Hi! It took a while but I’m back. I’m not done with Greece.
(Awhile or a while? Hmm, these are the decisions of writing. I like grammar and punctuation, but don’t get me started on the rules of use for commas or semicolons or complete sentences, or when to start a new paragraph. The standards have changed and anyway, I prefer the school of personal style and my choice is casual!)
It was last October 2024 when we pedalled around the Peloponnese Peninsula and I have more to tell you. There are photos and experiences I want to record for posterity, so if you like armchair travel, be my guest and please keep reading this edition of my Caboose Travel Blog.
First, a little geography in case you’re not sure exactly where we are.
The large Peloponnese Peninsula is separated from mainland Greece by the very narrow, but famous, Corinth Canal.
We started the bike trip at high elevation in the center of the peninsula and rode mostly downhill towards the coast around Nafplion.
This 6 km canal has been a bit of a disaster since it was completed in 1893. It‘s too narrow for modern ships. The high steep walls are unstable and have caused landslides into the water. The wakes from boats, and different tides at both end, resulted in even more landslides.
So now the Canal of Corinth is used mostly by small tourist boats that are gently pulled through by tugboats.
Our van from Athens stopped for a few minutes to give us a quick peek at what is now more of a tourist attraction than anything rivalling the mighty Panama Canal.
As you know, Greece means ancient ruins.
With layers and layers of complex, fascinating history.
It’s always a trade-off, do you want to wander in the sunshine at your own pace, maybe read a few explanatory panels and generally soak up the atmosphere steeped in centuries, or even millennia, or do you want to learn stuff and risk being trapped with a guide who tells you more than you want to hear?
Since none of us on this trip were hardcore archeology enthusiasts we chose not to hire guides. Besides, there were miles to put on and always cappuccinos, or beer, or lunch somewhere down the road. We couldn’t dawdle.
The Greek sunshine and countryside never let us down, and I did love a little rambling among the rocks and ruins.
The history is available on the internet when curiosity arises and I’ve fallen into some endless, absorbing rabbit holes as I write this post.
We cycled 51 km round trip to the hilltop site of Mycenae, a military stronghold and one of the most important ancient cities, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Built well over 3,000 years ago, but only discovered by European adventure travellers 300 years ago.
The famous Lion Gate, spilled on the ground and hidden for many centuries, wasn’t excavated until 1874. The heads are gone but the lions are from 1250 BC. How can anything last that long??
Such beautiful massively solid rocks. The lintel stone across the doorway weighs 20 tons. It reminds me of the Inca stone walls in Peru, which aren’t nearly as old as these Greek ones.
What a fun ride down the mountain that day!
A restauranteur flagged us into his empty restaurant and waved us into the kitchen with guarantees of a delicious meal. His mom was cooking up a storm and happy to see nine hungry Canadians of a certain age, in spandex.
Another day the route was longer and higher, but no sweat for us.
The tour company treated us well, and kindly provided a van transfer, loading our e-bikes onto a trailer for the drive up, and letting us coast all the way downhill to the sea at the end of the day. Batteries hardly needed.
This was the site of Epidaurus, which reminds me of the word epidural, which reminds me it was a medical place.
It was a centre that honoured the god of healing, Asclepius, who had a sword with a snake coiled around it, a symbol of medicine we still see today.
This ancient spa offered ritual purifications in baths, relaxation treatments, sleep and dream therapy where the gods would communicate recommended cures, conversations with priests, ritual sacrifices and eating, drugs and surgeries. We saw gifts in the museum that were either bribes to the gods, or tokens of thanks from patients who were happy with their cures.
This was happening in 500 BC, more or less. Archeologists are amazing detectives.
Cultural activities were part of the therapy in this cult of healing.
Which brings us to the amphitheatre built in the 3rd century BC with an impressive capacity of 14,000 people. It’s still used these days for festivals and dramas.
The acoustics are considered to be the best of all the ancient Greek theatres, so Dave and Stew thought they would give it a try. As tourists were milling around the circular stage, I could hear two voices singing the chorus from Stew’s “Cypress Hills” song. They weren’t loud but I heard the beautiful melody from the very top row of the amphitheatre!
It was lovely and made a personal memory for our group.
After they finished their short performance, a clear soprano voice rang out from centre stage, and suddenly a security guard ran out from the trees, blasting his whistle and waving his arms. No singing allowed!
We’re not sure why... We liked it.
These ruins haven’t always been visited, or even known about. The amphitheatre was covered by earth and a slope of trees until 1881 when excavations first started and the tourists started showing up.
Who can resist a good cave? Our biking itinerary always had places for us to hop off the bikes and do some sightseeing.
The Kapsia Cave was a beauty.
It’s small-scale tourism, the best kind. A local guy ran the lunch counter and his wife, trained in the history and geology of the cave, guided our group. I don’t remember any other people there, it wasn’t the day for tour buses and Greek school kids.
The cave was breathtakingly gorgeous and had more colours and artistic shapes than I’ve ever seen underground, fragile-looking, created by dripping water over thousands of years.
I tend to seek out caves and have seen some enormous ones in Mallorca, Slovenia, Colombia, Belize and New Zealand, but this was the only one that had wavy stone curtains and hanging bacon.
Thanks for reading this post and any others, past and future. I love travelling, especially by bike, and creating this personal/public journal is almost as much fun!
We all need our distractions these days, and this blog is one of mine.
Next post will be photos of an unexpected visit to a Greek home. All nine of us were escorted by bike to a fabulous home-cooked meal hosted by Angie and Charles. What a pleasure it was!!
