Three Fortresses and a (ancient) Hospital

We spent three days in Nafplio, which is a small seaside town in the Peloponnese about a two hour drive from Athens.  Situated at one edge of the Argolid plain, it makes a convenient base for excursions to Mycenae, Epidauros, Argos, Tiryns, etc.

EPIDAUROS

The rainstorm that dumped on us on our first day continued into the second.  The storm began to break up into more scattered showers the second day, though, and we were able to make commando-style runs to eat, do a little shopping, and visit Epidauros.  ( Some of the downpours were so intense they could soak you to the skin before you could pull a rainshell out of your pack. )

Epidauros is about 30 miles up lonely country lanes from Nafplio.  It is set in a verdant, wide valley surrounded by hills and olive groves.  Henry Miller wrote that "Until I came to Epidauros, I did not know the meaning of the word 'peace'."  It is a very tranquil place.

Most people come to Epidauros to see its magnificent amphitheater and experience its remarkable accoustics.

But in the classical period, Epidauros was home to the Sanctuary of Asklepios, the god of healing and cures.  So in addition to the theater, there were hotels, gymnasiums, baths, etc, and of course a temple of Asklepios.

Right next to it was the Abaton or Incubatio.  Patients who sought a cure would sleep in this building, and if they were lucky, would have a dream in which Asklepios would appear, and would awake cured.  ( It is also written that snakes were let loose inside the building while the patients slept, as these creatures were sacred to Asklepios ... I don't know how well I'd sleep myself. )

In contrast to the large majority of archeological sites, where building interiors are roped off and touching anything will get you a whistle blast and stern talking-to, here we were able to go inside the Abaton and sit down on the marble benches where in ancient times patients slept.  We seized the opportunity, because (assuming we ever get back here) the next time we come this probably will not be possible.

As a (now-non-practicing) psychotherapist, I was intrigued by the notion of patients, so very long ago,  healing themselves by carefully attending their dreams.

The site at Epidauros is huge; the ruins span several dozen acres.  It sounds terrible to say it, but much of what is there consists only of foundations and would interest only professional archeologists with a deep knowledge of the excavation history.  So we wandered around a bit and caught the bus back to Nafplio.

BOUTRI FORTRESS

The Boutri fortress sits on a small island in the harbor of Nafplio.  We were walking along the waterfront at around eight PM, and saw the small taxi boat that shuttles tourists to and from the island fortress. 

We assumed that the pilot was at the end of his day, but after he unloaded his passengers, he gestured us aboard.  "One more run, I'll come back in 30 minutes."   So we rode out to the deserted fortress -- yes, we had it entirely to ourselves for half an hour as the sun set. 

Carrie and began darting about through the fortifications, between the cannons, and looking at the views of the Peloponnesian mountains and the town of Nafplio.  Suddenly we were both 10 years old again -- running around as fast as we could in a Venetian fortress -- way better than anything at Disneyland!

Atop the battlements we watched the sun setting and tried to imagine what it was like to have been a Venetian posted here.

PALAMIDI FORTRESS

The Palamidi fortress sits on a 600ft high hill immediately behind old Nafplio.  An amusing game
played by the locals is to give a different answer as to how many steps there are in the stairway that
leads from harbor level to the top of the fortress.  You will get a different answer no matter who you ask, but the real count is near 1,000.

On our third day in Nafplio, Carrie and I started up the steps at about 7:45am in order to beat the heat on what promised to be a clear ( YES! ) and warm day.   It took us about half an hour to clamber up
the steps and enter the fortress, which consists of about six large bastions connected by defensive walls.  This fortress dates from the early 1700s, and was built by the Venetians in about five years.
It was overrun by the Turks, who held it until about 1830.  ( The interesting thing is the Turks captured the fortress by charging its weak point, the "Achilles Bastion" where the walls were only
20ft high ... but did nothing to strengthen the defenses, so a hundred years or so later, the Greeks
took the fortress back in exactly the same way. )

The views from the fortress were stunning.  We could see across the waters to the rest of the peninsula and across the harbor we could see, in the distance, another Venetian fortress at the acropolis of Argos.   Somewhere out there in the distance was Mycenae.

