This whole land is specially sacred to Asklepios...
10.25 am; waiting for the bus to Epidavros. I was very early getting to the bus stop, so I went for a stroll and (I think) located the place where I stayed on my last visit to Nafplio, back in 1992. I couldn't remember the street name but I could remember the approximate location and the view out of the window of my room. Turns out it was number 13, Tsertsou Street.
I stayed in the ground-floor room on the right, with a window looking onto the steps
It isn't a rent-rooms place anymore, but then most of the accommodation in the old town nowadays is smart little pensions and boutique hotels anyway. Some of them look absolutely lovely. The rent-rooms place in 1992 was a wee bit grotty, the kind of thing you happily put up with when you're in your twenties and getting a bit of a thrill out of slumming it. But the location was terrific, just up the slope from the church of Agios Spiridon (where Kapodistrias was assassinated) with a fantastic view from the flat roof, out across the tiled rooftops and the Argolic Gulf.
In the wall of Agios Spiridon there's a little glass case over the bullet marks left by Kapodistrias' assassins
I won't go looking for my very first accommodation, though; that was the old Youth Hostel out on Argonaftion Street and in 1989 that was
really grotty! I don't feel that sentimental...
It's a lovely morning, despite the weather forecast. I'm carrying my mac just in case, but hoping to get some sightseeing before it gets too wet.
A bus has already arrived, and has been waiting without a driver for a while; now a driver arrives; he starts the bus up and changes the destination board; yes, this is it. Three Euros twenty lepta for a 40-minute ride up to Epidavros and the Sanctuary of Asklepios.
Arriving at the Sanctuary and greeted by a charming cat
Later; 11.30.
A lot of Pausanias' writing about Epidavros is about the religious aspect; he tells the story of the birth of Asklepios, the son of Apollo and God of healing, and how he was found as an abandoned baby on the mountain, and he debates the merits of the three different versions of the myth.
And of course much of his description is of things that are no more; the gold-and-ivory statue, the paintings in the temple and so on...
But he also mentions this: "The Epidaurians have a theatre in their sanctuary that seems to me particularly worth a visit..."
And that, of course, is the main reason people visit today.
Approaching the Theatre of Asklepios at Epidavros
Attendance at the theatre in Classical Greece was a religious activity, rather than something one did for leisure, and it was also considered good for one; good for the soul, hence good all-round. And attending performances of music was considered to be restorative for those in poor health. So an important healing centre like this would need a performance space. The architect, Polykleitos, was very famous in his day, and he did the Epidaurians proud with this beautiful, simple structure, cut into the hillside and lined with silvery-white marble.
The remains of the ancient stage buildings; the stone arcade in the background is where you would enter stage right
One of the aisles leading into the seating
Halfway up there's another horizontal aisle
Unfortunately it's often rather crowded. I wouldn't mind the crowds (after all, I'm a tourist too) if they were all interested; but some of them are clearly only here because their coach tour brought them and they can't go until the coach leaves. There are a great mob of Russian teenagers milling around talking noisily, sending text messages, eating crisps and putting on make-up, not looking at the theatre at all. But they're milling around right in the middle of the orchestra, the main performance space. As the acoustics are superb, at the moment pretty much all one can hear is teenaged Russian chatter and crisp bags rustling.
Luckily they go fairly quickly and are replaced by an tour group of elderly Americans; who are also noisy, but interestedly so. As I climbed up into the top of the seating I could hear a woman below saying "Well, yeah, Henry, if you really wanna go all the way up there, you go right ahead, it looks amazing, but I'm staying
right here, you know my knees won't take it!"
It's very hard to photograph the Theatre of Epidavros; the size (it seated around 15,000) and the open curved shape make it difficult to get an angle that shows its scale and grandeur rather than seeming to diminish them. I've done my best.
Also wildflowers, actually growing in the steps. In the UK we'd blitz them with Weedol once a month. Of course, for all I know, the cost is the main reason they don't do that here, rather than aesthetics; but the effect is oddly relaxing, as though the life of the ancient sacred grove is still there just under the surface, peeking up through the cracks.
