The Peloponnese - Greek Police and That was Sparta

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The Peloponnese - Day 5

Thursday 12th September

It was so nice to wake up somewhere quiet and nice, although a barking dog did break the silence during the night. We were the only guests at Marino Rooms and so sat alone outside for breakfast. It was pretty simple: bread, greek yoghurt, grapes, cake, marmalade and freshly squeezed orange juice. Coffee was nescafe though.

So now was time for my first go at driving, only going less than a mile down the hill to the Ancient Corinth archaeological site. This was a fair size and €6 each to get in. It had your standard doric pillars, stray dogs and knee high walls with accompanying diagrams showing what it was like back in the day. It was pretty empty to start with as we were there at 9am and the only sound was that of playing children at a nearby school. We were followed around a while by a sad looking mangy dog.

But then coach loads of tourists turned up, including some diocesan ones and we saw a bunch of catholics doing some ritual amongst the stones. It's not surprising as this area was once the stomping ground of St Paul and his ilk; we'd seen a nun up the Acrocorinth yesterday.

There is a sense of superiority when you tour 'do it yourself' around a country, but those guys do have air-con coaches with loos, plus tour guides that know stuff.

Ancient Corinth did have more info about it than the places I have seen in Athens, but I need someone to answer me this: in the marble friezes, why are some people clothed and not others? You'll have a bunch of people in a scene with armour, togas etc, then there's a naked bum or willy hanging out just randomly. What's that about? It is (a) the artist having a laugh, (b) symbolic, (c) Greeks like dropping in a random bum here and there (d) not everyone could afford clothes or (e) clothes were more for warmth than modesty back in ancient times and nudity wasn't an issue, so some people just wandered about in the buff. I will get to the bottom of this! Pun intended.

Glyn then drove us to the submersible bridge near Isthmia so that we could see the Corinth canal (as recommended by Caroline on facebook last night). He parked nearby and we walked into the centre of the bridge - it was a pedestrian area although a scooter did race along it. We could see the canal cut deep through the stone and road bridge over it, the water was bright blue and much prettier than the canals back home.

Now I picked the wrong time to really get driving as our next destination was Mycenae, a fortified palace complex that was abandoned in 1100 BC. We do have a map, but here's the interesting part - we bought this Marco Polo map of mainland Greece from WH Smiths in Stoke. The cover says "Mainland Greece" in English, but inside, the key is in Greek and various European languages, but none are English. The place names are in Greek and another language. A lot of the road signs are in Greek plus the English version, but this does not match up with the version on our map. So map reading is difficult. We have a satnav that we named Sheila, that is more confused by Greek roads than we are. We put in Mycenae, but Sheila was having none of that, so we compromised with Argos.

Another thing we forgot to tell Sheila satnav was that we were OK about using toll roads (even though it cost us €6 yesterday over the distance of 70 miles), so Sheila navigated me along very winding and narrow mountain roads. On the plus side, I became adept at using my right hand for the gear stick a lot quicker than I thought I would. I got tailgated a few times, but there were instances when people could have overtaken me but didn't, they preferred to drive up my arse. I wasn't going that slowly, at times, I was over the speed limit (that is according to Sheila, so who knows really?)

Anyway, Mycenae typically was up a hill and also typically we arrived around the hottest part of the day. There's an impressive lion gate and it takes a lot of patience to get a photo of it sans tourist. The steady uphill walk reveals walls below, of which enough remain to make it easy to imagine what it once was like. The summit was full of dutch teenagers on a school trip and other coach trips, but weirdly, not many continued to the other side of the hill. But this is where it got more interesting. There was an artisans courtyard and the building that was the necessary extension sometime BC that was essential plumbing. At this point, though still blisteringly hot, there was a welcome slightly less hot breeze.

There was one ginger cat drinking from a bowl of water near the museum - you didn't think I'd do a day without mentioning cats?! The museum was ok, full of your usual pottery and a welcome cool break from the unrelenting sun.

Walking around further, we found a set of stairs descending into darkness. Now I've brought a torch, two reading lights and have a light on my Iphone on holiday with me. I had none of these on this hill. But Glyn had his Iphone so we started down the slippery stone steps into the darkness. Another guy with a torch, who like us, had a nikon camera, came down with us. He didn't utter a word although we ended up spending a fair bit of time with him.

