We set off from Spetses on the slow ferry boat that crosses the Saronic Gulf twice daily to the mainland Peloponnesian town of Kosta, where we had left our car a week earlier. We dusted off our Opel and set off for the ancient theater Epidauros.
The amphitheater at Epidauros is perhaps the best preserved large theater in the ancient world and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Sadly for the local people, there were precious few visitors owing to the economic crisis--not to mention the unfounded bad press Greece has received in the past year--but this meant that we had this incredible site largely to ourselves.
Sadly for the local people, there were precious few visitors owing to the economic crisis--not to mention the unfounded bad press Greece has received in the past year--but this meant that we had this incredible site largely to ourselves.
After spending time in the theater, we visited the museum that sits astride the ancient Sanctuary of Asklepious, the healing god of antiquity. We strolled through the site in the blistering afternoon heat (nearly 40 degress Centrigrade, or 95+ degrees Fahrenheit), marveling at the long history of the sanctuary. People traveled from all over the ancient world in order to sleep in the sanctuary. The god was said to have come to pilgrims while they slept, in the form of dreams, and actual medical healing also occurred there. The museum has a large collection of surgical instruments as well as copious inscriptions explaining the nature of the illnesses and the remedies suggested by physicians.
From Epidauvros we drove to the city of Nauplion, Greece's first capital after the conclusion of the 19th-century Greek War of Independence. Corinth served as the capital during the outbreak of hostilities in the early 1820s; Athens later became the permanent capital of the modern Greek state.A large, urbane city steeped in history, Nauplion is a glorious place for walking, shopping, and photography. It's two most famous sites are the fortress called Palamidi, a kastro built by the Venetians in the 16th century, which hangs atop a bold, rock edifice over the sea. The other site, which we were unable to visit, is the island fortress that was used as a prison.
Tomorrow we will set off for Athens at dawn, return our rental car, and set off with our Maine friend Lambros for the Sporades, an archepelago in the northern Aegean, where we will sail about a sailboat for a week. We expect a period of silence on the blog as Internet will probably be unavailable.
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