A Taste of Ancient Greece

After the ordeal that was Athens, Jon let us sleep in a few hours before we got into the trusty steed and headed to Nemea. Nemea used to be one of the sites of the Panhellenic games, so people would travel there from all over. The main buildings there are the Greek Bath/gymnasium, which is a bit of a rare find, the remains of an Early Christian Church, a semi-restored Temple to Zeus, and a nearby stadium where they held the games. It was really interesting to see all of the ancient plumbing and ingenuity that went into the bath. There were sinks that used to be fed with water as well as a pool for bathing.

Us in the sinks of the old Greek Bath

The temple was an interesting site as well. Only three of the columns had been originally standing since around 5 BC, and the rest were re-erected under the direction of an American archaeologist a few years ago. From the columns, you can get a pretty good sense of what the temple used to look like (with a little bit of imagination, that is...). We also met a lizard friend, who we decided was probably Zeus in lizard form keeping an eye on us. The dude was always doing that sort of thing...

The temple to Zeus in Nemea

Zeus in lizard form

Jon told us that in order to get the real Greek experience, we had to lick the columns...pretty sure he made that up off of the top of his head, but we did it anyways. Because we were in Greece, and who cares? Besides, we made Jon do it after us, so fair's fair, I guess.

Tasting the antiquities

We hopped back into the van for about a two minute drive and ended up at the ancient stadium of Nemea. The entrance to the stadium is through a cool old tunnel which has a lot of ancient graffiti carved into it by people who were competing in the games. The stadium itself was very well-preserved. Along the side, there were channels made of stone that used to carry water down the sides of the track. The starting line was made of stone and had two notches in which the athletes would stick their toes. Robert and Tyler decided to do a trial of how a race would have gone. Robert won, but not by much.

Tyler and Robert on their marks, Ancient Greek style

From there, we drove up a mountain to see a little monastery. The monastery was unique in that it used to be run by only one lady, who lived alone at the top of the mountain like a hermit. According to the story, she had a dream one night that if she dug at the top of the mountain, she would find a treasure. Sure enough, when a few villagers followed her instructions, they found a few early Christian graves and a pair of gold earrings. The lady then asked her family to build her a small church and place to live, and she stayed there until her death in the 1980's. The church was beautiful on the inside, and it was obviously still being taken care of by someone. Inside a very small sanctuary, we found the exhumed bones that the villagers had dug up sitting in a box. Katie even used the top of a skull to identify one of the bodies as a female. Archaeologists...

The church at the top of the mountain run by one woman

Inside of the church

We went from the top of one mountain to another to see a monument to Theodorous something-or-other, who was basically a bandit who took the side of Greek revolutionaries in the war of Greek Independence. The valley the monument overlooks is the site of a battle he led against the Turks in which over 17,000 members of the Turkish Army died. Apparently, the Greeks hated the Turks so much that they didn't even bother to bury the bodies. Jon told us he heard there was one man in town who made a living selling the teeth he pulled from Turkish skeletons to dentists. Who knows if it's true or not...I'm kind of hoping not. In the evening, we went into Corinth for a somewhat belated welcome dinner full of delicious food like fresh baked bread, tzatziki, a spicy cheese, Greek salad, feta, grape leaves, a pasta dish with nutmeg in it, souvlaki, and chicken and potatoes baked in the oven. The meal (and the wine) was delicious, and we were all quite full by the end. We also managed to make friends with one of the stray cats wandering around the restaurant (it happens, and I'm not complaining). In fact, there are a lot of stray dogs and cats all over Greece. Apparently the Greeks, being huge proponents of freedom, don't believe in spaying and neutering their animals, which only increases the population. At least all of the strays seem to be well-fed and taken care of by the locals.

A stray cat resting on a column