The steps are 1000s of years old, so very smooth with wear, plus slippery damp, so we descended slowly in the very poor light along what seemed a never-ending staircase. Eventually we arrived at the bottom and found absolutely nothing. But all three of us stood there in the pitch black with our nikons and on-camera flashes, taking random photos into the dark of the stairs we'd just descended. There was this unspoken photographer's understanding of fiddling with settings, as all three of us stood in the dark trying to get a shot of something interesting.

Then the silent one started back up and shot off without us. I was a bit gutted as he had the best light and Glyn's Iphone wasn't really enough for the both of us. But he stopped and turned around, shining his light back on the stairs at me, for which I thanked him. We continued up together and at the top he walked off without a word or even a smile - maybe he's very shy?

Near to Mycenae is the Treasury of Atreus which is included in the €8 entrance fee. This impressive tomb is impressive but takes about 5 minutes to see inside it.

We did take a stone seat though, just to sit and cool down, listening to other tourists singing inside it. We clambered into our oven that also doubles as a car and Glyn drove us about 70 miles to Sparta. I keep picking the wrong areas to drive because his section was wide open three lane straight(ish) roads in parts. Upon entering Sparta was graffiti on a bridge above us: This is Sparta 300.

Sparta is a bit crap really. Small town with not much going on. We stopped at a supermarket for important supplies such as stuffed vine leaves, ice creams and fizzy water.

I then decided to drive and went through the slightly lively area that ended up with some sort of police road block. There were three policemen and one waved me over to pull up. I have never been pulled up by the police outside of the UK, but I was fairly confident I had done nothing wrong and looked upon it as a possible interesting story to tell my friends.The only problem was I wasn't sure how to open the window and eventually Glyn found the button for me as I said hello to the policeman who said hello back. He then asked where I was from, I said "England". He gave a funny smile then waved me on. What that was about, I guess I'll never know. I think they were randomly stopping motorists by the way they were stood around the road. According to Glyn's Lonely Planet Book, there's not much crime in Greece outside of Athens, so maybe they were bored? But I do think that a visit to the supermarket and being stopped by the police is enough to pin Sparta to my Trip Advisor travel map.

The 50+ mile trip down to Monemvasia was pleasant enough - very winding with mountain views. The land was very dry, but still an abundance of stubby green trees and shrubs have adapted to this amount of heat and clung to life on the side of the hills. The journey was not fast as I got stuck behind a lorry and then a scooter on roads that, for me, were impossible to overtake on. I say 'for me', some Greeks had no issue overtaking on what I consider to be dodgy bends.

Arriving in Monemvasia, we weren't sure if we could stay here as the guide books stated it was expensive. To be honest, we're not sure where we are right now. Monemvasia is know as the Greek Gibraltar as it's a rock only joined to the mainland by a causeway built in the 6th century (so recent then). Now we are in the town next to the other end of the causeway. Is that still Monemvasia? You tell me.

However, the first place Glyn suggested we try for accommodation was awesome. Across a small road from the sea with a front seat view of the rock. The room has a fridge, big balcony (with the view on the right side of the building, not the skips as is the norm for me), bathroom, shared kitchen and fairly decent wifi. All for €30! And there's a supermarket next door.

This town, wherever it is, is basically a coastal street with a few shops, cafes and accommodation. The lady who runs our place said "Oh it's so hot, like summer!". so I reckon this heat is more than expected. At 7pm we crossed the small road and went for a swim in the sea, when we got out, I wasn't cold as the breeze was still hot.

At the supermarket we bought aubergine salad and beer for me, and taramasalata, ham and coke for Glyn, plus some sort of toast to spread it all on. Then we sat on our balcony overlooking Monemvasia as the sun went down, feasting on our goodies. I like it here despite not seen any cats here yet!

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Photos

Ancient Corinth
With Acrocorinth on hill behind it

Ancient Corinth
Temple of Apollo with your usual Doric columns

Ancient Corinth
Acrocorinth on hill behind

Mosaic at Corinth
So why does a shepherd get his kit off to play flute to his cattle?

Frieze at Ancient Corinth
The one that perplexes

Lion gate
Mycenae

Entrance to cistern steps
Mycenae

Comments

[Paul John Lythgoe]

good stuff
a good read thanks ...