Perhaps you’ve been wondering what Sunny, Rhett, and Dan have been up to—particularly since our last post was over five months ago. Or, perhaps I flatter myself with self-importance and you’ve moved on and forgotten all about us. Or—most likely—you have given us the grace of time. Regardless, I’m happy to report that we are here (here being South Florida) and we’re gearing up and packing for our 2024 travel and cruising season. More on the future in our next post; for now, let’s agree to be stuck in the past—the past of October, 2023…
As I collect myself and put pen to paper, in an attempts to describe our geographical, cultural, historical—and just plain fun—land-voyaging this past fall, my mind drifts astern even further, to our 2022 terra firma travels. On one hand, the two autumnal land voyages were so similar—on the other hand, they couldn’t have been more different.
The impetus for the travel was the same. Hazel was safe and secure (last year in the water in Greta, Italy; this year “on the hard” in Lavrion, Greece). We were already in Europe and we were curious to see more—especially destinations that for various reasons were difficult or impossible to reach in our sailing.
Our fall 2022 travel was an international three-course feast featuring the Italian antipasto-cities of Rome, Sienna, and Milan, our plat principal of a month in Paris, and pudding-sweep through Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England.
While last year’s Dickensian Christmas in London was magical— complete with fireplaces, wood smoke, Yorkshire pudding, snow, and traditional carols—this year we yearned to be home for the holidays. Therefore, for our fall 2023 travels we embraced the Greek culinary spirit and opted for simpler and lighter fare that would get us home in time for American Thanksgiving and Christmas. As far as we can tell, the Greek epicurean ethos is to start with the best ingredients and “don’t mess ‘em up” (and when in doubt, wrap it in phyllo, bake it, drizzle honey on it, and finish with crumbled feta).
As the pages turned and the book grew thin on our 2023 sailing season both Rhett’s and my thinking was united on our upcoming fall travel. While we had one vision, the two of us had vastly different but complimentary foci. I was consumed by all things Hazel—what we needed to do to winterize her, the professional work we’d have done on her over the winter, etc. Rhett turned her turrets towards planning our autumnal travel. Given the bookends of Hazel’s early October haul-out and our early November flights home we had a month to work with. After much banter, we decided on Athens for a base of operations with excursions to Venice, the Grecian islands of Hydra and Venice, and a driving circumnavigation of the Peloponnese Peninsula.
Venice made the list for several reasons. In addition to its unabashed romance, there’s the real possibility that “The Floating City” might sink before Rhett had had a chance to see it. An additional, and wholly unexpected, rationale was that throughout our summer 2023 sailing in Ionian and Aegean Greek waters, we had tasted an unmistakable Italianate influence on the Greek islands—from architecture, to food, to street names. This piqued our curiosity and as we read and researched we discovered that all roads do not necessarily lead to Rome. Many lead to Venice. Perhaps as a foreshadow, instead of “…roads…,” I should say “…all maritime trade routes…” but I’d lose the turn of phrase. We wanted to experience the source.
In our historical digging we had unearthed a gem of a vocabulary word, “thalassocracy”—a colonizing state that concerns itself with coastal territories and has little or no interest in adjacent, landlocked interiors.
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Republic of Venice’s thalassocracy stretched from its namesake city at the northernmost extreme of the Adriatic Sea, southeast down the Adriatic and Ionian Seas and eastward into the Aegean Sea linking it with Asia.
While the Venetian merchants of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance were brilliant businessmen (in the 1400s Venice was the richest city in Europe), Venetian trade dominance was largely due to its strategic location and that location was picked for life-and-death survival, not trade. While many factors contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, the precipitating “straw that broke the camel’s back” was the invasion of Germanic tribes in 400-500 AD. In an effort to escape these Barbarian Invasions a local people known as the Veneti fled the mainland and sheltered in the backwater islands of a shallow swampy lagoon in the at the head of the Adriatic Sea. Centuries later, this defensive gambit gave the Venetians a city-state ideally situated to bridge trade between east and west. To the northwest of Venice were inland connections to wealthy European cities—cities with gold and silver, and eager for exotic goods from the East. To the southeast was a stepping-stone path of islands, coastlines, and harbors leading to the Silk Road and Persia, India, and China. Thus, the Venetian thalassocracy and resulting Italianate influence in Greece.
