An Athenian Diary

9

On the Road with Kids

Part 1

Nauplio and the Archaia

Nauplio was the first capital of Greece after the war of independence, following a brief stint of the provisional government at Aigina (1828-1834). A seaside town, it still has a little of the bustle; but it's really a small town these days, nestled against the sea between a massive mountain and a beautiful, productive alluvial plain. Seen from the top of the great fortress, the Palamidi, that dominates the town, it's a picturesque pastiche of red roofs, blue sea, boats, and distant mountains. Edie and I visited Nauplio many years ago and remembered it as charming and accessible. So it became our destination for our first weekend away from Athens.

The new National Road runs west out of Athens through the suburbs, most notably past Eleusis, once the site of the mpst sacred mysteries of the goddess Demeter, now disfigured with cement factories and the sludge of industrial civilization. The road hugs the coast of the Saronic Gulf, past the narrow channel between the mainland and the island of Salamis where the Athenians fought off the Persians in the naval battle narrated with such unforgettable verve by Herodotus. Sadly, on the new road you hardly notice the crossing of the Isthmus of Corinth, a narrow neck of land from which the whole Peloponnesus hangs. Beyond the Isthmus you can see with splendid clarity the massive heights of the Akrokorinthos, the great akropolis of Corinth which has been a fortification for thousands of years.

Out of Athens the smog vanishes and the famous Greek clarity of air -- so notably absent in the big city -- comes into its own. Everything seems brilliantly edged, bright and impressive. We followed the National Road some kilometers into the Peloponnesus, beyond looming Akrokorinthos, into valleys dusty green with endless orchards of olives. For reasons still mysterious to the agronomists olives, which bear fruit only every other year, coordinate production over huge streches; this year seems to be the one for the olives of the Peloponnesus, which were just dropping their fruit. We turned off the National Road onto a two-lane byway, headed south. Our destination was Mycenae, famous in tragedy and archaeology. Before we got there, though, we stopped for a delightful lunch at a little traditional taverna in modern Mykenes, the village that sits half a kilometer or so below the archaeological site.

The citadel of Myceneae sits atop a small hill below the summit of Mt. Prophitis Elias. It's surrounded by a massive fortification wall in huge blocks, the so-called Cyclopean masonry (because the stones are so big it seems only the giant Cyclops could have lifted them). You enter by the famous Lion Gate. Immediately inside, to the right as you move up, is Grave Circle A, where Heinrich Schliemann found  fabulous golden treasures, including the mask he believed to be the death-mask of Agamemnon. (In a famous telegram to the king of Greece he stated "I have looked upon the face of Agamemnon." In fact, as later archaeologists have proven, the Grave Circles date to several hundred years before the putative death of the king.) Further up you come to the central rooms of the palace, the so-called Megaron. A series of rooms set in a line lead to the final Throne Room, where a sacred hearth burned surrounded by four columns; all that's left today are the bases, and imagination. The girls found these rooms the best; they played out a fantasy of princesses and kings, assigning tasks to the rooms so clearly demarcated by the low walls and doorways.

From the top of the citadel you get a splendid view of the countryside below. But here too imagination has its duty, for the agricultural plain that stretches out before you did not exist in Mycenae's heyday, when it was a great arm of sea. You have to strip away all the fruit orchards and bring the water up to the base of the hills to recover the view Agamemnon enjoyed so briefly after his return from Troy.

Mycenae continues to play an important role in Greek national identity even today. New recruits to the military (military service is compulsory in Greece) are taken for a tour of this oldest fortress of Greece; we stood aside while an endless stream of young people in uniform passed down the citadel toward a phalanx of busses waiting below.

That afternoon we arrived in Nauplio. Our hotel was occupied also, we quickly discovered, by a crew of college students (some from College Year in Athens, others from another program whose name I can't remember); as we were checking in Edie noticed a little party of them returning to the hotel clutching bottles of wine. (I'm happy to report that, except for a couple of cases of people knocking mistakenly on our door, we slept soundly, undisturbed by loud or late partying.)

The evening was beautiful -- warm, fresh, clear. We strolled to the main plateia by the sea, past cafes (replacements, sadly, for the fresh fish tavernas of yore -- gentrification of a sort has hit Nauplio too, not unlike Kolonaki). The sun set over the sea and the mountains as we searched for a good place to eat. The girls raced up and down the wide plateias and streets, skipped stones in the harbor, marveled at the sidewalk artists and displays of worry beads. When a stroll to the end of the waterfront failed to turn up even one of those great old fish tavernas we so well remembered, we turned down a side street filled with tables and diners, and eventually settled on a charming old-fashioned taverna with cheery staff, and, as always, good food. Sleep came easily and fast, uninterrupted by roaring motorcycles.

The next morning we set out for our archaeological goal of the day -- the Palamidi, the great fortress towering over the city. After some misdirection, we found the path up -- a thousand steps climbing from sea level to the top, 705 feet above. We walked the whole way -- all four of us, even Caroline on her short legs! The fortress is massive but relatively recent, built in 1715 or so based on plans drawn up a couple of decades earlier. It consists of three separate forts interconnected by walkways and open areas. It even has a dungeon where famous prisoners were held! One of them was Alison! (Luckily the rats and gnawed bones were gone!)

When we came down from the Palamidi we were hot, thirsty, and hungry, so we found a nice little restaurant whose most attractive feature (aside from the food of course!) was a delightful parrot whose head was hidden in his plumage while he cleaned himself.

We headed back toward Athens after lunch, but stopped next at Epidauros. This is the site of the best preserved theater from antiquity. You approach it up a lovely valley, sides of the hills covered with olives, dusky grey. Toward the end of the valley you park and walk through a forest and up a slight incline, and suddenly the theater, previously completely invisible, rises up before you. It's still used for performances, and the acoustics are famous: someone standing at the very center of the orchestra (marked with a little circle of stone) can be heard clearly talking in a normal voice from the very top seats.

From Epidauros we took the coast road back to Athens. It was longer than the regular highway, but rewarded us with spectacular views. The best came when we topped a pass, and suddenly below us was laid out the whole of the Saronic Gulf, as if in a massive three-dimensional model, with Aigina floating on a sparkling sea, and Athens a white smudge smeared across the far horizon. We drank in the view like wine, then drunk with the pleasure and beauty of it, sailed home along the winding road, like Odysseus back to Ithaka.

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