We really wanted to visit Mycenae in the afternoon, so we explored the fortress for half an hour, visiting two of the six bastions.  (The fortress was big enough that it would take a whole day to thoroughly see it.)  Then we clambered down the (870?  994?  922? ) steps back down to the
hotel.  After cleaning up,  we snagged a taxi to drive us to ...

MYCENAE

Yet another hilltop fortress! - although assuredly much easier to reach than the Palamidi.
Also much older. 

This site dates back to 1700 BC and figures in Greek legend as the
home town of King Agamenon, commander of the Greek host that beseiged Troy.  In
retaliation for nearly sacrificing his daughter to obtain favorable winds for the attack
(Agamemnon was willing but chance saved his daughter ) his wife Clytemnestra and
her lover murdered him when he returned.  So Orestes, Agamenon's son, was duty bound
to murder his mother to avenge his father, but this made him a matricide, the worst possible
thing that one could do, so he was pursued by the furies ... but Athina intervened, there was
a court hearing in Athens, Orestes got off the hook by claiming double jeopardy, and the
Furies became "The Kindly Ones".  

Interpetation a) an interesting allegory of how the Greeks moved from clan/vendetta style justice to the rule of law;

Interpretation b) the patriarchy once again shows its true nature;

Interpretation c), the exciting resolution to the soap opera, "Who shot J.R. Agamemnon?"
It is famous for its Lion Gate entrance ...

Note how large the stones (particularly the lintel) are.  The art of building walls with such large
stones was lost by the classical period, and so the Greeks of Socrates' time assumed the walls
had been built by Cyclopean giants.  To this day, this form is called "Cyclopean" construction and whenever you see it, you can assume it's Bronze Age Mycenean.

And Grave Circle A, excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century.  He found a treasure trove of golden death masks, jewelry, swords, spears, bows, arrows, clubs in shaft graves here ( possibly the most heavily armed bronze age dead guys the world has ever seen ).

The megaron, or palace, lies at the top of the hill.  From the palace the views of the Argolid
plain are stunning, although I suspect the very warlike Mycenaeans were more interested
in being able to spot invaders than in enjoying the scenery.   You can see directly across to
the hillside fortress of Argos, just a few miles to the right.  In the other direction was the
citadel of Tiryns.

One of the secrets to the fortress's strength was a concealed pipe that runs from a spring
on a nearby hill into a cistern inside the walls: a hidden water supply.

The palace was surrounded by workshops, granaries, and huts where the commoners worked,
and paid very high taxes to support the war machine of their noble masters. In other words,
very much like today.

Across the road from the fortress was a so-called Beehive Tomb, the largest of about two
dozen that are scattered through the hills around Mycenae.  A beehive tomb is so named because
it consists of a rectangular horizontal shaft that plunges into a hillside, leading to a hemispherical
chamber that has the (rough) shape of a beehive.  This one is about 45 ft in diameter and 45ft
high.

Schliemann, who truly had a deep love for all things ancient Greek, but also quite the flair for
public relations ( think: Barnum with a purer heart ), dubbed it -- completely without justification --
"The Treasury of Atreus".   In today's academic, grant-seeking world, Schliemann would be the
champion grant-getter.

We have many more pictures of these sights, and we have of course left a few things out: the thrill of realizing that Tiryns is literally just a kilometer out of Nafplio, the sight of a young Greek touristo panting his way up the Palimidi steps, paper cups of espresso in each hand; the "city cats" disclaimed by our hotel owners, but nonetheless seemed to hang around, perhaps encouraged by the very same owners' continual feeding; watching Greek school children on their last-day-before-summer-outings to the local archeological sites, and last not least, our taxi driver's explanations about Greek lawlessness as he barreled down the highway at least half again the speed limit ...

John