A thought to ponder about this trade route is that, while it looks obvious and neat-and-tidy on a modern map, it’s still a 1,300 nautical mile (~1,500 land mile) one-way voyage from Venice to Constantinople (today’s Istanbul and the capital of both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires). While European Atlantic mariners had a much longer voyage from Western Europe to the New World (about 3,500 nautical miles), they had the benefit of reliable seasonal winds and powerful ocean currents. On the other hand, Venetians sailors, with fickle Mediterranean zephyrs and no currents, primarily rowed. Yes their galley’s were outfitted with auxiliary sails but the sails were only used when the wind was favorable and even then the rowing would continue and sails merely gave an added boost (akin to a modern sailing yacht motor-sailing).
In addition, while there’s the trope of the “galley slave” literally slaving away at the oars with some brawny, whip-wielding sadist for motivation, Venetian rowers were generally freemen and considered professional sailors. Venice had a well-developed system for recruiting and training rowers and it was a skilled and respected profession.
While I had thought that our sailing in the Mediterranean was challenging, it’s boggling to me to think of rowing a large craft thousands of miles—not only the physicality of the act but also the logistics. A transatlantic merchant vessel of the day would have a total crew of 30-100 sailors to sail, navigate, and keep the boat maintained. By comparison, in addition to a similar complement of officers, sailors, and soldiers a Venetian galley would have 200-400 rowers. I know what it takes to provision Hazel for two and a half people (two people and a dog), and I have the benefits of a propane stove, refrigeration, grocery stores dotting the coast, a water maker, a global supply chain of food, and a plethora of canned and dried options. It’s crazy to imagine how Venetian merchants and captains kept hundreds of free sailors fed and hydrated when they’re spending hour per day on the oar. From this line of thought, it’s clear that Venice’s thalassocracy—its stepping stones to Asia—were not just ports of refuge in case of storms. They were vital “refueling” points (the fuel being food and water for hundreds of sailors).
Our travel to Venice was all we hoped it would be, and more. The sights, the food, the people, and the history—but soon we were winging our way back to our Athenian “base camp.” As our plane lifted off from the Marco Polo airport (yes, Marco Polo was Venetian), we looked out the window a long time as the lagoon that encircles Venice disappeared astern. If we thought getting to the airport, through security, and on to our two-hour flight was exhausting, we contemplated the effort required to row the entire Adriatic, around the Peloponnese Peninsula to Athens.
Post cards from Venice…
After several restful days at our Athenian base camp, we were off via ferry to the islands of Hydra and Crete. “Hydra,” pronounced EEE-dra, with an ever so slight rolling of the “r;” and the Anglicized “Crete” silencing the second “e” so the word rhymes with “feet.” (With “Crete,” Greeks will pronounce both vowels and often spell it “Kriti” in our Latin alphabet. Similar to Hydra, they’ll also give a slight roll to the “r.”)
At this point in the blog post, an astute reader may be thinking, OK, if Dan and Rhett are such avid sailors, why are they taking ferries to these islands and not sailing there? It’s a fair question, with a couple answers. First, Hydra—being peaceful, picturesque, and only 35 nautical miles south of Athens—is an exceedingly popular port-of-call for Athens-based charter yachts. While there’s nothing wrong with “popular,” on Hydra there are few anchorages or safe harbors and thus in the high-season yachts are usually tied up three and four deep on the town quay. While we could have dealt with all of that, we also wanted to be able to explore the island and with our crew of two that would mean leaving Hazel unattended which didn’t seem like a good idea. Therefore we opted for our visit via ferry and in the shoulder-season of October when the weather was still good but the crowds had thinned out. (Think of it as taking a taxi downtown, rather than having to look for parking for your own car.)
With Crete, while the conclusion to visit via ferry was the same, the rationale was different. Crete is 5 times further south of Athens than Hydra (150 nautical miles vs. 30) and while sailing there in Hazel James would have been a lot of fun with the Aegean’s prevailing north wind, it would have been an arduous beat back upwind after the visit. (If a modern sailor tells you they “sailed” from Crete back to the Greek mainland, question them carefully. What they probably really are saying is that the motored upwind for 24 hours…something we avoid like the plague.)
So, on an azure autumn Mediterranean morning, we boarded a fast ferry in Athens’ bustling port city of Piraeus and just an hour later we were entering Hydra-Town’s compact harbor from the west. The approach reminded us of an ancient Greek theater, with the harbor’s water as the stage and the town acting as rows of seats radiating up and away from the harbor.
