Saturday was quite the day. We started off relatively early to see Mycenae, which is probably the most famous Greek Bronze Age site. It's famous for it's "cyclopian" masonry, thus named because the stones in the walls are so large that classical Greeks believed only cyclopses could have put them there. There are a lot of impressive things at the site, including the lion gate which marks the entrance, and the grave circles where archaeologists have found tons of famous artifacts such as the (somewhat questionable) "Mask of Agamemnon."
The group in front of the famous lion gates
After stopping to see a few other structures such as the throne room, we went down a spooky (and extremely slippery) staircase which used to lead to an underground water supply. It was pitch black, and the flashlights on our phones served as the only light sources. When we finally reached the bottom, we saw....nothing. Except a little mouse friend who scared Brittany off pretty quickly.
Emerging from the dark tunnel
Next, we headed to the tholos tombs. There were something like 30 of these tombs discovered around Mycenae, which is very impressive considering their massive size and the amount of resources and manpower which must have gone into making them. They also provided us a much-needed relief from the sun. It was beyond hot out.
Entrance to a Tholos tomb
In an attempt to escape the heat, we headed for the air-conditioned museum. It was a nice little museum, with a huge collection of finds from the site, although to see most of the really famous artifacts, you'd need to go to Athens...then we went on our last Mycenae stop: the Treasury of Artreus. Oooooohhhh fancy. To be fair, it is one of the biggest if not the biggest enclosed bronze-age spaces out there. And it was big. And enclosed. Honestly, it was a lot like all of the other tholos tombs, only on a larger scale. We were lucky enough to get a Greek mythology lesson from Jon while in the tomb, which I thought was interesting (and disturbing, as most Greek mythology is).
Jon pointing in the Treasury of Atreus
After we had seen about all there was to see in Mycenae, we piled back into the van and headed to the coastal town of Nafplion. It was a beautiful town, with lots of 19th century architecture. They even had this ironic "trendy" grill. Apparently, I will never understand the Greeks' fascination with comic sans...Jon took us to eat at a place called Goody's, which is basically like a Greek McDonalds. It was quite an interesting experience. After lunch, Tyler and Robert decided they wanted to climb up the mountain in town and see the castle. However Brittany, Katie, and I had had enough mountain climbing for a hot second and decided to spent the afternoon enjoying the town, its shops, and its gelato. Eventually, we made our way down to the water, where we enjoyed the view of this beautiful little castle-island.
Castle in the Sea
Nafplion charm
We were all pretty exhausted by that time, so we headed back to Loutro Elenis to rest up before Jon's friend Aristides' birthday dinner that night. Due to some circumstances, the party actually got moved to our hotel, along with the entire lamb they had roasted. The party was full of good food and good wine, and we all had a great time. Except maybe the lamb...
Our poor (but delicious) lamb
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