link to Delphi Photo Album
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Osios Loukas & Delphi, 26-27 April
We boarded the bus at 8:30 Monday morning and departed Athens along the lower slopes of Mt. Hymettus—near where Nancy and I hiked the day before on trails through groves of pine, olive, and stunningly tall cypress to the Kaisariani Monastery—and drove towards the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. As we traversed Boetia, Hesiod’s land, a strong wind began buffeting the bus. It stayed with us all day, tearing through the landscape, pulling trees wildly. We stopped for a tour and picnic at a beautiful Byzantine monastery on the slopes of Mt. Helicon—a mountain sacred to the muses—Osios Loukas, founded in the early 10th century by a monk who had spent a decade as a hermit atop a pillar: St. Loukas, a driven man. As we descended the stone steps towards the monastery grounds, the winds almost blew us back up the hill, and on the main square they tore through an enormous plane tree at the valley’s edge with a great roar and alarming force, the massive limbs tossing. Very dramatic. The view from the monastery is mesmerizing: great-shouldered mountains stand opposite; a large valley spreads beneath, its expanse of grasses, olive groves, and occasional cypresses pushed into frenzied, sinuous dance by the wind. The monastery too is beautiful. The remains of the titular saint, scarcely visible in a recess, still reside in the sanctuary, along with better preserved frescoes and mosaics. Apparently pilgrims used to sleep beside his relics in hopes of a cure for whatever ailed them: a process of dream therapy called "incubation" that derives directly from the cult of Asclepius.
After roaming the grounds & the interiors, the students retreated from the wind for lunch to a small room prepared for us by the man in the gift shop. Nancy and I arrived a bit late, found the space full, and took our picnic in an alcove near the monastery’s fountain, good potable water.
Then we proceeded to Delphi, one of the earth’s rare places. If Apollo no longer speaks here, it remains a site of great spiritual power. When Zeus released two eagles to fly around the world, they met at Delphi: for the ancient Greeks, this was the center of the world. In many respects, it still is. In Greece, pivotal Mediterranean space, "East" and "West" still meet. On my hotel balcony early this morning, as the sunlight reached down along the slopes of the great ravine opposite and struck the olive-carpeted valley below, pushing cloud and earth-shadows out of its way, I realized anew why this place was sacred to Apollo—Phoebus, the radiant one, the young sky-god—the embodiment of the sacred light of Greece.
Michael Wedde organized our information-packed tour of the grounds. Monday afternoon we visited the lower site—the Temple of Athena, the Gymnasium, and the Castalian spring, where we filled our water bottles—and, after rest and free time, shared a taverna dinner (mixed reviews on the food—Nancy was served moldy tiropita, the salad must have been Sunday’s, the grilled chicken was dry—but the company was good), and gelato elsewhere afterward. This morning we climbed the sacred way, examined its numerous treasuries, viewed the Sybil’s rock, the Temple of Apollo, and the theater above it, before descending to the museum. High points indoors included the Sphinx of Naxos—a great lion-bird-woman who radiates a beautiful indifference, disconcerting calm—the Sifnian treasury metopes, which depict the abduction of Helen, the war between the gods and giants (with Dionysus following Cybele's chariot, whose lead lion tears into the thigh and torso of a smallish giant), Heracles’ disruptive arrival at Delphi, and more; the exquisite white-ground kylix of Apollo playing a tortoise shell lyre and pouring a libation of wine, a black crow watching; and of course the bronze charioteer, his tall clean form, laser eyes (even to the eyelashes) and steady gaze intact.
Delphi! Do not miss it while you live.
On the way home, we stopped for lunch in Arahova, a lovely hillside town with spectacular views of the gorge that leads to the oracle. The town also produces cylinders of sheep's milk cheese that you can slice and fry in olive oil, especially delicious when splashed with lemon juice.
After roaming the grounds & the interiors, the students retreated from the wind for lunch to a small room prepared for us by the man in the gift shop. Nancy and I arrived a bit late, found the space full, and took our picnic in an alcove near the monastery’s fountain, good potable water.