As the captain of the Flying Cat 5 eased to the pier, mates tossed lines to the dockhands and the dockhands warped her the final few feet. As we disembarked the gangway became our magical time machine. Earlier that morning we had embarked in the gritty port city of Piraeus, its waterways gunwale-to-gunwale with container ships, tankers, cruise ships and ferries. Like Athens, Piraeus’ avenues are choked with cars, busses, motorbikes, and ubiquitous scooters—the busses belching clouds of diesel soot, older scooters burping puffs of blue two-stroke smoke. The contrast of Hydra was a literal breath of fresh air as the entire island is blissfully motor vehicle free.
Dockside, our first sight was of porters with specially adapted long-handled, pneumatic wheeled carts competing with muleteers to transport luggage to hotels.
Hydra’s freedom from internal combustion, is a happy coincidence of history, geography, and culture. Historically, Hydra’s high water mark occurred during the 1821-1830 Greek War of Independence when Hydriot merchants and sailors fought the Ottoman Navy and played a crucial role in securing Greek independence. (As background, Greece was under Ottoman domination for four centuries, from the mid-15th century until the Greek War of Independence.)
The ragtag Greek “Navy” was largely a collection of cargo vessels donated by wealthy Greek merchants and woefully outnumbered and outgunned by the Ottoman mariners. As a 19th century “David,” challenging their Goliath overlords, Hydriot sailors perfected the “fireship” technique. First they’d load a decrepit merchant vessel to the gunwales with flammable materials such as tar and pitch. Then, a small crew would sail her right at an Ottoman warship. When in close range, the skilled Greek sailors would light their ship ablaze and—only when collision was imminent—attempt to escape on a lifeboat. As you might imagine, Ottoman sailors would panic at the sight of floating inferno bearing down on them. Even if the fireship didn’t successfully collide with an Ottoman ship and burn it to the waterline, it would often force the larger Ottoman fleet to break ranks in an effort to dodge the floating conflagration, thus making their fleet much easier to attack via conventional maritime tactics. It’s such a poignant David-and-Davy story of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and skill—a “David” delivering the Goliath of brute-strength to Davy Jones’ Locker (sailor parlance for the bottom of the sea).
Back to automobile-free Hydra, this maritime focus of the Hydriots resulted in the few harbors of the island being well developed while the interior of the island laid fallow. Who needs roads when you’ve got the sea?
Geographically, the island doesn’t lend itself to the wheel. What roads and streets there are, are punctuated with cobblestone steps to traverse the steep-to gradient. Sure-footed mules and donkeys put the automobile to shame in Hydra.
Finally—and culturally—as automobile use exploded on mainland Greece, Hydriot’s understood what a gem they held in their hands and decided to instantiate their freedom from the internal combustion engine in their island’s laws.
After several blissful days of non-mechanized Sabbath on Hydra, we were off to Crete. Given the distance we had to cover, we took a slower night-ferry that departed in the evening and arrived in Crete the next morning.
While, Rhett has hours of “sea time” as a passenger on cruise ships, I was a newbie to the equivalent of leaving the driving to someone else. It made me nervous so as we settled into our modest cabin for the night I took no chances.
Coming from Hydra what we first noticed about Crete is its size. On 11-mile long Hydra, you never forget that you’re on an island. Conversely, by area, Crete is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean (behind Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica). With its 140 miles east-to-west, Crete feels like and is a land unto itself. It’s a fitting paradigm as culturally and historically it’s distinctive from the mainland. While mainland Greece overthrew the Ottomans in the aforementioned Greek War of Independence (1821-1830), Crete did not win its independence until 1913, nearly 100 years later and just 10 years before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
One highlight of our trip to Crete was a daylong hike down the Samaria Gorge, the longest gorge in Europe. It began with a predawn coach (bus) pick-up from our hotel. The coach took us to the top of the gorge where we enjoyed a rustic breakfast before hitting the trail. It was then quite literally “all downhill from there”—a rugged 10 miles and a descent of 4,000 feet to the Mediterranean Sea.
Another highlight of our time in Crete was a visit the now-tranquil Arkadi Monastery, the site of the bloody Arkadi Holocaust. The monastery was likely founded during the Byzantine period in the 5th or 6th century AD and has been a beacon of the Orthodox Christian faith through the centuries.