And for a change from wildflowers, here we have fungal fruit-bodies!
You must think I've made it my mission to photograph every single wild cyclamen in the Argolid, but honestly, when they're growing up through the steps of the Theatre at Epidavros, how can I resist?
Now for the rest of the site. There's quite a lot of it.
Epidavros was a major sanctuary in ancient times. So far as I know it was never a city, just a huge religious centre and place of healing; it "belonged" to the city of Epidavros, down on the coast (one of the places I went past on my bus ride to Nafplio just over a week ago). There are still parts of the ancient Sacred Way, apparently, leading down through a long valley to the coast. Just outside the perimeter fence, where the Sacred Way would have run, there's one of those little country roadside shrines today; I can't tell you who the dedication is to as the gate was locked.
The medicine practiced here was a mixture of psychological and emotional techniques and more physical things. In the museum there are stone slabs listing the names of people cured and the nature of their cures (& Pausanias saw these same slabs!). Some of the cures are very mystical in nature; people sacrificed and prayed, drank from a sacred well and readied themselves spiritually, then slept overnight in a special dormitory called the Abaton, next door to the temple, and had healing dreams; and they woke recovered. But some of the cures involved things like changes to diet, taking medicinal herbs, exercise regimes, even minor surgery - there are some fascinating small bronze surgical instruments in the museum [sadly my photo of these didn't come out]. So it looks as though it was a combination of therapies, quite a holistic approach in fact. And the place itself must have had a therapeutic effect too; both for the psychosomatic reason of having come to a place of healing, and because it is up in the hills, with fresh clean air and water and the scent of pine trees (I'm not being too romantic about the pines - Pausanias refers to it constantly as the Grove of Asklepios, which sounds to me as if it's always been a partly wooded area).
There was a ban on dying and giving birth inside the sanctuary itself. One of the big Roman benefactors built a special hospice just outside where the seriously ill and the heavily pregnant could stay, so that they could visit the healing centre but not risk defiling it by dying or going into labour within the precinct.
Later; 2.00pm
Picnicking by the ancient entrance way. There are two, one in the north of the sanctuary and one in the south. I'm beside the northern one.
Remains of the northern Propylon or entrance gate from the south...
And from the north
A 5th century well just inside the gate
I'm also beside a busy ants' nest. Great tip for free entertainment; drop crumbs near an ants' nest and watch how efficiently they are gathered up and taken away for storage.
Also wildflowers
One of the things I remembered most vividly about Epidavros from 26 years ago is how all the crowds concentrated in the theatre (& in the museum, which is on the small side so not really adapted for them) and almost no-one came down into the main site. They're missing out, as there's a lot to see. On the other hand, it's wonderfully peaceful, thanks to being nearly-empty.
There's a lot of restoration work going on. Some of it looks quite dramatic.
Reconstruction work going on at the Thymele, the central rotunda next to the Temple of Asklepios
I remember there being almost nothing still standing more than a couple of feet tall, and stacks of masonry sitting around that had obviously come from each building.
Bits of stored masonry round the back of the museum...
...and down behind the toilets...
...and out on the site
Now, there seems to be a programme of taking some of that original masonry, supplementing it with fresh new stone (which is dazzlingly white, so one can easily tell the difference) and rebuilding small sections of the fallen structures. There are now two columns of the southern entrance gate set-up again, and a bit of the cornice.
Part of the Abaton has been reconstructed; and there's ongoing work at the Thymele, the round building that was also designed by Polykleitos and was apparently the centre of the whole cult. It was apparently famously beautiful, but none of the accounts I've read of what it was used for agree with one another. In Pausanias' day it was being used to show some paintings.
The colonnade of the Abaton
The lower storey of the Abaton - one of the sleeping benches on the far left
Staircase connecting the two storeys
Snakes were sacred to Asklepios, but I didn't see any. I did however see a few lizards, including this little fellow in the Abaton
Reconstruction work here is not without precedent; when the archaeologist Panagis Kavvadias excavated the whole site in the 1920s (apparently wearing a frock coat and hat and carrying an umbrella at all times - he sounds like quite a chap!) he took a lot of the best bits of stonework and built small reconstructions inside his little museum.
