A weekend in the Argolid - part 1

So let me tell you a little bit more about the weekend in the Argolid. The Argolid is close enough to Athens to be the sort of place one thinks of visiting and far enough away for it to be the sort of place one thinks of visiting.

Our last trip out to the Peloponnese of the exploratory sort was on Palm Sunday 2006, and we climbed Acrocorinth and visited Corinth proper and then went to the cemetery at Aidonia and generally we had a totally diachronic time looking at remains of the three great civilizations which have made Greece characteristically theirs. Hell, it's not me blowing this hot air out of my hat, it's Toynbee himself, who in writing "The Greeks and their Heritages" about the Mycenaean era, the Classical era and the Byzantine era basically said a lot of stuff that struck a chord with me.

So we saw in one day, the Mycenaean cemetery at Aidonia, the Classical civic centre of old Corinth and the fortified Byzantine settlement of Acrocorinth, and then we found time for Frankish gothic architecture and weird mountain lakes before we went on to dodge about dirt roads at altitudes where the snow had not yet melted, but this is all another story.

This time we spread the history and culture with its tripartite nature over the whole of the weekend, and probably skimped a bit on the Classical, though not a lot.

As usual, we left Athens very late and stopped at almost every opportunity for snacks while managing to arrive at our medieval site with only about an hour until sunset. We had spent some time at one of the classical stops on our weekend, so I guess this is not totally unjustified.

My suggested route to the sites requires the driver to take a right immediately after crossing the Inakhos on the way into Argos.

The fortified hill of Deiras sits slightly before the fortified hill of Argos proper, known since antiquity as Larissa - a reference to the seagulls which no doubt frequented the spot. We walked around the sanctuaries of Athena and Apollo, slightly underwhelmed by what we were looking at, in the same way that a visitor to Sparta may be disappointed.

Layers at Deiras

Still there was opportunity to do a bit of archaeo-sleuthing and mental reconstruction and all the other mindgames which offer themselves at sites having more than one building phases or periods of usage. We then drove the circuit of the Aspis hill, stopping at some of the polygonal masonry bastions and remarking at the large number of used prophylactics littering the one lane, but asphalted ring road, before setting off up the windy road to the summit of the hill.

Polygonal masonry on Aspis Hill

The asphalt road takes the visitor right up to what must be the old main entrance, facing sort of south and a little west and commanding a view over the modern town of Argos right through to Palamidi to the south, and beyond. The books mention that three different building phases are clearly visible and we were determined to tell them all apart, although we were upset that there would be no Mycenaean fortification to look at in addition to all the others.

The view to Nafplio

We took in the view, which stretches easily out to the Palamidi to the south and on down the curving coast towards the lowlands of Arcadian Parnon and then entered the castle by what looks like it ought to be the main entrance after a small diversion playing with plants. Not any old plants - but some plant the name of which I must look up in a proper book because google is not returning anything useful. They have a bulbous head about 7-15 cm above the ground hiding the seeds. If you touch it ever so slightly, it will burst, showering the area with seeds. Very good fun for city kids like yours truly and K.



We took what seemed to be the most logical route around the castle - anticlockwise at ground level then walking back to enter the "keep" and after thoroughly exploring the keep, exiting from the ramp to the south.

Spolion in Northernmost bastion

There was a nice spolion in the northernmost bastion which I recorded on the video. Spolia are pieces of older masonry re-used as building blocks with no regard for their original purpose or position - all that is of interest is that it is a sometimes ready squared piece of building block. It is often the case that spolia incorporate carved members and inscriptions. It is on the walls of the citadel / keep that the many different periods of construction are visible - in this stretch of wall there are clearly visible ashlar, polygonal and medieval masonry courses.

To the left of the stretch of wall in the image is an improper entrance into the citadel which has some spray paint graffiti creating a rather bad image for the visitor. Talking of bad images for the visitor, the flag is in a very badly ripped state.

Entering the citadel from here (flagpole to your back and graffiti to your right), there is a walk around circuit which takes you to the opposite side and back to the car, while the rest of the citadel stretches out to your right. Do not go straight for the exit as you will miss most of the fun of having come up here.

Graffiti near the flagpole

Its is probably best to walk a little around towards the exit before turning round to face the entrance you have come in from. The upright wall with the window at the spot where you entered should now make sense architecturally. Maybe it won't, but for me it did. The window is the window in the apse of a medieval church, which runs parallel with the wall (with the ashlar and polygonal masonry described above) on the other side of it. The church is set at a level slightly higher than ground level and I am not sure from where access would have been originally. The church has a very simple plan (one aisle basilica with apse) and it was impossible for me to tell whether it was built by the defenders or the subsequent conquerors.