Then we proceeded to Delphi, one of the earth’s rare places. If Apollo no longer speaks here, it remains a site of great spiritual power. When Zeus released two eagles to fly around the world, they met at Delphi: for the ancient Greeks, this was the center of the world. In many respects, it still is. In Greece, pivotal Mediterranean space, "East" and "West" still meet. On my hotel balcony early this morning, as the sunlight reached down along the slopes of the great ravine opposite and struck the olive-carpeted valley below, pushing cloud and earth-shadows out of its way, I realized anew why this place was sacred to Apollo—Phoebus, the radiant one, the young sky-god—the embodiment of the sacred light of Greece.
Michael Wedde organized our information-packed tour of the grounds. Monday afternoon we visited the lower site—the Temple of Athena, the Gymnasium, and the Castalian spring, where we filled our water bottles—and, after rest and free time, shared a taverna dinner (mixed reviews on the food—Nancy was served moldy tiropita, the salad must have been Sunday’s, the grilled chicken was dry—but the company was good), and gelato elsewhere afterward. This morning we climbed the sacred way, examined its numerous treasuries, viewed the Sybil’s rock, the Temple of Apollo, and the theater above it, before descending to the museum. High points indoors included the Sphinx of Naxos—a great lion-bird-woman who radiates a beautiful indifference, disconcerting calm—the Sifnian treasury metopes, which depict the abduction of Helen, the war between the gods and giants (with Dionysus following Cybele's chariot, whose lead lion tears into the thigh and torso of a smallish giant), Heracles’ disruptive arrival at Delphi, and more; the exquisite white-ground kylix of Apollo playing a tortoise shell lyre and pouring a libation of wine, a black crow watching; and of course the bronze charioteer, his tall clean form, laser eyes (even to the eyelashes) and steady gaze intact.
Delphi! Do not miss it while you live.
On the way home, we stopped for lunch in Arahova, a lovely hillside town with spectacular views of the gorge that leads to the oracle. The town also produces cylinders of sheep's milk cheese that you can slice and fry in olive oil, especially delicious when splashed with lemon juice.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Update on Crete, 7 to 11 April
Our excursion to Crete began on an overnight ferry, the Knossos Palace. After checking into our rooms, our group gathered spontaneously on the windy fore-deck, starboard side, to watch the lights of Athens recede. The light of another ferry far ahead of us remained. (Peering out of my porthole in the wee hours, I glimpsed what I first took for an island: the slender wedge of the moon on the horizon, blood red, rising as in a poem by Sappho we had discussed the day before:
Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes
precedence over stars around her ...)
We arrived in Heraklion early on 8 April and boarded our bus to breakfast at the Olympic Hotel downtown, located just off the old Venetian section with extensive pedestrian markets that reach back down towards the port. After breakfast, our bus took us to the remains of the actual Knossos Palace, excavated and partially reconstructed by Sir Arthur Evans, whose bust overlooks the entry area and whose vision still frames what one sees there. While duly impressed by the extensive palace and its uses as Michael Wedde explained them, many students found themselves more deeply engaged by the Palace of Phaestos, visited the next morning, whose excavators did not so presume to place their speculative reconstructions atop intact remains. The imagination roams freely at Phaestos. Following our group tour, the students wandered there independently. Sometimes wind lifted through the pines at the edge of the plateau with a timeless sound.
From Phaestos we made our way to Agia Triada and, for the heart of the afternoon, the beach at Matala. The hitherto windy day had turned warm at last, prime for sunbathing and a swim.
On the 10th we enjoyed a similarly absorbing visit to Tylissos, an extensive sub-palace located high in the hills; a long bus ride along the north coast of Crete to Rethymnon, where we picnicked on the grounds of a spectacular, wind-buffetted Venetian fort above the sea; and then proceeded to Hania, where we set up the Kydon Hotel, a fine establishment a few blocks from the lovely, much-photographed port that features good tavernas and interesting shops. Hania’s small but marvelous archaeological museum was our next morning’s destination.
A bus took us that evening to Souda port, where we boarded another overnight ferry for Piraeus.
6:00 AM, Monday, April 12: Good morning Athens!
Photos from Crete
Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes
precedence over stars around her ...)
