Unexpected Adventures

Phil got up early and heard our host start some kind of yard engine. Our hostess began to shout at him...something about waking the visitors. I am not sure who won, but I was up anyway, so it didn't bother me. We had a leisurely morning because not all the laundry was dry overnight (Europeans in general have washing machines, but not usually driers). When it dried, we packed up and left. The road was very rural with olive trees and some oleander near a house. 

We saw some kind of canid, maybe a fox, maybe a coyote, maybe something else. 

He stopped on the road to look at us, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera.

As we were driving along, we saw a tower up on the hill, but we weren't in the Mani, so that didn't make sense. We saw a sign and realized that it was a castle...an actual 12th century crusader castle: Androusa. What is left is a wall and some towers, but it was amazing to see a Frankish castle. There are only a few in Greece, and this is one of the ones we had not yet seen. 

The whole thing...but the towers are hidden by the olive trees.

The castle with the tour group learning about olive oil

One of the two towers

The wall and the olive trees

The edge of the wall

Looking up at one of the towers

Looking into the tower

There was one room with some signage, but it was locked.

I wish we had been able to go inside, but there was one room that was locked. There was only one sign on the entire property outside that room, and it was in braille (no idea if it was Greek or American braille).

On our way out.

As we were exploring, a man and woman came along, speaking in English. Phil was trying to draw my attention to an olive oil bottle with a paper sticking out of it, and the woman explained that there was a game happening. When I asked her if it was geocaching, she explained -- it was about olive oil. They were doing a guided tour explaining all the traditions around olive oil to a private tour group. She explained that it wasn't just for cooking: it was used for lamps, and children were bathed in it at baptisms. The prize, sitting in a tree, was a box that had olive oil symbolizing its many uses. Since I had just been thinking about olive trees, I asked her how old the tree in question was. She said that it wasn't scientific, but that if the tree was "one hug" around, it was 100 years, and if it was "two hugs" it was 200 years. So the tree we were looking at was probably around 200 years.

The clue

The two-hug tree with the box hidden in it.

We continued along to our goal for the day: the ancient site of Messene. We fortified ourself with a very nice picnic: we had collected along the way some fresh eggs from last night's Airbnb, some grocery store tzaziki and a pretzel-like stick with sesame and poppy seeds, some leftover Greek salad, and special cokes (mine was caffiene-free and Phil's was sweetened by stevia) along with some delicious peaches and apricots. It was an incredibly huge site, well-excavated, basically signposted, and often reconstructed, so it was very impressive. It had a theater, a stadium, a bouleterian, an eklesiasteria, many large temples, a meat market, a town square/market (Agora), and enormous walls and gates. It took us about 3 hours to walk through it all downhill) and then back up. 

View from the top of the site.

part of a water feature

The first theater

Mosaic from a villa; swastikas had a different meaning back then

A quince tree!

Hypocausts that created central heating in a Roman bath (the floor sat on top, and warm air was circulated around the piles of tiles, warming the floor)

Millstones built into a late Roman wall

In the Agora (marketplace/town square) there were some really cool measuring tables. One set had dips cut into them with a hole at the bottom. You poured grain or liquid in to measure a standard amount and then opened the bottom to drain it into your container.

I was not quite sure how these inverted ones worked...

Beautiful design carved into the stone. Not sure what period.

Cool lion relief

Me at the meat market!

They know it is the meat market in part because of this stone which was used to restrain the animals as they were being slaughtered.

The one below is a statue that was being carved today...note the marble shavings scattered around.

These next few are of reconstructed buildings. Someone paid a lot of money to make this site really impressive.

These next two are of the treasury. The first one is inside the treasury...FIG trees! Certainly treasure in my book, and makes the point about the tenacity of the fig!

Once we were done (and I'd finished my entire bottle of water and ice), we tried to go to the museum, which was by that point closed, and the city gates, which are always open BECAUSE THEY ARE STILL IN USE! We drove right through two sets of them. 

When we stopped to see them, the sign was talking about a medieval monastery, which was very confusing....the gates were just there, and apparently NOT a tourist site at all. After exploring them, we decided to check out the medieval monastery. It was in a gorgeous gorge with a river at the bottom (running water is not common in Greece in the summer), a spring coming out of the wall, and a very closed up enclosed set of buildings. Phil joked that at a monastery, if they don't want visitors, you just can't get in. 

Grape vines spilling over the wall. It must have been a beautiful garden inside!

An old bridge over the river in the gorge.

Did I mention that it was hot? We'd been tramping around in the sun for hours, so I tried a trick we learned about from our friend Patrick Leigh Fermor, about putting a cucumber on your forehead.

Maybe it worked? It sure had us laughing.

It was time to head to Mount Lykaion, where we are going to meet our old friend from Penn, David Romano, who is excavating there. We drove over two mountain ranges, the usual corkscrew and hairpin turns (the hairpin turns are marked with a sign of a hairpin). On the second one, Phil needed a break, so he pulled over at a little lay-by that was sheltered by trees. That gorgeous little stop was a spring pouring down the mountain, with a small amount diverted to springs to refresh travelers. There was a small gate at the back where you could see the spring in a crevice. And a small bench to sit at. It was just glorious.

The spring itself in the gated hole in the wall

Then as we were driving, trying to avoid a head-on collision with any cars, a donkey suddenly ran up the hill on the road towards us. No idea what he was doing. 

Finally we made it to David's excavation digs. Ambelia Retreat. A far cry from the basement of a half-built house owned by the local taverna-owner in Corinth where we spent several summers showering in buckets and washing our clothes with a washboard, this is a fancy $200/night retreat. Our room has a balcony, fireplace, couch and luxury bodycare products. It is gorgeous.

We had dinner with the 30-person crew that David has working at the site -- it is a major operation. And now to bed. Tomorrow we get to tour the excavation!