Day 17 - Where’s the bathtub?

Day 17 -

I did not sleep well at all at Petite Planete, and I woke up not feeling great. I wasn’t very hungry, despite the great breakfast they provided, and I felt much worse afterward. Because of that, we decided not to venture too far away (like Epiduraus). I took a half hour to rest and then we headed into Argos.

Although Argos is not very big, it seems the days here are not complete without getting a little bit lost. We had already been warned that the hilltop fortress was under renovations and that the renovations were halted because of the austerity measures. We also found a closed Sanctuary to Athena, so we settled on going to the Argos agora and theatre. The agora isn’t much to see, but, if it wasn’t 36 degrees, we could have stayed longer at the theatre. It is steeper but more complete than the Theatre of Dionysus, and in quite a lovely setting.

After grabbing a coffee and some directions, we headed a bit out of town to find the Hellinikon pyramid, which our host said was one of the spots where they lit big signal fires like the one Clytemnestra would have used in her torch relay to learn of the fall of Troy (and start running the bath). It was very cool, and the view of the Argolic Gulf and the surrounding area was amazing.

Sadly, I still didn’t feel great, so we went back to the hotel. I slept and the others relaxed. In a little more than an hour, I felt much better and it was about cool enough to tackle the site we were there to see: the home of Agamemnon et al.

There were very few people there. Mycenae’s Lions Gate, the Cyclopean stones, the cistern, and the beehive tombs were just as impressive as ever, but we were not allowed to walk in the palace as we were in 1997; that was a little disappointing. Most of the site is just foundation stones, but the situation is impressive, and it is fun to try and imagine what it was like in 1600-1200 BC. We went to the museum too, which was small but nicely organized (all their good stuff is Athens).

David and I had a quick swim with a retired British couple and young French family (our kids just read by the pool), and then we had our yummy, specially-made, three course vegetarian dinner at hotel.

We watched news of the Greek parliamentary vote and footage of the riots in Athens, and went to bed wondering what the big city would bring us the next day.