Monemvasia

I've wanted to go to Monemvasia for over 20 years.  It is deep in the Peloponnese, and not near anything else, so it was never possible to go, so at long last, I made it happen.  But it was closed.

Well, not completely closed, but the top was closed. Apparently just a month or so ago when the gate to the upper town started to crumble they closed the whole area for restoration.  I was pretty upset... I've been waiting 20 years!  We spent the evening in the lower town and then Phil and I got up early and returned the next morning (students slept in or caught up on blogs) to hike around some more and try to solve the mystery of how the Venetians used it since there didn't seem to be a port or harbor.

The main gate to the lower town... at least that was open!

Students on the hike up to see if the upper town was really closed. Luckily the vanguard (Phil, Ellie and Sarah Kim) got up there first and yelled down to us before we got halfway up.

Looking down at the lower town from the half-way mark

One of the buildings built onto the side of the mountain.

This is the gate to the water, but it leads to jagged rocks -- not a place to land.

After our explorations, we sat down to dinner with several intrepid students.  We had heard that there were three weddings on the island that evening, and we'd seen the preparations at two of the churches, but were delighted when a wedding procession went past us.  First we saw the groom, carrying the bridal bouquet which he gives to her at the door of the church.  He said something to us as he passed our table laden with appetizers about needing some tzaziki, though Vasili suggested ouzo might have been a better idea!  Then awhile later, the bride's procession came down the same street.  I remembered the same thing when one of my friends got married in a Greek village:  the bride and her party walk from her house to the church preceded by musicians announcing to everyone the joyous occasion.

There were 3 weddings on the island that night, and the procession for one of them passed right by our dinner table.  The musicians came first, then the bride and her father, then the guests.  Note that there is no standard level of formality required for the wedding.  

Once they reach the church, the groom, who has been waiting outside, hands the bride the bouquet.  The priest begins the ceremony with the engagement, where the bride and groom wear their rings on the left hand.  Later in the ceremony, they switch to the right hand.  Often no one sits down, but the guests mill in and out of the church and children race around the building, even circling the priest and the couple.  The bride and groom wear their wedding crowns which are tied with a ribbon, and there are various rituals associated with them (they have to walk together at one point, as a couple, for instance, and the crowns stay displayed in the bedroom, as we saw in Santorini).

Wedding crowns in their display cases from the Folklore Museum in Santorini

The bride and groom immediately after the wedding, which spilled out of the church in traditional Greek custom.

I am torn between feeling gypped as a tourist and lucky as a traveler.  As a tourist, I want to see the site I'd been imagining for so many years, and am frustrated to have waited so long and then driven so far to see only the lower half of it.  On the other hand, the traveler in me recognizes that what I gaze at is just the surface, and that the real value is in the experiences.  The unexpected wedding Saturday night, the early-morning walk on the pine-scented path up the mountain, exploring the lower town on Phil's quest to understand the harbor, these are the things I probably value most.  My desire to have "crossed Monemvasia off" my list of sights is a collector's anxiety, and my enjoyment of what the place had to offer is my better self.

And there was the journey itself, the one that had stopped me for 20 years.  It was several hours of winding roads, some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I've been through.  At one point, after several hours of driving, we took a wrong turn in a mountain village, and instead of simply retracing our steps, we decided to make a pit stop in the gorgeous plateia.

The cafes in the platiea

One of the old plane trees (Platonos)

 I love Greece's mountain villages, and on future trips want to be deliberate about including more than one.  The sea is lovely, but so are the mountains.  It was 20 degrees cooler than the shore, and lovely and wet and shady, too.  There is also less international tourism, and more Greek tourism, an interesting contrast.  The items for sale reflect the nostalgia for old ways which seems to be preserved mainly in the mountains now -- home-made products, wooden items, old-fashioned tools and implements.

Honey, jams, and herbs for sale on a retaining wall.

 And then there was the story of the town which we stumbled upon by reading the plaque on this memorial.  The town had been burned by the Nazis as they left (was this a site of resistance?) and then rebuilt by the townspeople exactly as it had been.

Memorial to the burning of the village by the Nazis.

Though the size of the church compared to the size of the village suggests that at some point, liberties were taken!

The church

There was a sign for a folklore museum, so naturally I went running off, but I walked for 10 minutes to the top of the hill and saw no sign, so had to turn around.  It was 3:30pm anyway, so probably was not open.  Sigh.  Perhaps the point is that I will have to go back now, to see the museum and also the top of Monemvasia.  My relationship with Greece is much deeper than checking off a list.