Peloponnese Trip V (Part 2): Epidaurus and Nafplio (again)

After we left the lecture-heavy, ruins-lite site at Sparta, we hit the lecture-heavy, ruins-heavy site of Epidaurus. I found that lecture to be a lot less interesting though, so this is basically a picture post. Epidaurus was a polis on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, making it a convenient stop between Sparta and the isthmus out of the peninsula. In antiquity the place was mostly known as a sanctuary of Asklepios. Among Apollo's numerous responsibilities, he was also the god of healing, but he was a pretty busy guy and eventually passed that off to his son and/or mortal physician-turned-god Asklepios. These sanctuaries were pretty popular among the ancient Greeks. For one thing, they equated medicine and religion together very strongly during the classical period and only somewhat less strongly afterward. For another, the Asklepia, as the sanctuaries are called, evolved into ancient health spas. Anyway, picture time.

The main temple, I think.
Asklepios. That's a big snake he's hanging out with. The Greeks, who hadn't read Genesis, thought snakes were good things. You see, snakes slither up from the ground, which makes it look kind of like they're just popping into existence; they also shed their skins. Both of these led to associations with healing, renewal and resurrection, and when Asklepios needed a cute sidekick the snake seemed like a perfect match. That staff with snakes wrapped around it that you see on ambulances is the end result of that association.
A well.
That looks like a bathtub to me. The Greeks weren't generally big on bathing, since they didn't have soap. What they did have, though, was olive oil. So they way they'd clean themselves was just to lather themselves up with oil and then use a squeegie-like thing called a strigil to scrape the oil, and all the sweat and dirt and such, off.
Deanna, sitting on a rock that may or may not have been a chair.
Epidaurus also had a pretty sweet stadium. You can see a bit of the Roman-era stone seating.
But the thing that modern people associate with Epidaurus is the theater. The site had a pretty well-preserved Roman stone theater, and the modern Greeks, sensing tourism gold, filled in the missing bits and bam! Giant, beautiful theater. They show plays in it every summer, though we didn't get the chance to catch one. Those train tracks were part of a modern staging of a Euripides play. Phonecian Women, I think.
Looking left.
Looking right. That's Dr. Farney talking, but here's the same shot sans Farney.
Looking up at the seating.
The view from the site.
My favorite part of the site.
Notice that the bottom row is not reserved for the handicapped, just the first row one has to climb a step to get to.
There was also a great production of Aristophanes' Clouds. Bah-bum-tish! (My apologies to Aristophanes for muddying his name with that joke.)

You know what everyone needs more of? Castles. When we got back to Nafplio (where we'd stopped for lunch our first day out of Athens) we decided to hit one before going to the hotel. Palamidi, the castle in question, was built by Venetians in 1714 and eventually saw some action during the Greek revolt against the Turks in 1822. Nafplio was actually independent Greece's first capital, which lasted during its very short time as a Republic before descending into chaos and having a western parliamentary monarchy imposed on them by the Europeans to settle things down.
But back to the castle.
Our approach. We're already up on a big rock that I, in my flatlander ignorance, am going to call a mountain. We took our bus up, then took something approximating 1000 stairs down the steep side to street level.
Nafplio.
The harbor. To the left you can see the town's other castle our in the bay, which I took a picture of on our previous trip.
More bay.
One of those small windows out of which defenders could shoot arrows. I always thought they were a great design, since you can stick a bow or crossbow up to one of these and fire without exposing yourself. But when I actually looked through one I realized that you don't have a good view for shooting.
The other castle, which Wikipedia tells me is called Bourtzi.
Looking off in the direction of Argos.
A bell!
Tourists.
A small peninsula branching off from where Palamidi is. Also, the bill of Pete's hat.
Zoomed in.
Looking down on the peons. Clockwise from bottom: Doug, AJ, Dan, Alex.
I like this shot.
The crew.
Blue.
A long staircase that doubles as a diving board.
More fortifications on the next hill over.
The bell again.
Me. I hadn't shaved in several days, so if you squint you might make out my face's pathetic attempt at growing a beard. I'm trying to stick to the Alexander the Great look these days: clean shaven with long hair.