The Arkadi Holocaust happened in 1866. As a reminder, the rest of Greece had won its independence from the Ottomans in 1830 while Crete would not overthrow the Ottomans until 1913. Although the Ottomans knew the military and commercial strategic value of Crete (especially after the stinging insult of losing mainland Greece) their brutal vice-grip on the island did not quell the Cretan spirit and skirmishes and minor rebellions were frequent. By the mid-1800s the Ottoman overlords had had enough of the Cretan misbehavior and the Arkadi Monastery embodied the island’s and Orthodox Christian spirit and resistance. In 1866 the Turks attacked the monastery and the Cretans who had taken shelter there, the result is best described by Victor Hugo…
We know that name, Arkadi, but we know little of the event. Here are the precise and largely unknown details. At the Arkadi Monastery, on Mount Ida, which was founded by Heraclius (Hercules), 16,000 Turks, attack 197 men, 343 women, and children. The Turks have 26 cannons and two howitzers. The Greeks 240 rifles. The battle lasts two days and two nights; the monastery is riddled with 1,200 bullets; a wall collapses, the Turks enter, the Greeks continue fighting, 150 rifles are disabled, the fighting goes on for six hours in the cells and stairwells, and there are 2,000 corpses in the courtyard. Finally, the last resistance is suppressed; the victorious Turks swarm the monastery. Only one room, the gunpowder magazine, remains barricaded, and in this room, near an altar, at the center of the group of children and mothers, a man of 80 years, a priest, Abbott Gabriel, is praying. Outside the fathers and husbands are being killed, but not to be killed, will be the miserable fate of these women and children, who are promised to two harems. The door, battered with an ax, will give in and fall. The old man takes a candle from the altar, looks at these children in these women, tips, the candle into the gunpowder, and saves them. A terrible action, an explosion, rescues the vanquished, the agony becomes a triumph, and this heroic monastery, which fought like a fortress, dies like a volcano.
Victor Hugo, Correspondence. Published in “Kleio” newspaper in Trieste, Italy, March 1867.
Although Victor Hugo started writing the fictional Les Miserables in the 1840s and published it in 1862 (five years before his factual account of the Arkadi Holocaust) parallel themes—and even word choices, like “barricade” and “miserable”—ring through both works. Today, as I peck away on my keyboard, I read and reread Hugo’s line, “…this heroic monastery, which fought like a fortress, dies like a volcano.” and am jealous. Someday, maybe someday, I’ll reach that concise perfection of word.
While the Cretans may have lost the battle, it was a decisive inflection-point in their eventual winning of the war. European newspapers picked up the story and the event drew international attention to the Cretan cause (although it would take another 46 years to secure their full independence from the Ottoman Empire).
As Rhett, Sunny, and I leisurely strolled through the stone archways and heavy wooden doors, bathed in the autumnal afternoon Mediterranean sunlight, we were overwhelmed with gratitude for our “brand” of travel. Prior to setting foot on the monastery grounds, we had no idea of this history. Candidly, we’d just heard that there were “great monasteries” on Crete worth visiting. We quickly researched a few and picked Arkadi. Our lack of planning and spontaneity was rewarded by a memory and a myth of the human condition of struggle, resistance, perseverance, and ultimate victory that we will carry forever.
After another recharge in Athens (courtesy of our good friend Panos, and his gracious family), we were off on a 12-day, 750 mile driving tour of the southern Greek mainland and the Peloponnese Peninsula.
As we set forth (breathing a sigh of relief when we escaped Athenian traffic with our rental car unscathed) I’d characterize our mood as satisfied we were on a circuit of the Peloponnese but not thrilled at the prospects. Kind of like sitting down to a nice big bowl of broccoli: I know this is going to be good for me, but I’d really rather be eating something else. Besides, we’d been feasting on Venice, Hydra, and Crete for the last several weeks. We weren’t particularly hungry for more travel. However, if my mom had taught me anything, it was to finish everything on my plate. Of our own free will, we had served ourselves up a heaping, 750-mile portion of the Peloponnese and we were going to finish it…the die had been cast.
Throughout our summer of sailing in Greece, new local friends we often comment, “If you’ve only been to Athens, you haven’t been to Greece.” While we found that advice true, we had thought it was only applicable to the iconic islands with their shimmering turquoise water, whitewashed houses, and blue-domed churches. We anticipated this mainland driving tour to be character-building, we’d learn a lot, we’d like it but we wouldn’t love it.
Our first stop was Delphi and its eponymous Oracle, the most famous of the ancient oracles. For all its power and mystery in the ancient world, we found it most interesting that an oracle’s predictions, at least the few that survive today, are obtuse, veiled, and can be interpreted in different ways by the person posing the question to the oracle.
