The Minoans

The Minoans were an ancient civilisation based in Crete between about 2600 BC and 1100 BC.  There are believed to have been 90 Minoan cities in Crete at one time, and the largest of the Minoan palaces was unearthed very close to Heraklion in the 1900's by a British archaeologist.  This is called the Palace of Knossos, and comprised over 1,000 rooms.

The artifacts found there and now on display in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum show the Minoans were an advanced society.

These double-headed axes, from huge to tiny, are a distinctive Minoan artifact.

A stone jug.

These little figurines from 2000 BC could have been modern sculpture.

This famous intricate gold brooch comprises two bees head-to-head.

A wooden model illustrating the size and layout of Knossos Palace.

The Phaestos Disk - has never been decoded.

Small tablets inscribed with the "Linear-A" text used by Minoans.

The museum has hundreds of bronze weapons like these, often with gold decorations.

Large pottery goddess figures, dated about 1200 BC.

Archaeologists found many bull-related artworks and artifacts.

Sue and a large crow (?).

Magnificent stone and bronze bull.

Visiting the museum in Heraklion gave us a much better understanding of the Minoans than did visiting the palace archaeological site.  All the significant artifacts found at the site are now in the museum, and the site is of course just the remnants of what was once there.  The most "complete" parts of the palace visible today were actually reconstructed by the archaeologist Evans in the early 1900's so are not actually the original structures.

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Crete

Crete must be Greece's largest island, at 260 km long and with a population of 600,000.  The capital city is Heraklion, which is where our plane landed, and we are staying in "Andy's Plaza" in the village of Agia Pelagia which is not far from the main city.  Andy's Plaza does not sound like a very Greek name, and it's run by "George" who is about 70 and quite hard to understand.  The room is simple, but clean and comfortable, and it is only 100 m or so from where Sue's conference will be, and also from the beach.

Agia Pelagia (pronounced with hard g's as in "goat") is a popular little beach, even though the sand is just a couple of metres wide.  I am astounded by how many people are crammed on to this narrow strip each day.

The Agia Pelagia beach is standing room only for much of the day!

The water is clear and warm.  That's a dive school in wetsuits out there in the water.  Must be hot!

A bit of Cretan landscape, viewed from the bus on the way to Agia Pelagia.

We had a swim in the evening, and found the water temperature very pleasant.  I was however bitten quite sharply a few times by little fish, on my legs!  Apparently it pays not to stand still for too long.

On our way back from the airport we stopped for a couple of hours in the city of Heraklion.  There was a strong Venetian influence here too, including a wall around the old city centre and a fort on the harbour.  The old city is very nice for walking, with shady parks and little streets running down to the sea.

In Heraklion's old centre, with the harbour beyond.

The town hall entrance.

Colourful fishing boats in the harbour.

These young people were hauling their Optimists up the ramp after a sail.

The bus station looked pretty dismal - until we realised we were in the old abandoned one!

The new bus station, when we found it, was much nicer than this!  We bought tickets for our bus to Agia Pelagia, and agreed that it was much easier not having a rental car (yeah right) as it gives you much more opportunity to rub shoulders with the locals.  While we waited for the bus we went to the Heraklion Archaelogical Museum to start learning more about the Minoans.

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Driving in Crete

This is a short posting because my driving experience here was also very short.  A few days ago we decided driving in Greece didn't look too difficult, so booked a rental car for our first few days in Crete.  We picked it up at the airport, where the Avis man asked me if I have an International Driving Permit (IDP).  I do not have one on this trip, so he advised me in an offhand way that I might be fined if stopped by the police.  He made it sound like a minor issue.

We took the car and drove it the 30 minutes to our new place, in Agia Pelagia.  That night I did some research on the internet and learned that if stopped by the police for any reason I could be fined 1,000 euros, or about $1,700 NZ!  And also that if there was an accident my insurance could be invalid.

Next morning I drove the car straight back to the airport, in a state of heightened alert, and handed it back.  No police were encountered.  We came back to Agia Pelagia on the bus (3 euros) !

Next time I will get an IDP.  In earlier trips to Europe when I expected to drive I have taken the trouble to get an IDP, but I have never been asked to show it to anyone.

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The Ancient Agora

Looking over the Ancient Agora in Athens, with the Acropolis up on that hilltop.

The Ancient Agora is a large fenced area on the northwest side of the Acropolis, and was once the public centre of the city.  It is home to the ruins of extensive buildings which stood over 2,000 years ago.  Still standing are the well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus (400 BC), and the huge "Stoa of Attalos" built about 100 BC but completely reconstructed in the 1950s.  The Stoa is believed to have been a row of shops - a sort of ancient "mall", but today houses a museum some items from which I've shown below.

The Temple of Hephaestus.  Just a small one by Greek standards.

Tourists in front of the temple.

Outside the large Stoa of Attalos

Most of the Stoa is open to the weather, but there is a museum gallery inside the back wall.

A gold signet ring and beads, from 1,400 BC!

Jewelry from a burial, about 850 BC.

Teracotta boots!  Aboute 900 BC.

Clay voting tokens for an "ostracism".

Greeks had a interesting system of democratic "ostracism".  Qualified citizens would vote for someone they wanted to see expelled from the city, and if enough votes were cast that person would have to leave Athens!  These circular disks have candidates' names scratched on them by voters.

An ancient "machine" for selecting jurors.  About 300 BC.