Looking back towards the church with cisterns in left foreground

We are currently standing about two thirds of the way to the other exit, OK - we did not go clamber about the church because I wrote that you should just look over your shoulder at it not go and clamber about. If you have clambered about, you may want to go back to where you were before going to clamber. It is not my fault you won't follow instructions.

With your back to the church, turn right and being careful of the cisterns, walk to the north encircling wall with the walkway that leads to the church again. Hang on - that means the church is set up N-S rather than E-W. The cisterns are fairly interesting in and of themselves. It is so easy to forget how important a reliable and clean supply of water is, no?

So we are now standing in the corner of the citadel, the church to our right in the distance and the cisterns behind us. We are facing northish and the walkway which goes right to the church is in front of us. There is a nice spolion column to our right, but the highlight of my visit to the citadel was this funky spolion incorporating an original archaic inscription. Absolutely mind blowing. The text does a bit of boustrophedon and has very archaic looking letters to my non specialist eye. It begins EPI TONDE and the top right corner is lost to canon or something. It incorporates the Ksi, Phi and Theta letters but as far as I can see no other late letters. I can't tell what it is about, although there is a few lines of text all beginning with KAI. There seem to be digammas in the script too and the deltas are rounded like roman Ds. I had a go at putting stuff into google but did not have as much success as the slab in the Bulgarian bar.

Archaic inscription slab

We left the citadel and came down into Argos joining the so-called ring road which takes you round the town on one way streets rather than through the central vegetable market when you are trying to get through Argos. You normally join this road by taking the right immediately before the very popular and rather good Pantazis fast food place. We went under the theatre etc. and headed out to Hellenikon to show K the pyramid and hopefully have all sorts of discussions about the loons who believe it to be older than it really is.

Here K outside the Castle of Larissa

We did not have the discussion which is a pity on the one hand as I was looking for K to confirm that what the consensus says is right, on the other hand, it was good. Why good? Well, we could not talk about it because K was totally unfamiliar with what it is the kooks say about the "pyramid". We just agreed that, yes it is pyramid shaped and left it at that.

K in front of the "pyramid" of Hellenikon

We spent the night at the rather nice Pension Marianna in Nafplio, which is on the castle and just underneath the Xenia hotel. Brilliant view and the rooms were not so bad as well.

K on top of the "pyramid" of Hellenikon - in a pose not unlike that of the French dwarf soldier from the 19th Century

Next time day 2 of the trip to the Argolid.

No luck today, hazy sky

The title says a lot really. I went out twice, once with my slightly polarizing dark glasses, but there is really too much haze in the sky to be able to say that I saw anything. I have my 300mm lens in the car with my camera, ready for tomorrow's attempt. I am thinking though, that my 135mm lend with the polariser should blacken the sky enough, but will the 2.5 stop light reduction be so much as to lose the comet itself? I am thinking of shooting at 1/1000 sec at f8 (on 200ASA film), so use of the polariser will mean I have to open up to f4 or more. At least I know where to set the focus distance...

I will try to keep you informed.

Comet McNaught in daylight

I missed the comet McNaught C2006/P1 in its evening apparition due to bad weather and bad organisation. I now read that it is visible in daylight, and instructions have been posted at astroprof. I went out today to give it a shot, but had no luck. I will come back tomorrow with the long lens and the binos - binos to check where it is, etc. and then the long lens to try to take some photos in daylight.

There was too large a humidity halo around the sun, today. I will try again later in the week and will keep you posted.

Mycenaean bridge

My favourite Mycenaean Bridge lies on a rather steep curve on the road between Nafplio and Lygourio. Imagine my surprise in December when we saw another two bridges signposted and heard tell of a third somewhere. Once upon a time I would chase these things all over the country. Then came the MiniCult and it started putting the brown signposts everywhere. This is not so bad in and of itself as it tends to draw one's attention to sites which may have otherwise been overlooked. It does however detract from the joy of the hunt.



The bridge in the photo is my fave because it is the first I consciously spotted. I have many photos of it over the years and may dig them up for you some time. Built at least 3200 years ago on a corbelled design (not vaulted, but corbelled) the bridge is still a monument to a time when public works in Greece were built to last.

The photo is from December 2006 from a groovy road trip K and I made:



Hopefully I will have a chance to write all about it soon. There is a small video over at You Tube: Larissa Castle at 5telios at YouTube. The video shows K exploring Larissa Castle and has some good shots of the different masonry styles and some spolia in two different locations.

