Three weeks in Greece: itinerary reality check
Apr 25th, 2021, 05:00 PM
#21
Finally, Michael, since you indicated you were already doing readings to prepare for your trip, I thought I would offer some further suggestions, in case you may not already be familiar with them.
On the Greco-Persian Wars in general, and Thermopylae in particular, there’s both a great novel and a great modern history. The former is Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire. It’s an astonishingly vivid depiction of ancient Greek hoplite infantry warfare, and superbly written.
The non-fiction entry here is The Greco-Persian Wars by the University of Texas Classics professor Peter Green.
Green is a brilliant historian and also a very gifted writer, as his description below of the final hours of the doomed Spartan defenders at Thermopylae demonstrates:
“So Leonidas and his men stood to arms for the last time, silent because there was nothing left to say, waiting patiently as the August sun climbed the sky, and their shadows lengthened, and the air filled with that odd blended scent of thyme and sulphur and the brackish-tang of the sea marshes. Many of them were wounded; hardly a shield or helmet but bore witness to that fearful battering they had taken during the past forty-eight hours. Then, at about nine o’clock, Xerxes’ battalions began to advance towards the neck of the pass. Leonidas, determined to make this final engagement a costly one for the Persians, now moved his line forward, well beyond the wall, and deployed it on wider ground, where there would be more elbow-room for slaughter. Once Hydarnes and his Immortals came down that tree-clad mountainside, it would all very soon be over. Watching for the ominous glint of metal among the pines, Leonidas knew how short his time was. Then the first wave of attackers were on them, and all else was forgotten, as they flung themselves, with furious desperation, into that harsh, bloody, and immortal struggle.”
Green’s biography of Alexander the Great is likewise a remarkable tour de force – in particular, an acute psychological study that fully acknowledges his dark side, especially later in his life.
On Mistra and Byzantium's history in the Peloponnese, I enjoyed and found very useful the British historian Steven Runciman’s short (c. 150 pp.) volume The Lost Capital of Byzantium (earlier editions were more prosaically titled titled Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese).
Runciman (like Green) was another of those prodigiously talented British historians, both a brilliant researcher and writer, whose three-volume history of the Crusades dominated the field for decades. Here is how he opens his book about Mistra:
“The beauty of Greece lies mainly in contrast, the contrast between stark promontories and blue sea gulfs and between mountainsides and fertile valleys. Nowhere is the contrast more marked than in the vale of Sparta, Lacedaemon, the ‘hollow land’ of the Homeric age. Travellers who take the main road that ran from Tegea in ancient days and runs from Tripolis today, climb up over the spurs of the Parnon range; and suddenly, as they go round a hairpin bend, with the Spartan mountain citadel of Sellasia, the guardian of the pass, high above them to the east, there lies below them a valley lush with olive trees and fruit trees, with the River Eurotas winding between oleanders and cypresses, and behind the valley, rising steep from the plain, the sternest and most savage of all Greek mountain ranges, Taygetus, with its five peaks, the Five Fingers, covered with snow till late into the summer. In front of the mountain wall, if the sun is shining, they will notice a conical hill, dotted with buildings and crowned by a castle. This is Mistra.”
Finally, since you are visiting Mistra, I can't resist throwing in this evocation of Mistra in its days of late medieval glory by the British writer, soldier and adventurer Patrick Leigh Fermor, from his Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese:
“In this airy casket of a city, surrounded by the elaborate and fastidious array of an imperial household and a court of nobles and prelates and aulic dignitaries and men of letters, a succession of purple-born princes reigned: strange and stately figures in fur-trimmed robes and melon-crowned caps-of-maintenance. The libraries filled with books, poets measured out their stanzas, and on the scaffolding of one newly-risen church after another painters mixed their gypsum and cinnabar and egg-yolk and powdered crocus and zinc and plotted the fall of drapery and described the circumference of haloes.”
On the Greco-Persian Wars in general, and Thermopylae in particular, there’s both a great novel and a great modern history. The former is Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire. It’s an astonishingly vivid depiction of ancient Greek hoplite infantry warfare, and superbly written.
The non-fiction entry here is The Greco-Persian Wars by the University of Texas Classics professor Peter Green.