This stone was a machine used for impartially selecting citizens for jury service.  The name of every eligible juror was inscribed on a little metal tag (bottom left), and these tags would be inserted into the rows of slots in the stone.  A simple mechanism (a bit like a Lotto machine) would then drop random black or white balls out of the hole on the left.  The colour of each ball determined whether the names in one horizontal row of tags would serve as jurors that day.  Pretty much what I saw last time I went to jury service in Wellington!

Nike, goddess of victory.  200 BC copy of an earlier sculpture.

There is a large collection of fine pottery in the museum.

These columns marked the entrance to the theatre, and are all that remains.

That still-standing Temple of Hephaestus is remarkable as almost all structures we've seen at the numerous ancient sites around Greece have been reduced to a metre or two high at the most, and probably that high only because they were protected by the soil they were buried under until rediscovered in recent times.

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Greek

We have learned very little Greek, but can now handle "please" and "thank-you", "yes", and "good morning / afternoon / night".  At the restaurant last night Ave entertained us by writing our names in Greek.

So I learned that "BRIAN" is spelled ΜΠΡΑΙΑΝ in greek.  You might think that there is a "B" in greek - the letter beta - but beta is pronounced more like our "v".

So to write Brian:

• ΜΠ which is Mi followed by Pi, sounds like "B".
• Ρ is greek "rho", sounds like "R".
• ΑΙ is alpha followed by iota, sounds like "eye".  Iota by itself would sound like "ee".
• A is "A".
• N is "N".

The same in lower case would looks rather more cryptic: "Μπραιαν".  The upper case letters tend to look more familiar, for example "Ν" in lower case is "ν".

It all look incomprehensible at first, but gradually words such as place names start becoming readable.

That second word is "Dimitsanas".  Obviously!

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The Acropolis

Acropolis means literally "upper (or outer) city" in Greek.  To most people "The Acropolis" refers to the one in Athens, but they actually existed in many ancient Greek towns and cities.  In Athens the Acropolis is the the citadel on the high steep-sided rocky hill in the centre of the modern city.

There is some evidence of habitation on the Acropolis up to 4,000 years BC, but most of the ancient structures found up there today were built about 400 BC, overseen by the Greek statesman Pericles.  The most famous building is the Parthenon, a large temple which today has been partially restored to help people appreciate its original size and shape.  There are also numerous other buildings and structures, including the "Herodeon" amphitheatre which is still regularly used for performances today.

Looking out over Athens, with the Herodeon theatre in the foreground.

The seating of the Herodeon has been fully restored, in marble.

This small temple of Nike, goddess of Victory, stands above the entrance to the Acropolis.

Ave and our tour group.  Not many men in this group - in fact just me!

Ave describes the 9 metre high bronze statue of Athena which stood here in ancient times.

Sue by the Erechtheum, a small temple near the Parthenon (below).

The legend goes that the gods Athena and Poseidon competed to decide which of the their names would become the name of this city.  Each was asked to offer a gift to the people, and the city would be named after the giver of the best gift.  Poseidon struck the ground and a salt water spring appeared; in response Athena offered the first olive tree.  The olive tree with its fruit, oil, and timber was judged the winner, as we know, because the city is of course "Athens".

The view out to the north east, where our hotel lies in those streets below.

Looking west across the top of the Acropolis.

The main feature - the Parthenon.  This is as close as you can get.

Down there is the site of the Temple of Zeus, which we visited later.

Archaeologists working to classify the thousands of pieces of stone stacked about the site.

I was surprised how rough and uneven the whole Acropolis site is.  I don't know if it was ever flattened out?  Stacked everywhere are piles of stone pieces, waiting to be classified and possibly used in the restoration work.  This work is limited by the funds available, especially as Greece is still recovering slowly from a deep financial crisis.

Finally before leaving Athens for the first part of our road trip (to Meteora) we visited the Temple of Olympian Zeus near the centre, just a small part of which remains.  This 100 by 40 metre temple was started by Greeks about 400 BC but was actually completed by the romans about 600 years later!  The remaining cluster of huge columns represents just one small corner of the original temple.  It was much larger than the Parthenon.

The "small" remaining section of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

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The Streets of Athens

Here are a few photos showing scenes from the streets around the old parts of Athens, in this case Monastraki and Plaka, where our hotel is.  This area has many tiny streets which fill with pedestrians until late on the busier nights.  You still find cars and motorbikes in these narrow streets, slowly nosing their way through the crowds.

There are many small streets lined with eateries in the centre of town.

A few beggars, but not as many as in some other cities.

Graffiti here...

...graffiti there...

...graffiti everywhere.

Some graffiti is more artistic than others.

Apparently this shoe-collecting gopher is well known.

Even the trains are covered in graffiti.

The train above is one of the metro trains, in an area where it emerges above ground.  You might notice that it cuts right through some ancient ruins.  Our guide noted that if you buy a section to build a house you'd better hope that when you dig you don't find any ancient ruins!  If you do, that is the end of your building project.

The area around our hotel has many fur shops!

 We were puzzled by all the fur shops in the streets near us.  Our guide explained that we happen to be in the area where the fur shops are concentrated.  But who buys furs in a climate as hot as this?  The answer is "Russians".  They come to Greece for holidays, and buy furs to take home.

At the meat market.

Lots of crowded little shops, spilling out on to the pavement.

Time to trim the foliage perhaps...

Berries at the market.

Get your gladiator helmet here!

Solid chocolate!  World Cup 2018.

Street art.

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