A fair number of photos from the weekend, which I just got today exist, and I'll have to include them when the time comes to write about it.

"Darnce"

So we went to that performance choreographed by the guy who did the choreography for Athens 2004. Athens 2004 opening and closing were not bad at all. Papaioannou is his name. Apparently he is well known. I don't know the first thing about darnce.

The performance we went to was called "2" and featured an all male cast. It explores men, manliness, masculinity etc.

I am no critic, just someone who went to the performance, to a certain extent against his will, but with a healthy dose of curiosity and with a sense of obligation, so as to ensure that I too would be able to throw my 2 cents into the ring whenever the conversation would turn to the performance.

The stage was minimalist to the extreme. It was empty. All necessary partitions and stage props were carried in and out to great effect by the dancers themselves. There would often be two or three (once or twice even more) poles of interest on the stage at the same time, which worked well enough, although the occasional full cast tableaux were less effective.

Plot-wise, I did not find myself wondering "what the fuck is going on now?" more than two or three times during the show and I must admit that the emphasis on masturbation which was depicted in various ways at various times in the show was a little disconcerting.

There was a small moment of joy when I recognized a reference to the Aristophanes story from the Symposium of Plato. Unfortunately no one else seemed to notice and I had to quietly smile and nod alone as the two dancers stuck back to back became unstuck (with suitably schlocky sound effects) and began their journey as two halves longing to be re-joined. The scene was repeated towards the end of the show.

Some scenes dragged, others were fun enough. In all, though, I would not rate it too highly. Everyone is ranting and raving, but I get the feeling that this is more because one feels compelled to rant and rave about it lest one be considered boorish and unknowing. Yes, some scenes were good and memorable, others were how I would imagine Greek darnce to be, extrapolating from what I have seen of theatre in Greece. At best, the vast majority of theatre in Greece today may described as provincial and lacking in subtlty and finesse. Certain scenes in "2" seemed to have been dumbed down or exaggerated as if the artist was creating for an audience which lacks the ability to appreciate real art, rather than creating for his own gratification.

It was worth having gone, though, if only to be able to have an opinion.

Team

So here is the team I work with - from the right, my boss, with my arm around her, and in the middle in the white trousers is "Igor", my sister.

Yes, I work on a team with 9 girls.

Like the word paleomammalogist

You have to get to the end of the article to find the word, but it is here: "Paleomammalogist"

Cool little story about the oldest known mammals to take to the skies, and a new order of mammals to boot!

Thought I would share.

It's here.

I am currently listening to an album I have recently purchased from Amazon.com. It's in one of those nice hardened CD cases with the button you have to press to open and with suitably tasteless cover art. I am currently listening to the first track which is catchy enough to get used to, but I will reserve judgement on the rest until I have heard the whole thing through a few times.

The monster is loose indeed!

Saddam verdict

Over at Struggling Author Marie has written a few words about the whaddayacallit verdict thing and, basically, I agree with her 100%.

So there.

Kritios boy disappoints tourist...

The Kritios boy stands to the right of the Blond boy in the Acropolis museum, they form the back end of the kouros exhibit in the museum and represent the very latest kouros forms before the sacking of the citadel of Athens in 480BC. I had the pleasure of seeing the two of them again yesterday, along with old favourites such as the moschophoros and the sandal-binder, together with James and Fiona and Korinna. So there we were, kettle drums going off in our mind's ear and quite excited as we were about to see the Krition boy again (of course, I underexposed the whole roll of film, but that's a story for later), when a voice was heard coming from a group of North Americans huddled around the statue: "Oh, that is such a disappointment".

We truly are living in strange times if one can be disappointed with their first sight of the Kritios boy.

"Endangered"

"Workers in Iceland hose down an endangered fin whale"

Err, yeah, like, it's sitting on a bloody platform out of the water - I'd say it's endangered...

Anyway, as one who has eaten whalemeat (and come to think of, the flesh of quite a number of endangered critters), I can honestly say that:
1) I am sure that the people of iceland know what they are doing, and
2) I can't see what all the fuss is about.

After all, whale tastes better than seal.

Possibly getting older

The odd grey hair in amongst the mane of hair on my head, I have sorta lived with that after discovering the first one in a scanned photo of myself proudly standing in front of a fiat cinquecento much less battered than the one I currently abuse. I had thought that the hair was an artifact of the scanning process, but no, it was there in the mirror as well… This was back in 1998. Then came the grey hairs in the beard, which I have been watching as they multiply (while the grey hairs on my head have not managed to do so) since I noticed my first one a couple of years ago. Now, the final bastion has fallen: white hairs in my 'tache. Not only that, but someone at work noticed it only like a day after I had noticed the little fucker. I have no idea what to think about it – like whassisname says in Spinal Tap – I would be, I would be upset, if I were not so heavily sedated. I am not sedated, but I am well too tired and ragged at the edges to sit and worry about the graying of my beard. It was fun laughing at the ginger hairs in there, and I am sure it will be fun to laugh one day at the whiteys, but not yet, dammit.