As an example of the ambiguity, Croesus, king of Lydia (part of modern-day Turkey) who ruled from 560 to 546 BC asked the Oracle of Delphi if he should invade Persia and the Oracle’s response was:
If you make war on the Persians, you will destroy a great empire.
You’ve got to understand that not only was Croesus a king, at the time he was also one of the richest men on earth and carried the conceit that accompanies great wealth (some things never change). With the Oracle’s prophecy in-hand he promptly invaded Persia, overstretched his army, and was soundly defeated. Only then did he realize that the “great empire,” of which the Oracle foretold, might just have been his own.
It’s important to note that ambiguity wasn’t endemic to the Oracle of Delphi. Oracular legend has it that a general consulted another oracle about his army’s prospects in an upcoming battle and received the oblique answer (roughly translated):
You will go you will return never in war you will perish.
…which could be read as, “You will go, you will return, never in war you will perish.” or “You will go, you will return never, in war you will perish.” Perhaps—in Wheel of Fortune style—the general should have bought a couple commas.
Today, the term “Delphic ambiguity” is often used to describe how economists couch predictions of inflation, economic growth, and monetary policy. Former US Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, famously said, “If you think you understand what I am saying you do not understand what I am saying.”
As a final note on the Oracle of Delphi and oracles in general, it’s important to remember that the rich and famous who posed the questions lavished huge tributes of gold, jewels, statues, and temples and other structures to the oracles. Thus, the oracles were incentivized to not be totally wrong, and to keep the peace and prosperity between city-states and empires so the rich deep-pocketed would continue to be able to pay tributes. “One hand washes the other.” It’s a story as old as the hills.
After our tour of the Delphi site and its archeological museum, we were off toward the Rion Bridge and Olympia. The Rion Bridge spans the relatively narrow channel at the Gulf of Corinth’s western end. I was curious to see it in the daylight as the last time I had witnessed its bulk was from Hazel James’ deck as I attempted to sail beneath it at 2:00 a.m. on a gusty foreboding night…under spinnaker. Not my best nautical move but I lived to tell the tale, in another blog post someday.
The bridge opened in 2004 and, at the time, was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world. At 2,250 meters (nearly a mile an a half), it spans the only natural entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. At the other end of the Gulf (the eastern end) is the manmade Corinth Canal that joins the Gulf with the Aegean Sea.
Several hours after paying our bridge-toll and crossing the Gulf of Corinth from north-to-south via the Rion Bridge, we rolled into the town of Olympia, checked into a character-laden mom-and-pop hotel and settled in for a good rest before our next day’s tour or Ancient Olympia.
When I watch the quadrennial games on TV, inevitably the voiceover during the majestic trumpeting theme music introduces the spectacle as the “Modern Olympics.” Although a pleasant turn of phrase, I had never really thought about what it really meant. In addition, I always thought it a bit hollow when the made-for-TV commentators (straight out of central casting) pontificate about how the Olympics unite the world in friendly amateur competition. To me it seemed like “one world” and “amateur” are drowned in a sea of money, advertising, blood doping, geopolitics, and scandal. For someone who often feels he was born too late, my logical assumption was that the Ancient Olympics—in those halcyon days of yore—must have been pure, unadulterated, and totally different than our games.
As it is so often the case, it turns out that things weren’t that simple. Yes, the ancient games were dedicated to Zeus, and yes the coming together of the ancient games did help smooth tensions across the known-world of Greece.
As an aside, it’s important to remember that during much of the Ancient Olympic competitions, Greece was not Greece. It was a loose collection of city-states or poleis (plural of “polis”)—sometimes allies and sometimes adversaries…and of course, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” was as true then as it is today. Alliances and pacts were made and broken in a gristly Grecian Game of Thrones. (An interesting side fact—and linking back to our Delphi visit—while Delphi was a polis like Athens or Sparta, because of the importance of its oracle Delphi was collectively granted a special independent and neutral status, somewhat like a Switzerland in the 20th century.)
However, and like our Modern Olympics, cheaters cheated and when caught were dealt with severely. Sure, there was the garden-variety fraud (like paying off other competitors to lose, bribing judges, etc.), then there was the interesting stuff—like performance enhancing substances. It’s believed that the most common banned substance was animal blood. And just how—you might ask—would one test for banned substances 2,500 years ago? Simple…official urine tasters supposedly could detect if banned animal blood had been drunk by an athlete. If you’re now wondering how one develops the skill to be a urine tester, I’ll leave that to your creativity (WARNING: Some things once imagined can never be unimagined).
