CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND
February 2015
Classical Association of Ireland Tour 2014: the Peloponnese In a break with tradition, this
Epidauros was a centre of healing tour took place slightly later than using water from local springs in heretofore to coincide with the the sanctuary of Asclepius. We start of the airline summer also visited Messene, Sparta and schedules. So on May 1st we Monemvasia. The Museum of the assembled at Dublin Airport for Olive and Greek Olive Oil aims to the Aer Lingus flight direct to preserve the technology of times Athens. Members from Dublin, past and acknowledge the Cork, Sligo and Limerick importance of the olive in Greek Branches made a group of 31. life. Our tour leader, for the 17th The well-prepared among time, was Professor Andrew us brought along the book by Smith of UCD, ably assisted by travel writer Patrick Leigh Dr Joan Wright, Sotiris, our bus Fermor entitled Mani: Travels in driver and a local guide. My the Southern Peloponnese. The Above: Andrew Smith within the first CAI tour was to Greece in cyclopaean walls of Mycenaean Tiryns. peninsula of that name is the 1981 and this time we revisited middle one in the southern Below: Robin Simmons at Epidauros. (Photos: Isabella Bolger) many of the same sites, evoking Peloponnese. We drove zigzag memories of good times and the people who style through its forested mountains of pine and shared them with us. We remembered the olive groves. Many Athenian families escape to botanical knowledge of Ann Buchanan and their holiday homes here in summer when Tanya Blyth, who identified the Mediterranean temperatures soar in the capital. The visit to the flora for us – we missed ye this time, ladies. Vlychada caves was memorable. The rise in sea We stayed overnight in Athens and next level after the ice age flooded them, so a halfday headed north to the Isthmus of Corinth. The hour tour in a canoe-size boat brought us up Corinth Canal was constructed here in the time close to the calcite dripstone formations that are of Nero, using the slave labour of thousands of still evolving today. Jewish prisoners after the Judean revolt. Today Back in Athens, we had time to walk up the road bridge over the canal is a very busy one, to the Acropolis. The Parthenon (Temple of as is the shipping route below, in the canal itself. Athena) looked majestic with its Pentelic marble We went on to visit the Environment Museum of gleaming in the May sunlight. The new Stymphalia, overlooking the lake that gives it its Museum of the Acropolis was visited too. name. Modern technology is used at its best in To conclude, it is only fitting that we pay this museum setting and the views over the lake tribute to the late Alan Benson of Sadlier Travel and its bird life were special. who died suddenly and unexpectedly in On day 3 we walked uphill and through January. He organised our tours over the years; the Lion Gate to the citadel of Mycenae. Its his colleagues did so this time. Thanks to position controlled access to the interior and everyone who helped make this tour the success there was a clear view over the Palace of it was. It was enjoyable and, unlike visitors in Agamemnon to the sea. The so-called Treasury ancient times, we didn’t encounter the bed-bugs of Atreus is the largest and best preserved of of Argos or the tholos tombs. the thistles Pylos was the second most important of Tiryns! centre in the Mycenaean world after Mycenae itself. It was unfortified. The Palace of Nestor Christine was destroyed by fire but some fragments of Shine, the wall paintings are in the Museum at Cork Chora. The sanctuary at Olympia flourished Branch from the 10th century BC until the emperor Theodosius closed all the ancient sanctuaries. 6