Well for what it’s worth: Fucksocks!

With a radio and good batteries…

As her bjorkiness so eloquently puts it: I wish I was on a mountain-top…

I wish I were here, actually:








I am going through one of these phases, where the sweat is sticking the shirt to your back and however high you set the airconditioning fan, it is never high enough. No really, this was not intended to be a metaphor and did not start life as such, but now I have read through it again, all I can think about is how well it works metaphorically too.

Bogged down by gunk in almost all aspects of my life at the moment, it is tough to get myself moving to de-gunkify the situation. The crazy inertia of it all. Stuff that should have been done that was not done lying around me wherever I go, at jbex, at home at the club. Inertia chaos.

Did I write about my ear? I don't think I did. On Tuesday about two hours after landing, I heard this high pitched beepy noise and a pop. And that was that. My hearing has been totally bollox in my left ear since then. I can’t follow a conversation in a crowded room, there is buzzy hissing noise twenty-four seven and generally I don't like the way it feels. I am seeing the doctor about it tomorrow.

Some day I'll be writing about the photos… although they were taken before the blog came into being.

jbex

I rarely write about jbex. Once in a while an indirect reference creeps in from time to time, some travel or whatever. Things are tough, bordering on the surreal, bordering on faulty towers. At the moment I feel strong enough. Hell, I am even looking forward to the challenge a little (must be the winter coming in).

There must be a bunch of bad karma being paid off here.

Crickey!

The link in the title is to a page on the BBC website gathering views on immigration following the EU's agreement to let Romania and Bulgaria accede. The accession of these countries will be a good thing, but the reaction of the BCC's readers is a little extreme if you ask me.

What has happened to the UK I knew? When I left eleven years ago I would never have imagined such a reaction to the question.

Is this violent intolerance of foreigners what Tony the Pony's lasting legacy will be? To be honest I am shocked. I am also glad that I have not had the opportunity to visit for four years.

It is sickening to see such ill informed and misguided bare faced racism being bounced about through the official mouthpiece of the Britsh government - the BBC. And did anyone else notice that the pictured bulgarians in the main article are not quite the most representative looking Bulgarians.

I respectfully ask Britain to stop whingeing like spoilt children being told to share their sweets with the other children and make a decision as to whether you want to be in the Union or not. I dare say you would all prefer to have pounds shillings and pence again.

I am totally surprised and appalled.

Palpable excitement

The 9th annual Panhellenic Speleological Convention is being held starting this afternoon down in Monemvasia. My car is buggered. It keeps going crazy and overheating for no perceivable reason. The drive down will be interesting to say the least...

More news on my return.

Hitch-hiking to India from the Balkans

Gordan is a friend I met in southern Macedonia in 2003. We climbed the castle of Kralye Marko together on top of the granite hills of Prilep. At the time I felt a little bad at dragging him up there, not sure if he really wanted to have a look at the castle, or if he was coming along because he was working with me and I was in his country.

I later learned that Gordan is probably more adventurous than I am, as he set off a week after our work together for China, with no intention of paying for transport - just hitch-hiking...

This year he is going one better and he's set off hitchhiking to India and blogging on the way. So it is with great pleasure that I present his bilingual Macedonian / English blog, with photos: Backpacking is a Freedom

Good luck Gordan!

Return from Istanbul Video

This is the way we come back home, come back home, come back home; this is the way we come back home la da da da dee dee dee do.

Dead characters - spoilers!

K - don't read this I write about stuff that happens in the Half Blood Prince...

Yeah, so I am probably the only guy in the world currently recovering from the double whammy of losing Dumbledore and Boone all in the same week.

Dumbledore left us this week because I'm buggered if I am going to pay Ms. Rowling's price for a hardback and the paperback has only just come out, and he was quickly followed by Boone, because we have only just got to that bit of the first season, and only because they have been playing one episode every night for about ten days.

So living in the back of beyond... it sort of means I get hit with the emotions later than the rest of the world, despite globalisation's best efforts to make us all eat drink and shit at the same time and in the same way.

Slight editing in Ravenna II

I have only just noticed how crap and unpolished the text for Ravenna II was. It remains crap and unpolished,. of course, but slightly less so...