Perhaps though the accuracy of an ancient urine tester was less important than the sentinel effect of the testing itself. To that end, it was clear that public shame was a primary deterrent to cheating. While a winning athlete could expect the adoration of his polis, if an athlete was caught cheating couldn’t come up with the cash himself, it was levied on his entire hometown and the polis collectively felt the pain, shame, and humiliation. The revenue from a cheater’s fine was then used to erect a bronze statue of Zeus and on the pedestal of the statue was inscribed the athlete’s name, hometown, and nature of the offense. As another sentinel effect, these statues were strategically positioned along the path that the athletes took on their way into the main stadium.
As a closing note to this chapter and a reminder of how brief our time on this earth is, consider that our Modern Olympics (revived in 1896) have existed for roughly one-tenth of the duration of the Ancient Olympics (776 BC to 393 AD).
After a some pampering in Pylos and Kardamyli, and a stop in Kalamata, we found ourselves on a day-long drive of the stunning Mani Peninsula. If you ascribe to form following function, then it’s an easy hop to imagining how the peninsula’s rugged geography instilled a fierce tribal and clannish independence into the Maniots (the people of the Mani Peninsula). While the rest of Greece fell to the Ottoman Empire in the mid-15th century AD and would remain subjugated for four centuries, the Mani Peninsula remained the “wild west” of Greece and was never conquered by the Turks.
The chieftain Petros Mavromichalis (1765-1848) embodied the Mani spirit. After he rebuked the Ottoman’s offer to buy his loyalty, Mavromichalis hoisted the banner of rebellion in Kalamata in 1821. The tales of his and the Maniot’s resistance to the Ottomans inspired the rest of the nascent Greek nation in a widespread uprising that eventually threw out the Ottoman overlords and paved the way for an independent Greek state.
After our days of westward and southward exploration to the fin du monde of the Mani, we headed in the opposite directions to complete our Peloponnese circuit.
In our driving south we had noticed that the olive trees were laden and day-by-day the fruit was ripening. As we turned northward, we witnessed the beginning of the harvest.
Our next stop (now on the western coast of the Peloponnese Peninsula) was the town and island of Monemvasia. While long Greek names are intimidating (especially when written in Greek script), the good news is that the language is very phonetic and most every letter gets a sound. Perhaps that’s why when we check into Greek hotels, clerks generally read Mr. and Mrs. Coate on the reservation (silent “e”), and then address us as “Mr. and Mrs. co-AHH-tay” (in France, we often got “Monsieur et Madame co-TAY”). The same goes for Monemvasia…don’t be scared to sound it out: moh-nehm-VAH-see-ah. If you’ve studied any Latin and squint at it, you may be able to see the Greek portmanteau within the name: Mone being single or sole, and emvasia being entrance or passage. One bird’s eye view is all that’s needed to understand the name.
The couple hundred yard causeway was originally constructed in the 6th century AD during the Byzantine Era and technically made the island a peninsula. Down through the ages its location and fortifications were vital to the powers that-be, from the Byzantines, to the Franks and Venetians (yes, Monemvasia was part of the Venetian Thalassocracy), to the Ottoman Empire, and eventually the Greeks. In the modern age—between the unified and relatively peaceful Greek state (established in 1821) and long-range shipping not dependent on frequent ports of call for provisions, water, and fuel—the town has lost its strategic importance and the area’s economy is almost exclusively tourist based. The good news is that that has kept the narrow cobblestone streets and Byzantine and Venetian architecture largely intact.
Our next and final overnight stop on the journey was a “three’fer” of Nafplio, Epidaurus, and Mycenae (OK here’s a test of your Greek phonetic pronunciations: naf-LEO, epi-DAV-ros, my-SEE-nay).
Interestingly, at the end of the Greek War of Independence, Nafplio was the named the provisional capital of the newly formed Greek nation. (In 1843 and by democratic vote the Greeks moved their capital to Athens.) Nafplio was initially chosen because of its central location, port access, and fortifications (in case those pesky Turks tried any funny business). To me, the best thing about the forts that surrounded the city were the murder holes.
