Oils ain’t oils

No wake up call till 7am today, luxury. Another buffet breakfast with many options. Sour cherry juice, sliced yummy sausages and savoury cheese pie were noted new additions today, and hot as opposed to lukewarm coffee. 8.30 am on the bus and a short ride to Mycenae. The world’s largest beehive tomb, also known as Agamemnon’s Tomb we visited first. Dating back as far as 1350BC, we are really delving into ancient times here.

Hera the local guide, led the way up the hill to the main site of the city of Mycenae.
Hera showed us into the museum where we saw well known artefacts such as Agamemnon’s Death Mask, this is a copy and there is no proof it is actually his, but every archaeologist wants to think their find is the most important.

Many famous archaeological finds within this site including the Lion Gate. This dates to 1250bc as does the citadel and acropolis. Hera again showed us the way. You can see Hera here guiding us up the hill in the first photo. The Lion Gate is very famous and also dates to around 1250bc as does the citadel and acropolis.

Other places of immense interest here are Grave Circle A and Grave Circle B.  They are tombs of the Mycenaean royal families as old as 16 century BC.

Our next visit was a very quirky artisan residence. Pottery was their main business but this guy was a big time hoarder and a talented artist. They had so much cool stuff around. I loved their Trojan Horse. We were given a pottery demonstration and the opportunity to buy exquisite pieces at extravagant prices. Some local wine and ouzo was also on sale and well, it would have been plain rude not to buy some after sampling.

Off to a taverna for lunch, nothing flash but good honest food, half a plate of slow cooked lamb for me and moussaka for Terry. Then a long afternoon drive to Olympia. Barb was trying to bribe the driver Costa to take the Sparti turn but alas no. A really enjoyable drive, the mountains are so tall, good highways and tunnels. When we got into the small country roads some of the houses especially are so darn cute and inviting! Our bus driver is amazing too, some of the pokey roads and hairpin turns he has to manoeuvre in a huge coach, must be tough.

We arrived in Olympia mid afternoon. Two words, rustic charm. Olive trees everywhere, narrow streets, chickens, vineyards. Incredible views as we are quite high up. These photos are from our balcony.

Our first bit of rain, well drizzle this evening. The bus took us to Magna Graecia. An olive and wine farm that has been operating for 4 generations. We were greeted with a glass of their white wine plus feta and olive dip on bread. We had an interesting demonstration on the production of olives and got to taste 8 olive oils, onion jam and pepper jam with bread. The olive tree in the photo is 1000 years old!😱

There was some(well lots really) suggestive selling of their many products, jewellery, art….all bloody expensive. The wine and olives however were reasonably priced and thus purchased. Dinner  was a number of appetisers, Greek salad, dips, olive paste etc. we were a bit full after tasting all the bread, which was fortunate because the main course, a pork or chicken stew baked in paper was very dry and unappetising. Their very decent red wine was free with dinner, and a shot of grappa. The Greek dancing demonstration started afterwards and  yep they started trying to get us to join in. We both politely declined.
The bus took us back to the hotel. A nightcap of our first ouzo in Greece and then a good nights sleep in the cooler mountain air. Opa!