Nafplio Day 2

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This morning I drove from Nafplio to the site of the ancient city of Mycenae. You may know that, according to Homer, Agamemnon was king of Mycenae when he set out to fight the Trojan War around 1250 B.C. Whether that is true or not, Mycenae was certainly a prosperous city/fortress in Bronze Age Greece and I had done some reading about it, so it was satisfying to actually see the site. The most famous feature is the Lion Gate which has carv of two lions over the entrance e. I was there early in the morning and a group of dogs was hanging around and followed me around the ruins. I unintentionally included one of them in my attempt to take a timed picture with my iPad. Another impressive ancient structure is the tholos tomb called the Treasury of Atreus. As the author of one of my texts says, a tholos is built with overlapping rocks on the ceiling that gradually work inward until they meet. It’s like an igloo, but much larger and less icy. I drove north from there toward Athens and stopped at the narrow neck where the Peloponnese peninsula connects to the rest of Greece. A mind-bogglingly deep manmade canal now cuts through the isthmus (called the Corinth Canal), but unfortunately there were no big ships passing through when I was there. I fear that the scale of the canal (and the tholos tomb) will not be clear from these photos, but trust me, both are gigantic. This is the last full day of my trip and I don’t have any more sightseeing planned, but I’ll probably write one more blog entry tomorrow.

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