Monday, February 28, 2011

Sassi

Having gotten our bearings, sort of, we drove out of Bari (Patra's sister city, I think) and on into the interior, stopping at Matera for a) purchase of an Italian USB modem (yes!), and b) a stop at the Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico campground. The former entailed biding our time parked on the main drag of Matera until 4:30PM when the Wind store reopened after its 4-hour lunch break. The latter is (we hope) a typical Italian farm expanded to include a restaurant, hostel, and campground. The campground was actually fairly nice and reasonable, although the English spoken was pretty minimal. The restaurant had no menu--"cuisine traditionale." We were joined later by a pair of French RVs and then another from Spain. We spent the evening recovering from our voyage, but the next day we ventured back into Matera.

Modern-day Matera sits along a great limestone gorge in which people have been living, in caves, for some aeons. In 1952, the Italian government declared them unsafe and moved everyone to Matera, atop the gorge. The cave dwellings--Sassi--are now a World Heritage Site, many restored and an attraction of some note. Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ was filmed here, but we went to see Sassi anyway.

En route from Bari to Matera, we saw a number of these
interesting stone corballed structures out in the groves
















The gorge and some of the dwellings















Across the gorge, mostly cattle nowadays















River at the bottom of the gorge














Interior of Casa Grotto, one of the restored family dwellings;
three rooms, actually; it looked pretty spacious to us; in
reality, Sassi was noted for its poverty and 50% infant
mortality rate; the plight of its residents was made known by
physician/writer Carlos Levi


















The kitchen




















Living area; common bowl from which food is served















One-car garage















More of the cave town















In there somewhere is St. Peter's church/cave















The campground Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico; very
nice
























Sassi/Matera is worth a stop on the way. If you have seen Cappadocia, however, you won't be impressed.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Farewell, Greece; Cruising the Adriatic

We had seen the sights we wanted to see in Greece and were anxious to move on to Italy. (In retrospect, we might have stayed warmer and drier by spending another week in the south of the Peloponnese.) So we drove up the west side--not the pretty side, I'd say--of the peninsula to Patra, where we planned to take the ferry to Bari, Italy. Patra looked like a scary town, not a place you'd want to linger. Even in the security-controlled port area, young jerks were trying to get at our vehicle. So it was with some relief that we boarded the ferry, the Superfast II--part of the Superfast fleet--after only half an hour in the port, and got ourselves and the Grey Wanderer ready for the not-so-superfast 15 and a half hour voyage. We embarked at 6PM and debarked in Bari at 8:30AM Italian time. The vessel was quite large and full of amenities, for sale, and the voyage was very smooth. A week later or even a few days later and it might not have been so smooth. Vicki brought her eye-shades and ear-plugs and was able to sleep much of the night. I couldn't find mine and suffered accordingly. (I did catch a bit of an apparently 50s movie bio of Verdi). But we made it just fine and just in time to see the last of sunny Italy for a few days. By nightfall temperatures had dropped into the 30s and rain was threatening. It's still February, and we are a couple hundred miles north of where we were in Greece.

The fortress above Patra; we wanted to get out of Patra















Typical port scene















Our ship, the Good Ferry Superfast II; note stylish tail-fins















The Grey Wanderer safely and securely parked; it was its
2nd longest voyage ever (counting the Atlantic, of course)
















Leaving Patra















Farewell, Greece















The Snoring Lounge aboard the Superfast II















Arriving in Bari; we spent our first few hours in the port
parking lot, looking at maps and guides, planning our tour
of southern Italy

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Olympia Museum

Olympia Museum; the Games are very old, older than
Clasical Greece, and it is amazing how much has survived
















West pediment of Temple of Zeus: the battle between the
Lapiths and Centaurs (look it up)
















East pediment: Pelops, founder of the Games, father of
Peloponnesians
















Detail: a Lapith woman















Detail from the east pediment: the Seer















Nike of Paeonios: formerly on the triangular
pedestal in the sanctuary




















And now, two of the utterly cool things in this museum
(reflecting my bias for the historical, I suppose): this is
Miltiades' helmet, from the Battle of Marathon; he had
presented it to the Games as an offering to Zeus


















And this cup, found in the excavation of Pheidias'
workshop, bears the inscription "I belong to Pheidias"
















A warrior bids farewell to wife and child















Among the hundreds of figurines found at Olympia

Olympia II

Along the row of Zanes, leading to the
Stadium, once statues of various cheaters
whose fines helped support the Games





















Like every other religious site, Olympia was built on
top of someone else's site; here a neolithic site more recently
unearthed and explored

















Remains of the Altar of Hera, where the Olympic Torch is lit
every two years (summer/winter)
















Temple of Hera















Vicki at Hera's; note profusion of wild flowers; spring in this
part of the world
















Olympic athletes were marinated in olive oil for both
training and competition; and used these tubs to clean off
afterwards

















Another view of the gym and wild flowers















Site of Pheidias' workshop; a Christian church in the 6th
century
















Bases of the colonnaded Leonideion, a large hotel for
officials, VIPs
















Parting view of the Stadium, from the slopes of Kronos Hill
c

Olympia I

We spent Sunday morning touring the archaeological site of the Olympic Games, Archaia Olympia. The first recorded Olympic Games occurred in 776 BC and ran an unbroken string every four years until 393 AD, when the Christians shut them down, along with various other pagan institutions. Initially, and for the first several hundred years, the Games provided a month-long truce every four years, allowing athletes and spectators to journey to sacred Olympia (birthplace of Zeus). The main occupation of the various Greek city-states, history tells us, was making war on each other and on anyone else within reach; so the Games were a nice respite. But then in Hellenistic times and later under Roman administration the Games changed, becoming less a Pan-Hellenic gathering than another spectacle. Sic transit, Gloria. Anyhow, the Games were forgotten, the site silted up under 3-4 meters of mud, and it was not re-discovered until the 18th century. Most of the archaeological work was done in the 19th century.

Kronos Hill, a pathetic little near-hillock where Zeus was
said to have been born (Kronos his dad; it's a long
disgusting story), overlooks the Olympic sanctuary

















In the sanctuary, entering the gymnasium area, where the
athletes trained
















The Phillipeon, a monument to Philip of Macedon, erected
by himself, celebrating his conquest of Greece
















Temple of Hera















Alongside the Temple of Zeus; 6th century earthquakes
toppled pretty much everything sizeable
















Pedestal of the statue of Nike (victory); we'll
see her in the Museum




















Temple of Zeus remains















The Temple of Zeus housed Pheidias' colossal statue of
Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders; it was later carted off
to Byzantium and there lost in a blaze; this representation,
which I like, was in a bar in Olympia...Sic transit, etc.


















Remains of vaulted entry to Olympic Stadium














 
OK, so the Greeks did know how to build an arch














Starting line in Olympic Stadium; intact,
seriously, after all these years; I'll spare you
the photo of me, this time only, lined up and
awaiting the starting gun






















Olympic Stadium, with Kronos Hill in the background; no
seats, no skyboxes, nothing