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Mycenae : Ancient Citidel ...

Mycenae Travel Blog › entry 6 of 23 › view all entries

David and Sylvia off on a trip to Greece: the first week with easycruise visiting Delphi, Naphlia, Corinth, Patmos & Athens. Then we took a plane to Mykonos, Ferry to Santorini and a plane to Crete..Visiting Knossos, Malia, Gortina, Gornia,... and many more! We traveled without reservations and had times when we were a little nervous about where we would spend the night... but it worked out & we had a blast.

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Mycenae : Ancient Citidel ...

October 23, 2008

Nemea wine and olive oil

After we went to Nemea we continued towards Mycenae. As we traveled I saw a little roadside stand that had bottles of what appeared to be wine... David, ever the good sport, turned around and went back. I got out and found they were selling olive oil and different wines. I chose a water bottle of red wine. It cost 3.5 Euros... I was thrilled with the cost but later we saw it for sale in a grocery store for 2.0 euros... Ok.... not a bargain.... but it was fun getting it at a stand. Plus we had the bonus of knowing the farmers got the money.... (OK... I've probably rationalized that enough...lol...)

Mycenae was still to be found. We followed the signs and pulled into the parking lot of the grounds.

Mycenae Museum: 6th century BC

Mycenea was supposed to have been founded by Persius, son of Zeus and Danae (daughter of King Argos) ... We went to the museum first... we really loved how it was arranged so that all of the items found in "grave cache A" are all together. It made it interesting to see what is found in each excavation and what periods they cover. (on the site the placards said "Grave cache A" so we had a handle on what was found there... great system. Mycenae was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann... he followed the writings of Homer... He found one grave that had the famous mask of Agamemnon as well as other gold items.. these are housed at the Athens Archeological Museum.

After a couple of hours we walked out to the gounds.

Lion Gate: Mycenae: 13th Century BC

It is so amazing to see the walls that are easily 20-30 feet above us ... the stones are huge! The Lion gate is 13th century BC. We strolled the grounds and looked at the map to try to make sense of how things were laid out... We walked all the way to the end....

At the very end is the reason the area survived so long. It has a wonderful water cistern. It was added in the final expansion of the main walls but it was definately one of the most important areas. Next to the water area was the "secret stairs" ..... there were about 30 stairs that went down into one of the tunnels. It intersected with second tunnel that was blocked off. When we were at the bottom surrounded by rocks it was eerie quiet.

Mycenae Museum: jaw with flowers: 1500-1450 BC

The only thing we could hear was our breathing and our feet scuffing the rocks .... And then.... being Californians... we thought about earthquakes when we were 30 feet down. David said.... Well,... we'll be part of history when they dig us out in 2000 years. Yep.... Two tourists with notebooks, bottles of water, cameras.... dressed in orange plaid pants and purple flowered shirts... (kidding... we aren't ugly tourists...)

We walked back and went into the museum shop.... the museums are making a mistake in their merchandise.... they all have the same line of modern geometric jewelry... very overpriced... and they have scarves that are neither attractive or made from good or correct material.

Burial chest for child: 1350-1180 BC: Mycenae Museum

I really wanted to buy something but wound up buying only post cards. I wanted earrings or a necklace that were replicas of the ones in the museum but ... they weren't there.

We went out to the parking lot and bought waters from the vender parked there .... as we drove up the road we were surprised to see a second Mycenae site. We stopped and walked in. The ticket person said it was included in the price. She then added sharply that it was closing in 11 minutes and she wanted us out. Yikes... that was blunt... We walked up the hill and found the site was well marked with placards... It was a wonderful addition to the main site but we had never heard that there was an additional site .... We watched the time and walked out at precisely 11 minutes... the ticket lady was very appreciative and thanked us and wished us a great evening.... Greeks.... gotta love them... they are so charming.