We arrived in Heraklion early on 8 April and boarded our bus to breakfast at the Olympic Hotel downtown, located just off the old Venetian section with extensive pedestrian markets that reach back down towards the port. After breakfast, our bus took us to the remains of the actual Knossos Palace, excavated and partially reconstructed by Sir Arthur Evans, whose bust overlooks the entry area and whose vision still frames what one sees there. While duly impressed by the extensive palace and its uses as Michael Wedde explained them, many students found themselves more deeply engaged by the Palace of Phaestos, visited the next morning, whose excavators did not so presume to place their speculative reconstructions atop intact remains. The imagination roams freely at Phaestos. Following our group tour, the students wandered there independently. Sometimes wind lifted through the pines at the edge of the plateau with a timeless sound.
From Phaestos we made our way to Agia Triada and, for the heart of the afternoon, the beach at Matala. The hitherto windy day had turned warm at last, prime for sunbathing and a swim.
On the 10th we enjoyed a similarly absorbing visit to Tylissos, an extensive sub-palace located high in the hills; a long bus ride along the north coast of Crete to Rethymnon, where we picnicked on the grounds of a spectacular, wind-buffetted Venetian fort above the sea; and then proceeded to Hania, where we set up the Kydon Hotel, a fine establishment a few blocks from the lovely, much-photographed port that features good tavernas and interesting shops. Hania’s small but marvelous archaeological museum was our next morning’s destination.
A bus took us that evening to Souda port, where we boarded another overnight ferry for Piraeus.
6:00 AM, Monday, April 12: Good morning Athens!
Photos from Crete
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Highlights: the first two weeks
We've settled into the rhythms of life in Greece, and classes are in progress. We sail to Crete this evening!
The highlight of our orientation session on Tuesday, 24 March was Ioannis (John) Zervos' talk on ancient and contemporary Greece, or Hellas as he prefers to name it, a young, teeming country famed for its classical greatness whose latter and more recent history he sketched for us: the four centuries of Ottoman occupation; Byron and English philhellenism in the Romantic era; the struggle for independence from Turkey; the Smyrna debacle and the convulsive population shifts between Greece and Turkey early in the 20th century, w/ the sudden, enormous growth of Athens; the Italian-then-Nazi occupation during WW II, then the terrible civil war; then the junta, finally a restored democracy and inclusion in the EU. A master raconteur-improvisateur, Mr. Zervos held us fascinated and helped us to understand what it is to be Greek, and to visit Greece, today. Several students attended the Independence Day parade the next day, and it meant much more to them for this introduction.
The evening of the 24th, we enjoyed a welcome dinner at the Vyrinis Taverna down Archimidous Street from the Athens Centre (our options delicious roast lamb and chicken), and the next night, site-director Rosemary Donnelly invited us and the Penn State students over for a mixer with hors d'oeuvres and krasi at her home. On Friday, one of Rosemary's staff, Aphrodite, led us on a walking tour of central Athens: through Syntagma Square, Monastiraki, finishing w/ lunch at a good souvlaki place.
Saturday evening (27 Mar), Nancy and I had the students over around 5:00 for pizza, and we took advantage of our proximity to First Cemetery to tour those amazing grounds together at dusk. The highlight was our discovery of a small new section of recent plots (all 2009) outside the wall up beyond the massive tomb of Heinrich Schleimann, with a stirring view of the Acropolis and the Hill of the Muses in the late light. "I could stay here forever!" Tricia remarked. "It's so beautiful." "A lot of people are staying here forever," I kidded her.
The next week classes began, and the students enjoyed their first major excursion on Wednesday with archaeologist Michael Wedde, who took them up to the Acropolis, down to the Theater of Dionysus, and into the great Acropolis Museum, which deserves an essay of its own. It is the most elegantly conceived, brilliantly executed museum I've ever stepped into, with clear floors offering vertiginous display of ruins beneath and tall windows inviting contemplation of the slopes and the plateau where the marbles and other artifacts on display were found. The top, Parthenon floor holds a true-to-scale abstraction of the Temple of Athena, oriented exactly to the points of the compass like the original, with the metopes hung where they would have been on that building, the white plaster casts of those in the British Museum staring down in mute but compelling argument that it is time now to return the Parthenon marbles to the place of their making.
