9 March 2010 (Tuesday #2) – Argolis day, Epidaurus

Repeat from last post: Today we did the “Argolis Excursion.” Specifically, we went to three places in the Argolis region of the Peloponnese in Greece—Corinth, Epidaurus, and Mycenae. The last post covered the Corinth Canal, and this one is about Epidaurus.

After Corinth, we got back on the bus (and sat on the right side!) for the drive to Epidaurus. Here’s a view out the bus window, showing what Greece is famous for—trees and mountains:

Depending on the path the bus driver took, the water is probably the Saronic Gulf, but it could be the Gulf of Argolis. It’s hard to get one’s bearings with all those trees in the way.

Hold the phone! Here’s a bunch of trees; they must be hiding something really important:

Hmmm. It was just more blurred trees, mountains, and water. However, that almost looks like a narrow, white beach along the edge of the hills on the left side:

If so, it’s the only white beach we saw the entire time we were in Greece. Sometimes the mountains went right to the water with no beach, while other beaches were brown and rocky. (Destin it was not.)

Cute farmhouse:

At last the bus has arrived at Epidaurus:

The colors in this photo are straight out of the camera. Although spring had not quite arrived in Greece, the trees were already green, and on this day the sky was a gorgeous blue.

Interruption for history lesson:

• Epidaurus is reputed to be the birthplace of Apollo’s son Epidauria, the healer. Therefore, it was the most celebrated healing center in the Classical world.
• The Theater at Epidauras was built in the 4^th century BC, and it’s considered the best preserved structure in Greece from the Classical period. In 426 AD the Christian Roman emperor banned all activities at the theater. An earthquake in 528 destroyed it and buried it until excavations began in 1881. Greek dramas are staged there now in July and August.
• The theater at Epidaurus is also famous for its perfect acoustics. Without amplification all spectators can hear the unamplified spoken word, that is, if the speaker is standing on the round thing in the center of the theater and if it hasn’t rained (apparently water messes up the acoustics). The theater's perfect acoustics are the result of its being built into a sloping hillside and the limestone from which the seating was constructed. The limestone also acts as a filter for low frequencies, thus eliminating the sound of chatter from the audience.
• The theater is 350 feet across and 55 rows high. It seats about 15,000. (The photos don't do its size justice; it's big!)

When we get off the bus, we always encounter the local stray animal population. In Athens it was dogs, but in Epidaurus it was cats. See:

 
I just realized I didn’t show any photos of the dogs in yesterday's posts about Athens. Must go look for a dog photo . . .. Found one:

No, I have no idea why I took a photo of a dog under a motorcycle. In fact, this is not a typical dog because it’s on the small side. Greece is loaded with HUGE stray dogs.

Interesting facts about dogs in Athens:

• Many, many dogs are strays, especially as the economy has worsened. People who can't afford to keep their dogs open the door and send them out to live on the streets. (I'll bet microchipping is not big in Greece.)
• The strays are fat.
• The strays wear collars.

Apparently, they’re not big on euthanizing strays in Athens. The officials take care of them healthwise, though. Once a year they round up the dogs, give them shots and a general health check. The dogs’ are given new tags for their collars (also provided by the government) to show they’re current on their shots. Then the officials take them back to wherever they were picked up and release them.

The citizens and tourists take care of the dogs' feeding and attention needs, to the extent that the dogs are HUGE, friendly, and generally laid back. Even seeing a pack of dogs coming toward you is not scary in Athens. You don’t see dogs that have been run over by cars, because supposedly the street dogs are street savvy, even knowing how to cross with pedestrians at the traffic lights.

Back to Epidaurus . . . While waiting to get inside the theater at Epidaurus, we saw this building with some ancient ruins (probably Doric columns) stacked up on the porch:

Parts of ancient ruins are everywhere!!

Then we climbed these steps to get to the theater:

Looks like someone filled in the ancient marble with cement.

Here’s our tour guide for the day, giving us the history of the theater:

We liked her a lot; she really knew her stuff. Like all the guides we had, she spoke several languages.

We entered the theater through the ancient passageways that are visible far back on the left side:

We traveled with the couple on the left for two days. They are Marilyn and Ronnie from Vancouver. Note the people on the right. It’s a young couple with two kids and a grandmother. The mother of the kids is wearing mostly white to walk around dirty, ancient sites AND she’s wearing boots with very high heels?? Strange.

Here are similar columns on the other side of the theater:

One or both of these sides was/were the front of the dressing area for the performers.

Taa-daa—the Epidaurus Theater :

Note the woman scurrying to the center of the “stage.”

Now she’s at the center, hunched over a round thing on the ground:

Here's a close-up of the woman over The Raised Center Thing (see red arrow):

(Note to self: Be careful when leaning over at tourist attractions, or your butt might show up in someone’s photos.) What she was doing was dropping a coin for her tour group to hear the perfect acoustics of the theater. Sometimes people stand there on The Raised Center Thing and tear a tissue or strike a match to demonstrate how perfectly the sound carries to all the spectators.

Here I am standing on The Raised Center Thing:

Not having a coin, tissue, or match, I repeated, “Testing. Conrad. Testing. Conrad.” This embarrassed Conrad, so he ran up the steps to get away from me. This photo shows that he was now far away from me:

I took photos of Conrad running to the top of the theater:

Conrad at the top:

That woman with the white clothing and high heels went up to the top, too, AND she took the kids with her. I was impressed. I admired her spunk from my seat.

Conrad took photos from the top:

Nice view, eh? (The "eh" is in honor of our Canadian friends.)

An artsy photo:

Check where the red arrow is pointing:

I think someone else got sick of the trees blocking all the important tourist sites and started a forest fire, like I was threatening to do.

Conrad's self-portrait from the top of the theater:

Then Conrad ran back down the steps, ran across some of the “seats” . . .

And jumped.

Conrad has a lot of energy.

While he was running and jumping, I sat:

(Do my shoes look like elf shoes to anyone else?)

Conrad sitting:

Conrad standing on The Raised Center Thing:

When we left the theater, we encountered a path winding through trees:

That led us to suspect Something Important was behind the trees.

We followed the path and saw this sign:

The red arrow points to where we were standing at that moment, in the area outside the theater. The rest of the stuff on the map shows all the structures that used to be on this site.

We also found a little museum with lots of statues of clothed people and (of all things) ancient surgical tools:

More statues:

Before we left Epidaurus, Conrad talked to this cat:

Then we got back on the bus to go to Mycenae (see next post), and Conrad, as usual, fell asleep:

These last two photos show part of Conrad's cast, acquired because he broke his distal radius in three places before our trip. We are a clumsy family.