No no no, I know what you’re thinking and a “murder hole” is neither the newest Nafplian dance club nor the entrance to a communal living bird house for crows. A murder hole is an ominous opening directly above a fortified gate. In the off-chance that invaders reach a fort’s gate, they’ve got to contend with the murder hole. If the defenders are prepared, they’ll had cauldrons of boiling water, scalding oil, or even molten lead, waiting to “welcome” the raiding army.
Perhaps it’s borderline macabre (or maybe not even borderline) that I like to pause directly under murder holes and ponder what might have happened in that very spot. The heavens open and fire and brimstone rain upon the marauding vanguard. I get a chill, and move on.
We used our Nafplian local-base of operations to launch day trips to Mycenae and Epidaurus. A week earlier, when on the island of Crete, we had toured the ruined palace of Knossos, the center of the ancient-ancient Minoan civilization (approximately 2,600 to 1,400 BC). As the Minoan civilization declined the Mycenaeans rose to prominence as the next great early Greek civilization. The Mycenaeans’ capital was Mycenae and if you ever saw the movie Troy (with a buff Brad Pitt as Hercules) or read Homer’s Iliad, the Mycenaeans, led by their King Agamemnon, organize an alliance of ancient empires and city-states to attack Troy. As side notes, Odysseus was the king of Ithaca, was persuaded to join with Agamemnon in the siege of Troy, and Homer’s Odyssey is the story of Odysseus’ arduous odyssey home to Ithaca from Troy. The island of Ithaca is in the Ionian Sea (west of mainland Greece) and I documented our visit there in this previous post (see sub-title “The Odyssey to Odysseus’ Home”). Also, the besieged city of Troy is on the eastern Aegean Sea and we plan to sail there this summer…stay tuned.
Over the summer Rhett and I had both read Irving Stone’s excellent biographical novel The Greek Treasure which chronicles Sophia and Henry Schliemann (she Greek and he German), and their discoveries and excavations of both Troy and Mycenae. With the story freshly embossed on our minds, us seeing Mycenae in person was a special thrill (especially knowing that Troy was in our future). Sunny didn’t get nearly as much out of the visit as she had just skimmed the book’s Cliff’s Notes (lazy dog).
Early the next morning we were off to tour the ancient city of Epidaurus. Although known in ancient times as a center for healing with its Sanctuary of Asclepius (son of Apollo and the god of healing and medicine), today Epidaurus is known for having the best preserved ancient theater in the world. Seeing the 15,000 seats in the morning mist was breathtaking, as was its acoustics as demonstrated below.
As yet one more—and final—aside, as he was the god of healing and medicine Asclepius is depicted as a wise, bearded man with a staff. A serpent is coiled around his staff. Given that snakes disappear into the ground for long periods of time and then reemerge (we would say to hibernate, ancient Greeks would say to visit the underworld), snakes in ancient Greece were associated with wisdom, rebirth, and transformation—and thus—medicine and Asclepius. The modern caduceus (our symbol of medicine) with its snakes wrapped around a staff is a descendent of Asclepius’ imagery. It’s fascinating to think also that, thanks to the Greeks, we have both the ancient mythology of medicine and the Father of Medicine. It was the man (not god) Hippocrates who revolutionized the practice of medicine by emphasizing observation, clinical experience, and ethical principles.
Upon departing Nafplio we pointed our trusty rental car north and across the Isthmus of Corinth and back to Athens. On the isthmus we made a quick stop in Ancient Corinth. The city is the namesake of The Bible books First and Second Corinthians, and Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians. In Paul’s day, Corinth was a rough-and-tumble sailor’s town and the apostle did his best to encourage the Corinthians to chart a more wholesome course.
While on the road from Corinth to Athens, it occurred to us that this was the final few hours of our final journey of the season. Our excited conversation bounced back and forth like a tennis volley from the immediate past to the imminent future. Behind us was a collage of indelible images of the Peloponnese and how it had far exceeded our expectations, and launched itself to the front of the pack as our favorite place in Greece. Ahead of us was was a vision of our transatlantic flight and, reunification with family and friends. While it felt good to know that home was still there, and we’d soon sleep in our own bed—it felt even better to know that when we got there, we’d be changed. Different people from when we had set forth. Indelibly enriched for all we had seen, learned, and experienced.
This post is dangerously close to its Plimsoll line so I’ll end it here and not even broach the topic of what comes next (aside from the few teasers above). Thanks as always for reading. Your support means the world to us as we traverse it. Please keep your eye out for our next post describing our plans for the 2024 season.