My Reflective Midriff

As our last day at City University draws to a close, I realize that there may not be an opportunity to post pictures after today. So I thought I would take the time to share a few. Tomorrow we go to Mycenae!!

Cape Sounion Beauty

Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion

View of the Acropolis from the Agora

Parthenon on a cloudy day





Meteora

Thumbs down at Philippi
Roman latrine

Nemesis Rides A Dark Motor Scooter

In May of 1935, T.E. Lawrence died in a freak motorcycle crash on a back road in England. He swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. I couldn't help but think about this when some sixty years later, Marshall crashed his motor scooter on a steep hillside road on a small Greek island.

After the Temple of Zeus, we were once again zipping along the road, when, just like Orpheus, I became worried that Marshall was no longer behind me. After about thirty seconds, I was sure of it. We all doubled back, hearts pounding, and found him righting his scooter, with a Greek man helping him. He had taken a bad spill. Marshall's left elbow was skinned and bloodied, his right pant-leg shredded and blood-stained at the knee, but he was otherwise intact. He could have gone over the edge, as there was no guard-rail. Later on he told us that the man had suddenly merged from another road and basically ran him off the road, but Marshall's quick reactions averted a disaster.

(Un)Easy Rider?

The scooter took some damage but was still functional. Marshall got right back on his horse and rode off carefully into a small town where we patched him up and gave him some orange juice to revive his spirits. What a trooper.

Marshall, sporting a jaunty bandana on his elbow.

Aegina

On Sunday four of us went to the island of Aegina, in the Saronic Gulf south of Salamis and 50 km away from Athens. It is a short ferry hop (only about 35 minutes on a "Flying Dolphin").

Our mission: to rent scooters and zip around the island. The island is small, about 8 miles at its largest point (from NW to SE.) There is one major temple on the island, the Temple of Aphaia, and a couple other places of interest. So as soon as we jumped off the boat, we headed to a rental place. That is, after a short encounter with a very affectionate dog (call her "Aphrodite").

"So, you know how to ride these," the guy at the rental place said. "Oh, yeah. Sure..." (Well, I didn't even know how to turn it on!!) The scooters were a dubious lot--showing signs of several crashes, Brad's lacked a mirror on one side, and none of my gauges worked. Ditto the horn. But for 15 euros for an entire fun-filled day how could you complain?

Aphaia is a little-known local divinity who is sometimes equated with Athena. For you temple buffs, it is a hexastyle peripteral Doric temple of about 500-480 BC. The temple is fairly well preserved as these buildings go. We paid our 4 euros and spent about an hour at the site, including the small museum. For me the most interesting thing was the drainage that channelled water from the roof of the temple to a nearby cistern. The view from the west side of the hill is phenomenal–you can see the Peloponnesus, the Isthmus of Corinth, and the Piraeus.

From the temple we rode south and stopped for lunch at a tiny fish taverna near Portes. I was so pleased to have gotten away from the touristy areas! We managed to order lunch in our meagre Greek (choosing our meal from a drawer of fish in the kitchen–I have no no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was fresh!).

Our host cooks our fresh fish on his grill

The Fish Tavern "Sophia"







After a satisfying and very inexpensive lunch, the infamous Scooter Gang saddled up again and set off in search of the Elusive Temple of Zeus Hellenaios. We left the main paved road at a marker reading simply "Archaeological Site" and travelled up along a steep, severely rocky and rutty dirt road, nearly wiping out a couple of times. Then we parked the bikes and walked up to to the site. There were extensive ruins, but no signage, and a little chapel, which was deserted. I stuck my camera into a window and got a blind shot of the interior, which you could not otherwise see. We scrambled over the ruins and planned our later excavations of the site with a labor force of Fresno students.
Inside of the chapel

The planning of the "excavations"

As we were getting ready to return to the main road, we heard in the silence the clanging of bells--an entire flock of goats was crossing the path. Brad and I got as close as we dared without startling them and snapped a picture. The goatherd and his dogs ignored us.