Green is a brilliant historian and also a very gifted writer, as his description below of the final hours of the doomed Spartan defenders at Thermopylae demonstrates:
“So Leonidas and his men stood to arms for the last time, silent because there was nothing left to say, waiting patiently as the August sun climbed the sky, and their shadows lengthened, and the air filled with that odd blended scent of thyme and sulphur and the brackish-tang of the sea marshes. Many of them were wounded; hardly a shield or helmet but bore witness to that fearful battering they had taken during the past forty-eight hours. Then, at about nine o’clock, Xerxes’ battalions began to advance towards the neck of the pass. Leonidas, determined to make this final engagement a costly one for the Persians, now moved his line forward, well beyond the wall, and deployed it on wider ground, where there would be more elbow-room for slaughter. Once Hydarnes and his Immortals came down that tree-clad mountainside, it would all very soon be over. Watching for the ominous glint of metal among the pines, Leonidas knew how short his time was. Then the first wave of attackers were on them, and all else was forgotten, as they flung themselves, with furious desperation, into that harsh, bloody, and immortal struggle.”
Green’s biography of Alexander the Great is likewise a remarkable tour de force – in particular, an acute psychological study that fully acknowledges his dark side, especially later in his life.
On Mistra and Byzantium's history in the Peloponnese, I enjoyed and found very useful the British historian Steven Runciman’s short (c. 150 pp.) volume The Lost Capital of Byzantium (earlier editions were more prosaically titled titled Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese).
Runciman (like Green) was another of those prodigiously talented British historians, both a brilliant researcher and writer, whose three-volume history of the Crusades dominated the field for decades. Here is how he opens his book about Mistra:
“The beauty of Greece lies mainly in contrast, the contrast between stark promontories and blue sea gulfs and between mountainsides and fertile valleys. Nowhere is the contrast more marked than in the vale of Sparta, Lacedaemon, the ‘hollow land’ of the Homeric age. Travellers who take the main road that ran from Tegea in ancient days and runs from Tripolis today, climb up over the spurs of the Parnon range; and suddenly, as they go round a hairpin bend, with the Spartan mountain citadel of Sellasia, the guardian of the pass, high above them to the east, there lies below them a valley lush with olive trees and fruit trees, with the River Eurotas winding between oleanders and cypresses, and behind the valley, rising steep from the plain, the sternest and most savage of all Greek mountain ranges, Taygetus, with its five peaks, the Five Fingers, covered with snow till late into the summer. In front of the mountain wall, if the sun is shining, they will notice a conical hill, dotted with buildings and crowned by a castle. This is Mistra.”
Finally, since you are visiting Mistra, I can't resist throwing in this evocation of Mistra in its days of late medieval glory by the British writer, soldier and adventurer Patrick Leigh Fermor, from his Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese:
“In this airy casket of a city, surrounded by the elaborate and fastidious array of an imperial household and a court of nobles and prelates and aulic dignitaries and men of letters, a succession of purple-born princes reigned: strange and stately figures in fur-trimmed robes and melon-crowned caps-of-maintenance. The libraries filled with books, poets measured out their stanzas, and on the scaffolding of one newly-risen church after another painters mixed their gypsum and cinnabar and egg-yolk and powdered crocus and zinc and plotted the fall of drapery and described the circumference of haloes.”
Apr 26th, 2021, 06:10 PM
#22
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My reading list is growing! I ordered a few from your recommendations. Some of these were new to me. Here's my current Greek reading list, for others who might be interested. I probably won't get to all of them, but I'm going to give it a shot.
Inspiration
I read a lot of the epics back in college, but recently listened to a few in audiobook format, and it was a revelation. The epics were meant to be heard, and listening to them is a more vivid experience than reading them. I highly recommend all of these, even for those who aren't traveling to Greece soon
- Ovid, Metamorphoses. Translation by David Raeburn. Narration by Martin Jarvis, John Sackville, Maya Saroya, David Raeburn. Ovid was Roman, but most of these stories are set in Greece. Raeburn's translation feels modern
- Homer, Iliad and Odyssey. Translations by Robert Fitzgerald. Narrated by Dan Stevens. Good old-fashioned gore-splattered fun.
I sort of know my Greek history, but I've never properly dove in. The links are to the Goodreads pages.
- Indro Montanelli. Storia dei Greci. 1959. (Italian). This was just delivered today! I really enjoyed Montanelli's history of Rome, and I'm looking forward to this one. This is where I'll start.
- Peter Green. Alexander of Macedon. 1991. It was a toss-up between reading this first, or The Greco-Persian Wars.
- Steven Runciman. The Lost Capital of Byzantium. 1980. I hear Runciman's name mentioned a lot on the History of Byzantium and The History of the Crusades podcasts. This short book on Mystras looks a lot more manageable than his epic series on the Crusades.
I usually don't like travel writing, but every once in awhile I discover a writer I like. Maybe Fermor will be one?
- Patrick Leigh Fermor. Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece. 1962. If I like it I'll move on to Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponese.
