So, we left Athens on Thursday and headed to a small coastal town called Napflion. It is what I would call quaint and charming. On the way to Napflion, we stopped at Mycenae which is the site of the oldest known town in Greece. There are ruins there from a settlement and a tomb. Many of the gold treasures in the museum we visited in Athens were actually discovered here.
Then we went to an ancient center of healing called Epidaurus. There we saw an intact ancient stadium that was really cool. The acoustics in there were incredible. One of our group recited from Henry IV and you could hear it all over the whole stadium. She said she could hear herself like it was a microphone coming back at her. The healing center itself had ruins of the ritual bath, the places to make a sacrifice and of course the places where you would stay. They are in the middle if restoring it using only ancient tools which is really neat. You can certainly tell the new marble and limestone from the old.
Everywhere you turn here, there are ruins and relics of the ancient past. Being in places like this makes you really understand some of the history that you learned or ignored in school. I need to go back and read Homer again. I need to go back and read other versions of the myths as well. That will be a part of the curriculum project I have to create when I return.
Friday we went to a folklife museum which had many displays of clothing and daily life. There were some incredible things in there. We also went to the Palamidi Castle which was a Venetian style castel built to defend the town in the 16th century ( so it is one of the newer constructins around). There were incredible views from the top of the castle. We also had a visit with the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies here in Napflion who runs a center that allows students and teachers access to all the libraries of Harvard University as they study all things Greek. He gave an incredible talk about the history of the Greek language, among other things, and he is going with us to Olymia tomorrow so we look forward to that.
Wish you were here!
1 comment:
Dear Amy,
All I can say is that you are so blessed to have such a continuously wonderful experience! It's amazing that the Greeks had the science of acoustics figured out like that! I wonder what kind of sacrifices they made at Epidarus? I can tell that your students are going to have lots of questions for you because this is all so interesting!
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