana but it helps to be motivated by returning to this magical place that is Myceane.


Here’s a few photos from the rooftop terrace at the Mariana. Breakfast is SO good and they do NOT rush you to finish. Fresh boiled eggs, yogurt and honey…it’s just such a peaceful start to each day.

This photo is after all the food has been cleared.

So—Mycenae. Once again, it leaves me speechless and unable to describe. However, if you want to try to imagine any number of scenes from Greek literature or mythology, this is a good place to imagine it.



Here is a copy of the mask of Agamemnon from the museum at Mycenae. The real thing is in Athens. Imagine being the one to find this artifact!







Just beyond the entrance gate, walking up the hill. Doesn’t look like much from here. But those stones are COLOSSAL!! How did they do that?






Need some perspective to see how huge these stones are? Here is a really awful picture of moi.


I’m sacrificing my dignity to show you the size of these things. I think I’m squinting into the sun. Even the sunglasses don’t help!



On the right, Elena is walking up to the Lions Gate entrance.

The Lion Gate

Mike and Elena under the Lion Gate.

This is a "grave circle." Looking down from just after passing through the Lion Gate.

You can see the tour buses in the upper left corner.

The back of the Lion Gate, below.

I don’t remember walking back so far when we came in 1988. Maybe it wasn't open.

Here, we are on the "back side" and you can see the building below which is the museum and gift shop.

We walked up to the top, and then around and down and around some more and came out at a gate at the back.





Mike and Elena went exploring up and down and around to places I wasn’t brave enough to go. Below.

Some sort of passageway.

More very large boulders. How did they do this?







When we came back around near the entrance, we went down to see the “beehive tombs”—Elena is taking a picture at the entrance to one of them.











Mike is on the inside, taking a picture of us! It’s VERY cool inside, but pretty creepy.

I’m not sure how Mike got these—it was so DARK!




Right: Elena and I are peering into a very dark side room that appears to have some excavating work going on inside.






Below: Looking up, from the center of the floor.



It was cool inside the tombs, but getting hot outside so after we wandered around some more, we decided to go see the museum and see some artifacts.



We bought a few things at the gift shop but they had no stamps so we stopped at "post office" at the bus parking lot to get stamps to mail a postcard to Jesse and Adam. We thought they would appreciate the "Lord of the Rings-ness" of Mycenae.




Then it was time to leave...mostly because we were getting hot and hungry (and when I say we, I mean "I") and so we moved on--back to Nauplion.


This photo looks UP the hill at the fortress. One last look before we left.

But wait! Before we leave this little narrative, let me share these 2 fun pictures. I was trying to recreate a picture I have from our trip in 1988.

I should have looked at this 1988 photo before we came to Greece. This is my sister Marian along with cousin Michelle's foot. I'm not sure exactly where we were standing...it was pretty open then, so we really wandered all over. (Though as I said before, I don't remember going as far back into the ruins as we did in 2009.)

Below is a photo of Elena, posing, per my request to try to reproduce the photo of Mar in 1988.



I wish I had looked at the 1988 photo before we came…but you get the idea..










Driving back from Mycenae, we tried to see Tyrns. But we were pretty hungry so we kept driving. Then we couldn’t figure out where to eat and nearly had a 3-way meltdown about finding an ATM and a place to eat.

Meanwhile, while we drove around looking for an ATM and a place to eat, we took some pictures of the buildings!

.

However, we didn’t take pictures of the place we ate or write down the name. We did, of course, take pictures of our food! As usual, it was amazing.

Giant white beans—Elena keeps looking for the perfect replication of her white beans from Rhodes.

Also dolmas and fries; and stuffed red peppers

It probably doesn’t look like much food for three hungry people…somehow it was and we weren’t sure we had the “get up and go” enough to do anything else!

But we really wanted to see the Palamidi Fortress that sits above the city. We knew we would have to drive so we started up the hill and then decided to drive down the other side---thinking we might drive to Tolo, where we stayed in 1988. But it was late in the day so we turned around to go to the fortress.

From the Mariana, we have seen people climbing the 800++ steps to the fortress. We did not do that!

Palamidi Fortress.

This fort was built during the Venetian occupation in the early 19th century and consists of eight bastions, each was self contained, ensuring that if one bastion was breached the others could still be separately defended. The bastions were built one on top of the other and they all connected with one wall.

The Venetians named the bastions by ancient Greek names, such as Leonidas, Miltiades, Achilles, Themistocles, to give emphasis on the strength of the castle. The struggle for liberation from the Turks began at Palamidi fort.


Palamidi was also used as a prison for a period of time. In 1833, Theodoros Kolokotronis, one of the Revolution leaders was imprisoned here, charged with high treason. Prisoners were made to do physical labor and the 999 steps leading up to the fort were in fact built by the prisoners under the supervision of the Bavarian army.



I have no idea where we are standing, but Mike is looking down at us from somewhere above! Below us is more of Nauplion--suburbs!

This place is so amazing! We just kept walking around from one building to another. Mike was exploring in his own way and taking pictures of us!

Looking down at Nauplion from the fortress:
The long rectangular, yellow building with the red roof that sits in the center of this photo (vertically) is the building of the Mariana where we stayed.

To the left and up just a tad is the (square) building with the breakfast terrace. The building in the lower left is another hotel.

We had to rest for awhile when we got back from the fortress and then decided we would just walk until we found a place to eat.

From the Mariana, we walked down the stairs and down the alleys.

We just wandered around, checking shops, looking at menus, and finally stopping at a small corner place with tables on a side alley



"Small Fish, Fried." Perhaps the best menu description ever!

Also, tomato salad, beet salad, bread, and I think octopus again!

















Walking back to the Mariana, Elena insisted we needed to try gelato! She was right of course.