The Time We Took a Road Trip in Greece

Starring the Peloponnesian Peninsula, with guest appearances at Delphi and Sounio.

Day 1: Delphi, Olympia

As the road from Athens lengthened behind us, both Tania and I continued to marvel intermittently that we were really and truly in Greece. The drive north from the city wasn’t particularly awe-inspiring, but pleasant enough. A gray sky cast a dull pallor over the landscape, even as the morning temperature began to soar, while the plucky music of the bouzouki played on the radio, offering up melodies at once vaguely familiar and entirely foreign.

In case you were wondering, this is a bazouki. It is a traditional Greek instrument.

The landscape changed dramatically as the car climbed Mount Parnassus, and the fields rapidly gave way to jutting rock faces overlooking a vast green valley. Above Delphi, the view was jarring and, with the haze that hadn’t yet lifted entirely, almost mystic. This seemed fitting for the location best known for being where ancient Greeks came to consult the Oracle.

Classical Greek myth also holds that Delphi is the navel, or center of the world. Zeus determined this by sending two eagles in opposite directions, and marking where their paths crossed over Delphi.

Somewhere around this point, Tania and I began to notice the legions of tour busses shepherding retirees around the sites. Seeing many of the most senior tourists struggle in the increasing heat (and feeling my own inner death wishes), I was filled with a deep respect for these elderly explorers (some of whom I imagined to be fulfilling lifelong desires) and immense gratitude for my opportunity to visit these places now, while I am young, relatively healthy and quick to recuperate.

Forget Brazilian butt lifts, they could charge you double for a "Greek butt lift/vacation package" and not do any procedures, just make you climb to the top of all the sites and monuments.

After Delphi, the view from the road was much more exciting, from quaint little villages with their red tile roofs dotting the shoreline to elevated coastal vistas, where one could hardly tell where the sky ended and the Mediterranean Sea began.

Does that water not look inviting?

We arrived in Olympia in the late afternoon, and wandered around the ruins, puzzling over the significance of temples to the ancient Greeks, and the great lengths to which they went to travel to the sanctuaries of their Gods. As a member of a faith for which temples are exceedingly sacred, I felt a new connection to these ancient peoples; despite great discrepancies in the details of our beliefs, there is something bonding in the shared urge to worship in a space set apart from the world. It also makes one wonder what might become of our own sacred spaces in 2,000 years time. All around the platform upon which the Temple of Zeus used to stand, the pillars lie in pieces, each with a diameter almost as long as I am tall. Surrounded by these great stones, I found it unexpectedly emotional to truly contemplate what it must have been like for the Greeks to come under Roman rule and watch their culture and traditions, like the Olympics, become increasingly suppressed and wiped away.

Behind me, at the altar of Hera, is where the ceremonial lighting of the Olympic torch takes place before each modern day Olympic Games.

About half an hour away, in Katakolo, we called it a night with a seaside dinner of the most tender, delicious lamb gyros and a hike up to our room. Tucked into the hillside, our modest room enjoyed a million dollar view over the little town and it's port, framed by vivid flowers and palm trees. As great as it is, I find it hard to imagine savoring the view much if I had to lug my groceries all the way up there on the regular. Come to think of it, maybe that's why "breakfast" consisted of 2 slices of melba toast served with a square of butter and jam and 100 mL of juice.

Dinner with a view. One of the many romantic settings Tania and I enjoyed together, while thinking about someone else. Perhaps it is the nature of the setting that prompted our elderly host to clarify three times that we were in fact "just friends".

Tania and a few friends enjoy the view from outside our bedroom.
(Illuminati conspiracy!! The strays' formation around Tania is mighty suspicious.)

Day 2: Mystras, Diros Caves, Sparta
We were awakened by a crowing rooster (which might have been quaint were it not quite so annoying) who would not rest, it seemed, until every person in Greece had arisen. Nevertheless, we were in good spirits as we made our way to Mystras, a small fortified cliffside city from the Byzantine era and UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are a number of ruins to visit as you make your way up, including churches and a palace. The monastery is still somewhat active, and if you watched keenly, you could catch a glimpse of the odd black-clad nun.

The modern city of Mystras sits at the foot of Taygetos mountain. The ancient city of Mystras sits high upon the slopes.
Fun fact: all the ancient societies of Greece were sadists.

Another day, another climb.

Though somewhat out of the way, some reviews suggested that the trip to the Diros caves, near the southwestern cape of the peninsula, would be well worth it. The main cave is well over 16,000 square meters in size, but a boat route of 2.5 km is all that is accessible to the public. Unfortunately for us, the water level was too high on the day we arrived to travel the full route, so we got just a glimpse of the cave's bowels on a 300 m boat ride. Strategically rigged lights both ensure clear viewing of the gleaming stalagmites and stalactites and cast shadows that add to the illusion that the rock formations are reaching out from the cave walls as if to grab hold of passers-by. In the end, the truncated route we traveled by boat was plenty, with the constant sensation of being on the verge of tipping combined with the need to be on constant alert so as not to catch a face full of the icicle-shaped rocks. The passengers in front of us pitched and squealed, much like people who are enjoying having the crap scared out of them at a haunted house. Tania and I, being somewhat more stoic, got quite a laugh out of the experience, especially as we could hear the lilting Greek of the boat conductor behind us. Though we could not understand what he was saying, his mocking tone was unmistakeable.