Non-fiction
- Nicholas Gage. Eleni. 1983. An investigative reporter searches for the story of his mother, who was executed for defying the communists who took over her village. This is going to be a hard read, I know, but it's one I definitely intend to read.
You wouldn't know it from this list, but I read far more fiction than anything else. I'm not familiar at all with modern Greek lit, and I'd be open to recommendations.
- Steven Pressfield. Gates of Fire. 2005. Never even heard of this one, but after reading the reviews I ordered it, and will dive in as soon as it arrives this coming Friday.
- Vassilis Vassilikos. Z. 1969. Deals with assassination of a leftist leader. This is a maybe. It gets great reviews, but it sounds dry. Maybe I'll just watch the movie.
- Nikos Kazantzakis. Zorba the Greek. 1946. But of course. The only debate I'm having is, do I read the book or listen to it on audible? I haven't seen the movie, and won't watch it until I've read the book.
- Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica. It's Jason, Medea, and the Argonauts! But the English translations I've seen all look dry. I'm going to explore options in Italian or French. I wish I knew Greek already.
Apr 27th, 2021, 06:13 AM
#23
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The best work of historical fiction about Athens, toward the end of the "Golden Age" -- the start of the Pelopponesian wars -- is "The Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault. She wrote a number of novels about ancient Greece during the 1970s-80? which have stood the test of time ... not to be confused with "historical romances" ugh. These are authentic works based on deep scholarship but with the sweep of narrative. Others include "The Mask of Apollo" about the rise of Greek drama during the 5th- 4th centuries bc, told thru the life of traveling actors. At the end of each of her books, there's a short afterword listing the sources on which she based her stories... actual Greeks from history Her best-known and spellbinding masterpiece s "The King Must Die" Deals with the remarkable pre-history civilization of the "Minoans" on Crete & elsewhere and involves the legends about Theseus. The fascinating approach is that customs, beliefs, ways of life are not explained, you just follow the protagonist as he encounters them, and you learn along with him.
Apr 27th, 2021, 01:34 PM
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The best work of historical fiction about Athens, toward the end of the "Golden Age" -- the start of the Pelopponesian wars -- is "The Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault. She wrote a number of novels about ancient Greece during the 1970s-80? which have stood the test of time ... not to be confused with "historical romances" ugh.
I'm with you. Double ugh.
I forgot about Mary Renault! I loved her books in college, but haven't read her since. I'm glad to hear that her books stood the test of time. I definitely want to revisit her Greece.
Apr 29th, 2021, 12:50 PM
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This looks like a great itinerary to me! It seems that you have left yourself plenty of time in each of the destinations. It is nice when you don't have to rush around from one place to the other. You also have a nice overview of different places to visit.
Apr 29th, 2021, 07:08 PM
#26
A few responses to the above:
Runciman's book on Mistra is definitely the one to read in connection with your current trip, but I can't resist also plugging his Constantinople 1453, another shorter book about the ultimate fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks (with Constantine XI of Byzantium as its tragic hero); his three volumes on the Crusades, which are full of striking characters and memorable writing (I devoured them when knocking around the Middle East in my younger days); or his The Sicilian Vespers -- essential reading for traveling in Sicily or Southern Italy.
I read Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, which is set in Athens during the Peloponnesian War, during one of my Greek trips, and fully second travelerjan's endorsement. I also found her Funeral Games, about the contests of the Successors following the death of Alexander, to be a memorable and vivid read. However, it can be hard to like a book in which there are as few attractive characters as that one.
I read Z when I was a teenager, and did not find it dry at all: indeed, I was really blown away by the beauty of the writing. It also presents a vivid portrayal of the criminal/right wing extremist demimonde of Thessalonica during the rule of the Colonels in the mid-1960's.
And on the Argonautica, I recall reading a review by none other than Peter Green of a new translation of it, which probably appeared in The New Republic, some years back, in which Green said that this was the translation it had long needed and deserved. I'm guessing that this may have been the Richard Hunter translation for the Oxford Classics series, which came out in 2009.
Runciman's book on Mistra is definitely the one to read in connection with your current trip, but I can't resist also plugging his Constantinople 1453, another shorter book about the ultimate fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks (with Constantine XI of Byzantium as its tragic hero); his three volumes on the Crusades, which are full of striking characters and memorable writing (I devoured them when knocking around the Middle East in my younger days); or his The Sicilian Vespers -- essential reading for traveling in Sicily or Southern Italy.
I read Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, which is set in Athens during the Peloponnesian War, during one of my Greek trips, and fully second travelerjan's endorsement. I also found her Funeral Games, about the contests of the Successors following the death of Alexander, to be a memorable and vivid read. However, it can be hard to like a book in which there are as few attractive characters as that one.
