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Return to Athens Survival Guide | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There is nothing like a trip with George the
Famous Taxi driver to shake me from my torpor and
rescue me from my bad habits. If it were up to me
I would hang out in cafes all day and take a nice
siesta in the afternoon to store up my energy to
go out at night with my friends, eating, drinking
and conversing 'til the wee hours of morning. For
me this is life at it's finest and if it were not
for the fact that after awhile this lifestyle
seems to run me down I think I would do it all the
time. But luckily for me I know George and when I
see myself falling into familiar patterns I can
call him up and if he has no customers that day I
ask him if he wants to go for a ride. He always
says yes. Why shouldn't he? He is my friend and he
also knows that if I happen to write about a
journey and it ends up on my web site it will mean
more customers for him. But I think he actually
enjoys taking trips with me. He knows that I know
Greece and it gives him an opportunity to show
someone who knows Greece, how much he knows about
it. Plus I think he is really proud of the way he
does his job and likes to show off a little bit,
and I know he likes to show off his Mercedes.
The only problem with me calling George about
doing a trip the next day has to do with the
transitory nature of human consciousness. Am I
losing you? Well, when I call George up from some
taverna because I am suddenly inspired that I have
to see Myceneae tomorrow because the weather man
promises a beautiful sunny day, there is a part of
me that is sort of hoping he says he is busy with
a customer. Because even though at that moment I
can think of nothing more wonderful than climbing
through the ruins of Agamemnon's palace, the
realist in me knows that some of this romanticism
is the wine talking to me and come
tomorrow that same wine may be saying something
different, like stay in bed or I need coffee.
The longer I stay out with my friends, the less
chance I will be happy, running carefree among the
ancient stones. The more I drink tonight, the more
of a chore tomorrow will be.
I was up at 8:30 feeling energised and adventurous, had a cup of Attalos coffee
and was on the road with George by two minutes
after nine. There was hardly any traffic and
in no time at all we were out of Athens and
passing the shipyards and refineries of
It is difficult for me to go over the
Corinth
Canal
and not
stop to walk across the old bridge and look
towards either end. To me the canal is no less
an amazing feat than the Parthenon. Started by
the Emperor Nero in 67 AD and completed by a
French company in 1893, the canal is 6 km long
and cut through solid rock. If I am lucky
there is a ship passing through while I am on
the bridge. This picture is taken from the
old bridge that George uses because you can stop and get out and walk across it, unlike the National Road bridge that most people use and don't even know they have gone over the canal. It is off this bridge that people now bungee-jump. You can see posters for the company that does it when you stop here. There are also some cafes and tourist shops that have seen better days since once they built the National Road and the new bridge most of the tourist and long distance buses have stopped coming here.
From the canal we drive through the ruins
of
Ancient
Corinth. I get out of the car and take a couple
pictures, just like I did when George and I
went to 
The ruins of Acrocorinth, the Acropolis of Corinth, can be seen from miles away and
is the
favorite archaeological site of my archaeologist friend Stuart
Thorne and climbing to the top is one of my
objectives of the day. But when we get to the
small parking area in front of the entrance I
realize that George has no intention of
climbing with me.
Luckily I am saved from my uncertain destiny
by the arrival of a tour bus full of Romanian
high school students who begin walking up the
path to the fortress. I realize that if I want
to take any photos without Romanians in them I
have to take them now and put my climb on hold
for the next time I visit Acrocorinth. There
are ruins of an ancient temple of Aphrodite at
the top but the most impressive thing about
the site besides the fantastic views is the gate. So
don't feel like you have to climb to the top
of Acrocorinth. Take a look at the gate, get a
few pictures, climb high enough to see the
view and then move on.
After about half an hour we come to the turn off
for ancient
Mycenae, passing first through the modern town of Mycenae
with its tourist shops and restaurants with giant
parking lots to accommodate tour buses, all empty
since few tourists come to Greece in January. But
when we get to the ancient site there are two
buses. One group is a Spanish tour and the other is
an American high school. People are spread all over
the ruins and I feel self conscious standing there
waiting for American students to get out of the
frame for a good shot. But even with the people
there Mycenae is impressive, especially at this
time of the year with the grass growing and the
winter wildflowers in bloom and green everywhere
you look. It is like finding Roman ruins in
Ireland. In the summer the grass will be gone,
dried to death by the sun and trampled by
thousands of foreign feet.
Like Acrocorinth the most interesting part of
Mycenae is the gate, here known as the Lion's
Gate because of the relief of the two lions
above the entranceway and said to be the
insignia of the Royal House of Atreus. To the
right is an impressive big circle with the
unimpressive name of Grave Circle A which were
excavated in 1874 by Henreich Schlieman and
the treasures put in the National Museum of
Athens. This was where he found the ancient
mask which he called the Mask of Agamemnon but
turned out to be the face of an unknown king
from a period 300 years earlier . But romantic
that Schlieman was, he sent a telegram to the
king of Greece that said "I have gazed upon
the face of Agamemnon." That mask is probably
one of the most recognized ancient artifacts
in the world and is still unofficially known
as the mask of Agamemnon while the ancient
king whose face is now known to millions is as
anonymous as the guy who picks up the litter
around the site.