This was Easter Week in Greece, and most of us found our way to ceremonies like the parading of the epitaphios (a symbol of the crucified savior) through the city. The ritual in First Cemetery was quite moving, with the epitaphios carried on a bier by six pall-bearers and preceded by a marching band, the cortege followed by hundreds of people carrying long, thin, beige candles and winding past the flower-adorned tombs of the extensive cemetery. The band at one point played Chopin's Funeral March as they made their way back towards the sanctuary, where the service continued. On Saturday night, following a long service of priestly chanting, at midnight Easter Sunday began with a lighting of candles--everybody had one, slender white ones now--from a flame flown in from Jerusalem and distributed to all the churches, and the congregations spilled out onto the streets and plazas to light up the night together as bells clanged deafeningly, priests continued their chants, and fireworks boomed. Welcome back to the world of the living! Custom holds that if you make it home with your candle still burning, and don't put it out for a good 15 minutes, your luck will be good this year. We saw people drive off with lit candles in their cars.
Photos:
Acropolis Field Trip
Easter Week
The highlight of our orientation session on Tuesday, 24 March was Ioannis (John) Zervos' talk on ancient and contemporary Greece, or Hellas as he prefers to name it, a young, teeming country famed for its classical greatness whose latter and more recent history he sketched for us: the four centuries of Ottoman occupation; Byron and English philhellenism in the Romantic era; the struggle for independence from Turkey; the Smyrna debacle and the convulsive population shifts between Greece and Turkey early in the 20th century, w/ the sudden, enormous growth of Athens; the Italian-then-Nazi occupation during WW II, then the terrible civil war; then the junta, finally a restored democracy and inclusion in the EU. A master raconteur-improvisateur, Mr. Zervos held us fascinated and helped us to understand what it is to be Greek, and to visit Greece, today. Several students attended the Independence Day parade the next day, and it meant much more to them for this introduction.
The evening of the 24th, we enjoyed a welcome dinner at the Vyrinis Taverna down Archimidous Street from the Athens Centre (our options delicious roast lamb and chicken), and the next night, site-director Rosemary Donnelly invited us and the Penn State students over for a mixer with hors d'oeuvres and krasi at her home. On Friday, one of Rosemary's staff, Aphrodite, led us on a walking tour of central Athens: through Syntagma Square, Monastiraki, finishing w/ lunch at a good souvlaki place.
Saturday evening (27 Mar), Nancy and I had the students over around 5:00 for pizza, and we took advantage of our proximity to First Cemetery to tour those amazing grounds together at dusk. The highlight was our discovery of a small new section of recent plots (all 2009) outside the wall up beyond the massive tomb of Heinrich Schleimann, with a stirring view of the Acropolis and the Hill of the Muses in the late light. "I could stay here forever!" Tricia remarked. "It's so beautiful." "A lot of people are staying here forever," I kidded her.
The next week classes began, and the students enjoyed their first major excursion on Wednesday with archaeologist Michael Wedde, who took them up to the Acropolis, down to the Theater of Dionysus, and into the great Acropolis Museum, which deserves an essay of its own. It is the most elegantly conceived, brilliantly executed museum I've ever stepped into, with clear floors offering vertiginous display of ruins beneath and tall windows inviting contemplation of the slopes and the plateau where the marbles and other artifacts on display were found. The top, Parthenon floor holds a true-to-scale abstraction of the Temple of Athena, oriented exactly to the points of the compass like the original, with the metopes hung where they would have been on that building, the white plaster casts of those in the British Museum staring down in mute but compelling argument that it is time now to return the Parthenon marbles to the place of their making.
This was Easter Week in Greece, and most of us found our way to ceremonies like the parading of the epitaphios (a symbol of the crucified savior) through the city. The ritual in First Cemetery was quite moving, with the epitaphios carried on a bier by six pall-bearers and preceded by a marching band, the cortege followed by hundreds of people carrying long, thin, beige candles and winding past the flower-adorned tombs of the extensive cemetery. The band at one point played Chopin's Funeral March as they made their way back towards the sanctuary, where the service continued. On Saturday night, following a long service of priestly chanting, at midnight Easter Sunday began with a lighting of candles--everybody had one, slender white ones now--from a flame flown in from Jerusalem and distributed to all the churches, and the congregations spilled out onto the streets and plazas to light up the night together as bells clanged deafeningly, priests continued their chants, and fireworks boomed. Welcome back to the world of the living! Custom holds that if you make it home with your candle still burning, and don't put it out for a good 15 minutes, your luck will be good this year. We saw people drive off with lit candles in their cars.
Photos:
Acropolis Field Trip
Easter Week
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