Taking a little boat ride in the Caves of Diros.

We had quite a bit of road ahead of us before our stop for the night, but we decided to make a pit stop in Sparta to see the statue of King Leonidas (the character Gerard Butler plays in 300) and grab some food. We picked out a place with a cool vibe and had a great dinner, but everything took so long that we had just barely made it back to the car and plugged my phone in when it died. Knowing the lower charge rate of the car would mean it would be quite some time before I could turn my phone back on to access the much-needed Google maps, we turned to Tania's phone... which promptly died as well. Schlepping back out onto the ever-darkening street, we wandered in search of a cafe where we might plug in our phones. In front of each establishment, middle-aged and senior men gathered in flimsy chairs around television sets watching sports and sucking on cigars. We picked the one that looked the most innocuous; quiet other than a group of men playing cards at tables by the door. Turns out we had crashed an Albanian hang out. With the advancing hour, and our own mounting exhaustion, our nerves were fried by the time we made it to our next Air BnB. Our host turned out to be a Greek Orthodox Canter, a multi-talented musician and all-around nice-seeming guy, but we found it hard to feel very settled after Tania found a dead cockroach behind the bed when she tried to plug in our phones and I found a healthy coat of what appeared to be black mold on the bathroom ceiling. Needless to say, we got up and out in pretty good time the next morning.

THIS. IS. SPARTA!

Day 3: Mycenae, Epidaurus
Though you might not be able to put a finger on where or when, the Mycenean period should sound vaguely familiar to anyone who completed high school history classes. Before the Hellenic period (for which Greece is so famous), in the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centers of Greek civilization. We visited the ruins of the citadel city (yep, wouldn't you know it, another climb) which was apparently once home to as many as 30,000 people.

Mycenae on top of the world.

From there it was a hop, skip and jump over to Epidaurus, best known for its ancient theater (built 4th century BC) which can seat up to 14,000 people and boasts such incredible acoustics that you can hear paper ripped on the skene (center stage) from any place in the theater without amplification. The city was also home to the sanctuary of Ak-something (forgive my faulty memory... what I remember reading about this particular God is that he was banished to the land of Hades) and was a popular place for healing. Apparently people came from all over Ancient Greece to sleep in a big dorm type thing, and it was believed that the God visited them in the night and brought healing to them. Mmmm, I wish my doctor would prescribe me sleep. What a convenient excuse... like "oh, sorry, I can't, I've got to take 3 hours of sleep after each meal. Doctor's orders".

Getting the facts on the Theater of Epidauros.

Just to prove that Air BnB is a mixed bag, that night we beautiful, private accommodations, with access to a backyard pool. Mind you, we didn't use it because we spent about an hour hand-washing our clothes (too cheap to go to a laundromat at 7-10 Euros a pop) and then had to venture out to find a grocery store to get some dinner. Tania and I both wish we had taken photos in this particular Carrefour, because it looked as though it had been ransacked following a zombie apocalypse, and then carefully cleaned and re-arranged. In other words, there was no damn stuff on the shelves. I got such a kick out of one aisle that was literally just water, 1.5L size bottles sitting one deep on the shelf, at the front of the shelf, with the width of a bottle between each one.

Day 4: Ancient Corinth, Sounio
After days of heavy walking and early mornings, we were glad for an opportunity to get a late start (also, we were mostly waiting for our clothes to be dry enough to pack). Having stayed the night in Corinth, we were a mere 3 minute drive from our first stop of the day at the archeological site of Ancient Corinth. This particular site bore more markings of it's Roman years than classical Greek years, including various statues of Ceasar's (naked) grandsons, but elements of the temple of Apollo still stand. Tania and I were both drawn to the speaking platform from which Paul the Apostle addressed the Corinthians. More than anything, this renewed my desire to visit the Holy land.

Standing where Paul the Apostle once did.

It was a bit of a jaunt back past Athens to get out to Sounio, where the Temple of Poseidon dominates the hillside overlooking the water. The drive out there was like West Van meets Mexico- arid and tropical, with narrow, twisting roads, parallel to the shoreline. Expensive looking homes, restaurants and hotels lined the road, interspersed in some areas with more modest and in some cases, even dingy-looking homes. The temple may be the best preserved of all the temples we saw, and has a unique look with different-patterned columns.

Temple of Poseidon, in pretty good shape.

That view tho!

From Sounio, it was back to Athens. It being Saturday night, Tania and I had originally had big plans for a night out on the town... but when it came down to it, with an early morning expected, we both felt like we wanted to sleep more than we wanted anything else. I'm so glad the chronic FOMO I had as a teenager is something that almost never plagues me anymore, unless that something I'm missing out on is sleep.

Speaking of great views... When you get to see the Acropolis all lit up at night out your living room window.