Bust of Panagis Kavvadias outside the museum
In the museum; guttering and decorative roof edge from the Temple of Asklepios
And reconstruction of one corner of the Temple of Artemis
And there's certainly enough original stone and to spare, without needing to demolish those and relocate them. It's all being done very carefully and tastefully, as usual, and the vertical accents make the whole place look clearer, easier to read as it were.
I hope that in a year or two, when this work is completed, more visitors will come down here into the main part of the site, to visit and enjoy it; that they will discover more about this extraordinary place and the work of the healers of the ancient world, once they can see all these bright standing columns from the car park when they arrive. The Abaton in particular really gains from being rebuilt; one can see the narrow benches of dark red marble where the patients slept, and the sacred well in the corner.
The only big problem, at least for now, about the works-in-progress is that all the old signage has been taken out, and with the exception of a few large maps, none of the new signage has been installed. There are bases in place, on which presumably it will be put in time. But nothing on them at present. I must admit I'm getting rather confused as a result. Just now I was wandering about one bit, thinking "Well if
this is the baths, then
that must be the late Roman villa building and
that must be the shrine of the Generous Gods Pausanias mentions, and if that's right then
this must be the shrine of the Dioskouroi..." and scratching my head somewhat.
Maybe part of one of the bath-houses?
Remains of marble revetment on the wall of ?maybe the shrine of the Generous Gods
Maybe the courtyard of the late-Roman villa?
Maybe the temple of the Dioskouroi?
Definitely the draw-basin of a fountain house. But was this the fountain Pausanias describes as "worth seeing for its fine ornament"? There was more than one here, so who knows...
Definitely some rather fine drains and gutters
An exedra, or public bench, which would have had statues along the top above the curved seat
The remains of the temple of Artemis
The Stadium; Epidavros had a regular cycle of Games, like Olympia, though probably not quite as famous. I think they were biennial
Some more of the exhibits at the small site museum
No label on this rather handsome Roman, so I'm not sure who he may have been
Hygeia, the daughter of Asklepios and Goddess of cleanliness, with a snake
Aphrodite
The hand of Asklepios, again with a snake
An exquisite bit of decorative carving from the Thymele
Later; 3.25 pm.
My bus back is at 3.40. Sitting enjoying a freshly-pressed orange juice in the little café by the carpark (much nicer than it sounds!). Rather tired feet, but another really amazing day of sightseeing. The breeze is full of the scent of pine needles; it's even richer now they have been wetted by the rains and then dried out again, almost like incense in the air. There's a dog snoozing near me and various other whacked-looking tourists sitting on benches or here at the café. Tour coaches are leaving and more drawing up. The weather has held all day (no idea what happened to the forecast rain). That orange juice was a bit naughty, but very refreshing.
Weary dog of Epidavros
And the Mycenean bridge outside Arkadiko; photographed from the bus, hence the lousy shot. But still, a 3500 year-old bridge!
Next morning.
Sorry to report, my insides decided to play up on me when I got back to the hotel (I won't give you any more detail than that - apologies if that's already too much information!). It put a bit of a downer on what had been a very enjoyable day. I had a very small supper and an early night, and am feeling a bit better this morning. But I probably won't do anything very major today.
It's brought home to me that one of my classic tricks for dealing with an upset stomach can't be used anymore. As a diabetic, I now can't fast. I have to have regular food; even if it isn't much, I've got to eat something. The last thing I wanted last night was to eat. But Ta Phanaria did me a very nice plain salad with some olives, and didn't make a fuss. I ate my salad and drank lots of water, and toddled home again to sleep. I've had a quiet morning catching up with this, uploading my photos, drinking more water and doing some sudokus! I'm feeling better, just a little subdued, and my blood sugar is okay, which is a good sign, anyway. I'll be okay by tomorrow, with any luck.