Down the road from Mycenae is the
Treasury
of Atreus or Tomb of Agememnon
which I
found to be the most impressive part of
ancient Mycenae. You walk through a passageway
into an enormous bee-hive tomb dug into the
ground. This is known as a tholos tomb and
this was the way the ancient Mycenaeans began
to bury their dead after the 15th century BC.
Further down the road is Grave Circle B and
the tholos tombs of Aegisthus and
Clytaemnestra. The modern town of Mycenae is pretty much of
a tourist trap but George had his heart set on
taking me to the enormous Kolizeras Restaurant
to see pictures of famous Americans posing
with the owner, a Greek-American I assume
named Mr. Kolizeras. George had a frappe while
I walked from photo to photo, a who's-who of
people I would never vote for including Dan
Quale and my own former home state senator Jesse
Helms. It was hard to tell whether these
people all came to Mycenae or were these
pictures taken at a Republican fundraiser? And
where was Mike Dukakis and Paul Tsongas? I
mean some things should go deeper than party
affiliation. But if you are a Republican and
want to see some of your heros and you happen
to be in Mycenae then stop here, though I
would not make a special trip here just for
that reason. If you are a Democrat there was a
picture of Bill Clinton in Tom Mazarakis
Flokati shop in Athens but it closed.
Our next stop was the modern town of
Argos
, the regional capital. It was not a planned
stop. I got us lost by making George take a
turn so I could get a good photo of the
ancient citadel without having to climb it.
But we found ourselves in the middle of a
gigantic open-air market full of farmers and
Gypsies selling vegetables, clothes, toys,
kitchen utensils and just about anything you
would find in Walmarts. I jumped out of the
car and ran around taking pictures. Some
people hid their faces, not wanting to be
photographed because they may have been
illegal immigrants or maybe they just didn't
like the way they looked that day. But some
people were very obliging, in particular a
group of Gypsy women selling bananas in the
town square. Argos has a museum and some archaeological stuff and some good restaurants though it is not on the beaten tourist path. But they have a great micro-brewery called Zeos and in the area called Neos Keos there is a river where all the fishing boats dock and if you cross the metal bridge there is a great fish taverna there.
When we got to the beautiful historic city of
Nafplio, the Renaissance
cruise ship was visiting and the harbor was crawling
with Americans. (I mean that in a nice way) I was
sure George and I would be recognized and mobbed
and even though we had planned to stop for a
coffee, we decided not to stay and jumped back
into the car and sped away. Don't misunderstand
me. I like fame and recognition as much as the
next guy. But I was starving and I also wanted to
get to Epidavros while the theater was in full
sun. I didn't have time to sign autographs and
answer questions about Greece or turn down offers
of ouzo. I was trying to be purposeful and to
stick to a plan. I was surprised at the number of
cargo ships at the dock that were being filled
with oranges and would have enjoyed spending more
time gathering information about where all these
oranges were going. (Anyway because I go there fairly often Nafplio has been
covered in detail
on my 
Unfortunately despite not sticking around long
enough to eat or find the secret of the oranges by
the time we got to
Epidavros
the theater was
in half sun which meant I could only photograph
half the theater. I could shoot either half but if
I took a picture of the sunny half the shady half
would not come out and if I shot the shady half
the sunny half would not come out. But besides a
Greek American couple that seemed like either
newlyweds or a couple having an affair, I was the
only one in the theater and in the end it did not matter because I came back again and took lots of photos. The theater of Epidavros
is the most perfect and best preserved of the
ancient theaters and if you stand where the actors
would have stood and drop a pebble, you can hear
it on the top row, provided that the place is not
full of tourists. It seats up to 14,000 people and
is still used in the summer for the Epidavros
Festival in July and August.
The site of Epidavros was a sanctuary to
Asklepios, with a healing spring and was one
of the major healing centers of the ancient
world. The ancient site is fairly extensive
and dates from around the 3rd and 4th Century
BC. There are ruins of several temples, a
stadium and buildings from ancient Greek and
Roman periods.
By this time I was starving. It was partially
my fault because I insisted on having lunch in
a quiet little seaside taverna in the town
of
Palea
Epidavros
, rather then somewhere along the way. By the
time we got to the small port, it was
partially in shade and we had to sit inside.
But we had a great late lunch of fried
kalamaraki, bakaliaro me skordalia and since
George was the designated driver I allowed
myself a glass of ouzo and then I drank
another one for him. The town itself was very
pretty but dead quiet in the winter. I could
hear a soccer game in the distance and every
so often a car would pass by but besides some
fishermen bringing in their catch or working
on their boats the place was empty. Like the
ancient Greeks I feel much happier when I can
see the sea.
We had one last stop and that was at the
eastern entrance to the Corinth Canal, just beyond the
small town of Isthmia. There is a very old
submergible bridge there and George dropped me
off so I could walk across and he would meet
me on the other side. It was there that I saw
the most perfect cafe-ouzerie. This was the
kind of place where someone like me could sit
all day and all night watching the ships and
yachts enter and leave the Corinth canal,
starting with coffee in the morning, a late
afternoon ouzo and some retsina at night. Maybe that will be my next trip with
George.
But if you stop here and are lucky enough to see a ship come through, this bridge is one of the wonders of engineering. And this view of the Corinth Canal is pretty amazing.
For information on booking George the Famous Taxi
Driver 
