Hello all! So, seeing as today was the last official day of my Greece adventure, I figured it was about time to catch you all up on the last handful of days before I prance off to Germany. So I left you with Olynthos, I do believe...
The day after that we went to Pella and Vergina, which were pretty cool. Pella has a pretty new museum, and they are working hard on the site to make it visitor friendly, and I can only imagine in a year or two that it will be totally awesome. Vergina has, hands down, one of the coolest museums I have ever been into, but they don't allow you to take any pictures in it, sadly. Vergina is the site of Macedonian tombs, and (probably, maybe, some people say) of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The tombs were built into the ground and then covered over with a giant burial mound. Today, the museum is under a mound, and the tombs have been left where they were found - so you go into this giant mound, walk around and see the finds, and can walk a bit further down to the tomb faces. It's totally awesome!
The day after that we went to Dion and then Dimini. Dion was a really pretty site, where they had a collection of temples and sanctuaries outside the city itself, right near(ish) the foot of mount Olympus. Besides that, it was very wet and green and park-like, quite unlike most of the sites we've seen.
Dimini was also pretty cool, it is a neolithic site, and so one of the oldest on Greece. It is kinda small, just a little hilltop settlement in that time, but way nifty to look at. There is also a Mycenaean something or other there, but they are still excavating that and we couldn't see any of it, so hopefully there will be more about that coming about later!
The day after that we just went to the Volos museum, which was very nice, mostly because it has these amazing painted funeral stele. It isn't often that the paint survives so well, and they have more than a dozen fabulous examples. After that we stopped by Mitrou, which is a little island site, but currently is all backfilled to protect it while they are having a study season. And then we drove back to Athens.
The next day we visited the Kerameikos in the morning, and then had a free afternoon. The Kerameikos is a rather fun site, it is the location of two gates of the city, one of which is the Dipylon gate, where the procession for the Panathenaic festival begins, winding up the sacred way and all the way up to the Parthenon. This is also where the dining, that followed the sacrifices at the festival would take place. Outside the gates are the potter's quarters, and the Street of Tombs, since it was against the law to bury anyone within city limits.
The next day we took a day trip to Aigina to see the two big temple complexes there - one to Apollo, and one to Aphaia. They were both pretty cool, the one to Apollo because there are a bunch of bronze age remains under it, and the one to Aphaia because the current temple standing there is pretty well preserved/restored. The day was a long one, though, because of the way the boats and buses worked out, which meant a lot of sitting around. It was still pleasant, though, the islands are mostly breezy so that was nice!
Today we went to the Agora and saw a little of that, and peeked in on all the excavations going on now, and then talked a little about Monastiraki and Plaka, neighborhoods in the shadow of the Acropolis and on top of the ancient city, and the Lysikrates monument. And ... that was the last of it! We had this afternoon free and tomorrow we have all day free, too, until we have our farewell party in the evening. And then off to Germany!
For some reason I cannot get pictures to upload today, so I will try and come back and add them in tomorrow and hope it works then. Love you all, hope everything is going well! <3
The day after that we went to Pella and Vergina, which were pretty cool. Pella has a pretty new museum, and they are working hard on the site to make it visitor friendly, and I can only imagine in a year or two that it will be totally awesome. Vergina has, hands down, one of the coolest museums I have ever been into, but they don't allow you to take any pictures in it, sadly. Vergina is the site of Macedonian tombs, and (probably, maybe, some people say) of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The tombs were built into the ground and then covered over with a giant burial mound. Today, the museum is under a mound, and the tombs have been left where they were found - so you go into this giant mound, walk around and see the finds, and can walk a bit further down to the tomb faces. It's totally awesome!
The day after that we went to Dion and then Dimini. Dion was a really pretty site, where they had a collection of temples and sanctuaries outside the city itself, right near(ish) the foot of mount Olympus. Besides that, it was very wet and green and park-like, quite unlike most of the sites we've seen.
Dimini was also pretty cool, it is a neolithic site, and so one of the oldest on Greece. It is kinda small, just a little hilltop settlement in that time, but way nifty to look at. There is also a Mycenaean something or other there, but they are still excavating that and we couldn't see any of it, so hopefully there will be more about that coming about later!
The day after that we just went to the Volos museum, which was very nice, mostly because it has these amazing painted funeral stele. It isn't often that the paint survives so well, and they have more than a dozen fabulous examples. After that we stopped by Mitrou, which is a little island site, but currently is all backfilled to protect it while they are having a study season. And then we drove back to Athens.
The next day we visited the Kerameikos in the morning, and then had a free afternoon. The Kerameikos is a rather fun site, it is the location of two gates of the city, one of which is the Dipylon gate, where the procession for the Panathenaic festival begins, winding up the sacred way and all the way up to the Parthenon. This is also where the dining, that followed the sacrifices at the festival would take place. Outside the gates are the potter's quarters, and the Street of Tombs, since it was against the law to bury anyone within city limits.
The next day we took a day trip to Aigina to see the two big temple complexes there - one to Apollo, and one to Aphaia. They were both pretty cool, the one to Apollo because there are a bunch of bronze age remains under it, and the one to Aphaia because the current temple standing there is pretty well preserved/restored. The day was a long one, though, because of the way the boats and buses worked out, which meant a lot of sitting around. It was still pleasant, though, the islands are mostly breezy so that was nice!
Today we went to the Agora and saw a little of that, and peeked in on all the excavations going on now, and then talked a little about Monastiraki and Plaka, neighborhoods in the shadow of the Acropolis and on top of the ancient city, and the Lysikrates monument. And ... that was the last of it! We had this afternoon free and tomorrow we have all day free, too, until we have our farewell party in the evening. And then off to Germany!
For some reason I cannot get pictures to upload today, so I will try and come back and add them in tomorrow and hope it works then. Love you all, hope everything is going well! <3
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