I read Z when I was a teenager, and did not find it dry at all: indeed, I was really blown away by the beauty of the writing. It also presents a vivid portrayal of the criminal/right wing extremist demimonde of Thessalonica during the rule of the Colonels in the mid-1960's.
And on the Argonautica, I recall reading a review by none other than Peter Green of a new translation of it, which probably appeared in The New Republic, some years back, in which Green said that this was the translation it had long needed and deserved. I'm guessing that this may have been the Richard Hunter translation for the Oxford Classics series, which came out in 2009.
May 7th, 2021, 03:15 PM
#27
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Good news, good news, and oops ...
So the good news: 1) I now have a pile of new books to keep me entertained all summer! I've already in the middle of The Last of the Wine and Storia dei Greci, both of which are fantastic; and 2) a friend will be joining me in Delphi for the last two weeks of the trip. We've travelled together before, and we have similar interests.
And now the oops: I started making reservations at some of the smaller places, and discovered that the castles at Pylos and Methoni, as well as Nestor's Palace, are closed on Tuesdays. That was the day we had set for a gentle drive down the coast from Olympia. How's this sound for a new plan?
Saturday: Drive Meteora to Oussa Loukia to Galaxidi. Meet buddy. Two nights at Hotel Ganimede
Sunday: Delphi. Second night in Galaxidi.
Monday: Morning, Galaxidi to Chlemoutsi (if it reopens). Lunch. Afternoon, drive to Olympia. Visit museum the first night.
Tuesday: Morning, Olympia. Afternoon, drive to Mavromati (the village overlooking Messene)
Wednesday: Morning, Messene. Afternoon, drive to Mystras. Overnight at Arxontiko Taygeti (5 km from town)
Thursday: Morning, Mystras. Afternoon, drive to Monemvasia.
Friday: Monemvasia. Second overnight.
Saturday: onwards ...
I'm trying to plot it out so that we do our exploring in the early part of the day. The alternate would be two nights in Mystras, one night in Monemvasia. I thought about adding another stop, but things started to look too busy.
So the good news: 1) I now have a pile of new books to keep me entertained all summer! I've already in the middle of The Last of the Wine and Storia dei Greci, both of which are fantastic; and 2) a friend will be joining me in Delphi for the last two weeks of the trip. We've travelled together before, and we have similar interests.
And now the oops: I started making reservations at some of the smaller places, and discovered that the castles at Pylos and Methoni, as well as Nestor's Palace, are closed on Tuesdays. That was the day we had set for a gentle drive down the coast from Olympia. How's this sound for a new plan?
Saturday: Drive Meteora to Oussa Loukia to Galaxidi. Meet buddy. Two nights at Hotel Ganimede
Sunday: Delphi. Second night in Galaxidi.
Monday: Morning, Galaxidi to Chlemoutsi (if it reopens). Lunch. Afternoon, drive to Olympia. Visit museum the first night.
Tuesday: Morning, Olympia. Afternoon, drive to Mavromati (the village overlooking Messene)
Wednesday: Morning, Messene. Afternoon, drive to Mystras. Overnight at Arxontiko Taygeti (5 km from town)
Thursday: Morning, Mystras. Afternoon, drive to Monemvasia.
Friday: Monemvasia. Second overnight.
Saturday: onwards ...
I'm trying to plot it out so that we do our exploring in the early part of the day. The alternate would be two nights in Mystras, one night in Monemvasia. I thought about adding another stop, but things started to look too busy.
May 7th, 2021, 07:40 PM
#28
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update - It looks like Zeus is going to decide our plans for us. A surprising number of places I was looking at are already booked, even though there were plenty of rooms last week. Once I filter for my ideal qualities (refundable, twin beds, family owned, good breakfast, affordable) there just weren't that many places left! Back to the old plan, but substituting Mavromati for Methoni.
May 9th, 2021, 07:45 AM
#29
Bon voyage, Michael! I'm sure you'll have a great trip -- and that you'll be back in Greece again in the future. Post something when you get back and tell us about it, and what lessons you learned and recommendations you have for others.
May 19th, 2021, 03:08 PM
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I've made the last of my hotel and car reservations. For anyone looking, car rentals are very dynamic right now - the prices fluctuate wildly. I live in a tourist area, and we have a shortage here. Last minute rentals are now running up to $700 a day. Literally, seven hundred US dollars for one day. If anyone else is looking - get your car now!!!
Good news / bad news - the festival I was going to attend in Nîmes changed their dates (the bad news), so I'm heading to Greece a four days sooner (the good news). I'll now be spending the first weekend in Thessaloniki, then on to the Zagoria region for three nights. I'm excited that I managed to add that in.
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