Peloponnese

This past week the students of College Year in Athens escaped hectic Athens and traveled down to the Peloponnese. It consisted of a lot of time on the bus and an incredible amount of time at the ancient sites of Greece. Tuesday I hopped on a bus that drove across the Isthmos at Corinth and stopped at Epidaurus. Epidaurus was spectacular! I loved seeing the entire complex, and the theater certainly is famous for a reason. Sitting on the top bench at the theater, I could hear a coin dropped on stage. In the afternoon I saw Mycenae. My favorite parts of this site included our journey down into the very dark cistern to see how the ancient Mycenaeans retrieved their water and the Treasury of Atreus. I don't think anyone can ever appreciate how large the tholos tombs are until they are actually standing inside one. That evening was spent in the town of Nauplion where I consumed some delicious chocolate and hazelnut gelato. The following day we traveled to Ancient Corinth and listened to the director of the site discuss what would have been there. While the site was closed due to the general strikes, we did go over and look at some ruins a little farther outside of the downtown district of Ancient Corinth. Then we went to Tiryns which was another Mycenaean city. On Thursday we went to Mystra, a beautiful city on the hillside overlooking Sparta. Today there is an active nunnery and ruins of monasteries. It was absolutely gorgeous and much more recent than any of the other sites we had seen. For lunch we stopped in Sparta and then then made our way over to Ancient Sparta. There was not much there, but we did shout "This is Sparta!" On Friday we visited the fortified city of Methone. It is on the water and very castle-like- moat, drawbridge, and all. We also saw the town of Pylos and the Palace of Nestor. Saturday we saw the amazing compound of Olympia. I raced at the original Olympic stadium and saw the place where the golden pillar once stood. Sunday was spent at Delphi where I drank from the spring and saw all the treasuries (at least what remains of them). It was a long, tiring trip, but I learned a ton and saw places of Greece that would have been difficult to access on my own.

Methone:

Delphi:
Epidaurus: