Classical Greece Tour

Classical Greece tour trips are journeys with a host through the Peloponnese and central Greece. In the north-east Peloponnese, the story spans the Corinth Canal, Ancient Corinth, Nemea, Mycenae, Argos and Tiryns. Epidaurus, Olympia and the rocks of Meteora belong to the same story. Close relatives of these trips include Delphi tours, Greece tour packages and Greece small group tours. Every option sits within the wider range of Greece tours.

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What is a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour takes its name from Classical Greece. That period lasted around 200 years, through the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Such a tour is a trip through Greece with a host. BC counts the years before the start of the Common Era.

Scholars commonly date the Classical period from 510 BC to 323 BC. In 510 BC the last tyrant of Athens fell from power. In ancient Greece, a tyrant was a single ruler holding full power. Alexander the Great’s death came in 323 BC. The era follows the Greek Dark Ages and the Archaic period.

Athens left behind more narratives, plays and other writings than any other ancient Greek state. A state, in classical Greece tour terms, means a self-ruling city and its lands. A narrative is a written account of real or imagined events. Sparta had two kings ruling side by side throughout its entire history.

Western mathematics, science, theatre, philosophy and politics trace their early roots to this period. Philosophy is the study of ideas about knowledge, truth and right action. Politics is the work of running a city or a state. On a classical Greece tour, the term Western means the culture that grew up in Europe.

• Next era: The Hellenistic period came after the Classical period in the timeline of ancient Greece.
• Early power: In the 7th century BC, Argos held the leading power across the Peloponnese of southern Greece.
• Later echo: European elites after the Renaissance, a European rebirth of learning, viewed themselves as Greece’s spiritual heirs.

The Classical period also strongly shaped the later Roman Empire. In classical Greece tour talk, an empire joins a number of lands under one supreme ruler. Roman refers to Rome, the Italian city at the centre of that empire.

Which story does the Corinth Canal give a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour draws a modern chapter from the Corinth Canal. Completed in 1893, the canal slices through the Isthmus of Corinth. It cuts off the Peloponnese, the large southern land mass, from mainland Greece. An isthmus is a narrow land bridge between two seas.

The cut joins two gulfs, the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf. The first gulf opens to the Ionian Sea, and the second to the Aegean. A gulf is a broad inlet where the sea pushes far into land. A canal, in classical Greece tour language, is a waterway dug by human hands.

In 1830 Greece won formal independence from Ottoman rule, the rule of a Turkish-led empire. After that, the idea of a canal came back to life. The modern channel follows the same course as the cut made under the Roman emperor Nero. In classical Greece tour terms, an emperor is the supreme ruler of Rome.

The rock along the cut is heavily faulted sedimentary stone in an active earthquake zone. Sedimentary rock forms from layers of settled grains. A fault is a crack where blocks of rock shift. The wake of passing ships wore away at the walls and set off more landslides. A wake is the moving water behind a vessel.

• Retaining walls: Builders lined over half the canal with masonry, 165,000 cubic metres of it, to hold the walls.
• Rockfall: During 1923 alone, the channel took in 41,000 cubic metres of fallen material.
• Wind and tide: The tall walls funnel wind down the channel, and tides cause strong currents.

Measured from one gulf to the other, the finished canal runs 6.4 kilometres. Its width at sea level is 24.6 metres. On a classical Greece tour, sea level means the average height of the open sea’s surface.

Why does Isthmia matter to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour connects with Isthmia, an ancient sanctuary of Poseidon. The site stood on territory of the city-state of Corinth. A sanctuary is holy ground set apart for a god. Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea.

In classical Greece tour terms, a city-state was an independent city that also ruled nearby farmland. Isthmia stood on the main land route linking Athens and central Greece with Corinth. The ground beneath the site lies on a highly active fault line. Greeks saw Poseidon as the Earth-holder, a god who caused and calmed earthquakes.

Legend makes the games a funeral contest for Melicertes, whose other name was Palaemon. Sisyphus, the mythical founder and king of Corinth, set them up. A funeral contest was a set of sports events held to honour a dead person. Winners, until at least the 5th century BC, received a wreath of celery. Pine later replaced the celery.

The festival took place each spring in years two and four of every Olympiad. An Olympiad was the four-year span between two Olympic Games. Its programme mixed athletic events with musical contests, all held to honour Poseidon. In classical Greece tour language, athletic means linked to sport and bodily strength.

• Rank: In importance, the games at Isthmia came second only to those at Olympia.
• Imperial performer: The Roman emperor Nero performed in the musical contests at the games in AD 67.
• Front seats: Legend says Theseus secured front-row seats at the games for Athenian visitors.

After Rome defeated Macedon, the Roman commander Flamininus proclaimed at Isthmia the Freedom of the Greeks. Macedon was a kingdom north of the Greek city-states. In classical Greece tour lore, the act made Isthmia a symbol of Greek freedom and unity.

How does Ancient Corinth fit into a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour ties into Ancient Corinth, once an independent city-state standing on the Isthmus of Corinth. That narrow strip of land links the Peloponnese to the Greek mainland. The old city stood about midway between the cities of Athens and Sparta.

In classical times Ancient Corinth rivalled Athens and Thebes in wealth. That wealth flowed from traffic and trade across the Isthmus. Wealth means a large store of money, goods and land. Trade means exchanging goods for money or other goods. On a classical Greece tour, Isthmian traffic means the goods and travellers crossing that neck of land.

Just before the classical period began, the Corinthians developed the trireme. A trireme was a warship rowed by three banks of oars. The earliest recorded naval battle also involved Corinth, which fought the Greek city of Corcyra. In classical Greece tour language, naval means relating to warships at sea.

Until the middle of the 6th century BC, Corinth sent black-figure pottery to cities across the Greek world. In black-figure ware, dark painted figures stand out against the reddish clay. Athenian craftsmen later took that market from Corinth. The travel writer Pausanias devoted the second book of his Description of Greece to Corinth.

• Roman rebuild: Rome demolished Corinth in 146 BC, then built a fresh city there in 44 BC.
• Earthquakes: Two earthquakes, in AD 365 and AD 375, left the city largely in ruins.
• Letters of Paul: Two New Testament letters from Paul the Apostle made Corinth well known among Christians.

Since 1896, systematic archaeological digs have brought large parts of the ancient city back to light. Archaeology studies bygone peoples through the things and buildings they left. On a classical Greece tour, systematic means following a fixed plan, one stage after another.

What does Acrocorinth add to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour pairs ancient Corinth with Acrocorinth, a monolithic crag that towers over the ruined city. In Greek, the name means Upper Corinth, the acropolis of the ancient town. The term monolithic describes a rock that stands as one unbroken mass.

An acropolis is the high, walled heart of a Greek city. Three circuit walls gave the hill its man-made defences. A circuit wall runs all the way round a site. In classical Greece tour usage, defences are walls and towers raised against attack. Man-made means shaped by human work rather than by nature.

A Corinthian myth, told to Pausanias, pits two gods against each other. In classical Greece tour stories, a myth is an old sacred tale. Helios was the god of the sun. Briareus, one of the hundred-handed giants of myth, settled the quarrel. His ruling handed the Isthmus to Poseidon, while Helios received the high rock of Acrocorinth.

A spring on the rock is called Upper Peirene. Pausanias says Asopus placed it there to repay Sisyphus. Sisyphus had given Asopus news about the abduction of his daughter Aegina by Zeus. Archaeologists have also worked at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on its slopes. Demeter was a goddess of grain, and Kore was her daughter.

• Last stand: Under Leo Sgouros, Corinthians held out on the rock against Frankish conquest from 1205 until 1210.
• Long use: Acrocorinth stayed in continuous use from archaic times into the early 19th century.
• Hilltop church: In the rebuilt city of the Middle Ages, one church stood on the fortified hilltop of Acrocorinth.

A secure water supply let the fortress act as southern Greece’s last line of defence. It commanded the Isthmus and blocked foes from entering the Peloponnese by land. For a classical Greece tour, a fortress means a stronghold built to resist attack.

Which legends link Nemea with a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour turns to Nemea, a sanctuary of ancient times in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Today the site lies within Corinthia, a regional unit of Greece. A regional unit is a local district inside a wider region.

Greek myth placed the lair of the Nemean Lion at Nemea. The hero Heracles killed that beast. Within classical Greece tour tales, a hero is a legendary figure of great strength or courage. Before each festival, a sacred truce halted all wars and fighting for a month. The pause let athletes travel to the games.

In 330 BC the contests came back to Nemea. Argos then raised great new monuments, including the Temple of Zeus. In Greek belief, Zeus stood above every other god. Builders mixed three orders of architecture in the temple, Doric with Corinthian and Ionic. Each order is a fixed design for columns and the parts they hold up.

In Pausanias’s day, the temple stood in a grove of cypress trees. A grove is a small cluster of trees. Cypress trees are tall, slim evergreens. The temple’s roof had collapsed, and no cult statue remained. On a classical Greece tour, a cult statue means a temple’s sacred image of its god.

• Mystery buildings: The buildings called oikoi take their name from oikos, Greek for house, as their purpose is unclear.
• Signed tiles: Roof tiles of the athletes’ changing room bear stamps with the name of its architect, Sosikles.
• Water supply: An aqueduct 1 kilometre long carried spring water to the baths along a vaulted tunnel.

Archaeologists at Nemea in 2018 uncovered a large, intact tomb. It dates from the early Mycenaean era, 1650 to 1400 BC. For a classical Greece tour, Mycenaean labels the Bronze Age culture named after Mycenae. Bronze, a blend of copper and tin, gave that age its name.

Where does Mycenae stand in a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour looks to Mycenae, an archaeological site about 120 kilometres south-west of Athens. Argos sits 11 kilometres to the south, and Corinth 48 kilometres to the north. An archaeological site keeps the buried traces of past lives.

In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was a leading centre of Greek civilisation. A millennium covers one thousand years. As a military stronghold, it held sway over much of southern Greece. Its reach also took in Crete, the Cyclades islands and parts of south-west Anatolia, now Asian Turkey.

Historians call the years from about 1600 to 1100 BC the Mycenaean period. The earliest examples of written Greek also survive at Mycenae and nearby Tiryns. They are preserved on Linear B tablets, made of clay and inscribed in an early script. In classical Greece tour language, a script means a set of symbols for writing words.

Linear B texts give Mycenaean kings the title wanax. A title is a name that marks a person’s rank. In the Archaic period, a temple of Hera rose on the citadel’s highest point. In myth, Hera was the wife of Zeus. On a classical Greece tour, a citadel means the fortified hilltop core of a city.

• Ancient sightseeing: By the Roman period, the ruins of Mycenae had already become a tourist attraction.
• Shepherd escorts: Shepherds led Pausanias to the site, a sign the area was never fully deserted.
• Rediscovery: In 1700, a Venetian survey made the first correct modern identification of the ruins.

In 468 BC, troops from Argos captured Mycenae. They drove out its people and razed its walls. To raze is to tear a building down to the ground. On a classical Greece tour, troops means groups of soldiers sent into action.

What makes the Lion Gate stand out on a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour knows the Lion Gate as the main way into Mycenae’s Bronze Age citadel. The name itself is a popular label from modern times. A gate here means a fortified doorway through a city wall.

The sculptors carved the heads of the two lionesses as separate pieces. Those heads are now missing, though the necks survive. A tuft of hair at the end of each tail marks them out as lions. On a classical Greece tour, a lioness is simply a female lion.

The gate also shows that lions once lived in Europe and Greece. They died out there towards the end of ancient times. It is the only relief image named in the writings of classical antiquity. In a relief, the carved figures rise from a flat background. On a classical Greece tour, antiquity means the ancient past.

Between the wall and a bastion, the approach narrows into a small open courtyard. It measures 15 by 7.23 metres. The narrow space possibly helped to limit the number of attackers. A bastion is a strong tower jutting out from a wall. A courtyard is an unroofed area enclosed by walls.

• Distant parallel: The gate bears comparison with the gates of Hattusa, a Hittite Bronze Age citadel in Asia Minor.
• Double door: A double door once closed the opening, turning on an upright beam that served as a pivot.
• First clearing: The Greek Archaeological Society began clearing the buried site of soil and debris in 1840.

The carved gate served as an emblem of the Mycenaean kings. It showed their power to their own people and to foreigners alike. An emblem is a badge or image used as a symbol. In classical Greece tour terms, a foreigner is a person from another land.

Which finds link Grave Circle A to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour traces the royal past of Mycenae to Grave Circle A. This royal cemetery dates from the 16th century BC. It lies south of the Lion Gate. A cemetery is a place set aside for burying the dead.

Grave Circle A took shape around 1600 BC as a new burial ground for the elite. In classical Greece tour wording, the elite are the richest and highest-ranking families of a society. The last burial in the circle took place around 1500 BC. A burial ground is land kept for graves.

Local rulers then gave up shaft graves, tombs sunk in deep pits, for a grander tomb type. This new form, the tholos, was already taking shape in Messenia in the southern Peloponnese. A tholos is a round stone tomb roofed with a dome. Later the circle seems to have become a temenos, a fenced-off holy ground.

Decorated daggers found in the graves were works of art, not real weapons. On a classical Greece tour, a dagger means a short knife with a pointed blade. These pieces served to mark the social rank of the dead. Social rank is a person’s standing within a whole community.

• Gender clues: Men were laid to rest with weapons, while women received jewellery.
• Minoan touch: Bulls’ heads with a double axe show clear Minoan influence, from the culture of Crete.
• First modern dig: Mycenae was the first site in Greece to undergo a modern archaeological dig.

Homer’s Iliad describes Mycenae as abounding in gold. The Iliad, an epic from ancient Greece, tells of the Trojan War. An epic is a long poem that tells of heroes and great deeds. In classical Greece tour terms, abounding means having a great amount of something.

How does the Treasury of Atreus fit a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour joins the story of Mycenae to the Treasury of Atreus. It also goes by the name Tomb of Agamemnon. It is a large tholos, or beehive tomb. Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae in Greek legend.

Among all tholos tombs of the Aegean Bronze Age, this one is the largest and the grandest known. The Aegean Sea lies between the Greek mainland and Turkey. It was also one of the last such tombs built in the Argolid. In classical Greece tour usage, the Argolid, also called Argolis, is the north-eastern corner of the Peloponnese.

Above the doorway sits a relieving triangle, which reduces the stress on the lintel. A relieving triangle is a triangular gap left in the stonework. A lintel is the flat beam laid across the top of a doorway. Builders first tried this idea at Mycenae on the older Tomb of Aegisthus.

Green marble half-columns once flanked the door, with zig-zag patterns along their length. A half-column is a column partly set into a wall. Research in the 1960s traced the red marble to its source. This stone, called rosso antico, came from quarries on the Mani peninsula. On a classical Greece tour, rosso antico is Italian for antique red.

• Heavy lifting: One estimate says moving the inner lintel to the tomb took up to 1,000 people.
• Clay mortar: Yellow Plesia clay bonds the cut-stone walls, a mortar common in Mycenaean building.
• Stone lining: The Treasury was the first tomb at Mycenae fully lined with conglomerate, a rock of cemented pebbles.

Little is known about who was buried in the tomb. The link with the mythical kings Atreus and Agamemnon seems to date from the 18th century. On a classical Greece tour, mythical means belonging to myth rather than proven history.

What place does the Heraion of Argos hold in a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour shares a theme with the Heraion of Argos: the worship of the goddess Hera. This ancient sanctuary in the Argolid region was dedicated to her. The name Heraion simply marks a place sacred to Hera.

Homer was the ancient Greek poet who composed the Iliad. His poem presents Hera as the protector of Argos. In it she lists her three favourite towns: Argos, Sparta and Mycenae with its broad streets. In classical Greece tour myths, a protector is a power that guards a place from harm.

The Old Temple Terrace was the earliest structure raised at the sanctuary. This rectangle of stone measures 55.80 by 34.40 metres. On a classical Greece tour, a terrace means a level platform on sloping ground. Its stonework copies the Mycenaean style called Cyclopean masonry. The word Cyclopean recalls the Cyclopes, giants of Greek myth.

Thucydides, an ancient historian, writes that fire destroyed the Old Temple in 423 BC. A priestess named Chrysis had set a torch too close to garlands. Those garlands caught fire, and the blaze began. A priestess is a female servant of a god at a temple. Garlands are chains of flowers and leaves.

• New temple: Builders raised a new temple on a different terrace between 420 and 410 BC.
• Prizes: Bronze water jars called hydriai carry inscriptions marking them as prizes in sacred games.
• Brothers’ journey: Herodotus tells how Kleobis and Biton pulled their mother’s cart by hand to the sanctuary.

The river Eleutherion flows near the holy site. It gave water for rituals of cleansing and for sacrifices. A ritual is a set of actions performed the same way each time. On a classical Greece tour, a sacrifice means an offering made to a god.

What does Argos bring to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour blends ruins and a living town through Argos. The city lies in the Peloponnese region of Greece. Argos ranks among the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. Continuously inhabited means lived in by people without a break.

For 7,000 years, Argos has existed as at least a sizeable village. A village is a small settlement in the countryside. Over that time the town has never stood empty. A person who lives in Argos is called an Argive. On a classical Greece tour, Argive also works as a word for things from Argos.

Legend links the name to Argus, who ruled as the city’s third king long ago. He gave the city his own name. Both names connect to the Greek word argós, which meant white or shining. The meaning possibly came from the way the Argolic plain looked at harvest. A plain is broad, level country without hills.

The ancient theatre of Argos dates from the 3rd century BC. It held up to 20,000 spectators. On a classical Greece tour, a spectator means a person watching a show. The building replaced an older theatre of the 5th century BC close by. It also linked to the agora, the city’s open market and meeting square.

• Castle hill: The castle of Larisa tops the hill of the same name, the city’s highest point at 289 metres.
• Council house: A bouleuterion, or council house, rose in 460 BC, when Argos adopted democracy, rule by citizens.
• Crossroads: The agora stood where old roads from Corinth, the Heraion and Tegea met.

Farming forms the backbone of the local economy in Argos. Farming means growing crops and raising animals. A backbone, in this sense, is the chief support of something. In classical Greece tour terms, an economy is the way a place earns its living.

Which myths and walls give Tiryns a place in a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour links Heracles with Tiryns, a Mycenaean site in Argolis. Myth names it as the base from which the hero carried out his Twelve Labours. Each labour was a feat of great difficulty. Heracles is the hero whom the Romans called Hercules.

The first Greek inhabitants settled Tiryns at the start of the Middle Helladic period. That period ran from 2000 to 1600 BC. In classical Greece tour terms, Helladic labels the Bronze Age on the Greek mainland. Tiryns reached the height of its importance between 1400 and 1200 BC. It then stood among the leading Mycenaean centres.

The palace of Tiryns had a megaron, a great reception hall. In its main room, the throne stood by the wall on the right. A throne is a ceremonial chair for a ruler. Four wooden columns in the Minoan style framed a central hearth, or fireplace. They held up the roof above the hall.

Around 1180 BC, a hoard went into a cauldron in the lower town. It held gold, silver and a Minoan signet ring. On a classical Greece tour, a signet ring means a ring with a seal. After the palace fell around 1200 BC, the population kept rising. By 1150 BC, Tiryns was home to 15,000 people.

• Gate design: In its second building phase, the citadel gate took the same form as the Lion Gate at Mycenae.
• New home: Strabo, a geographer, says Tirynthians left to found Halieis, today called Porto Heli.
• Empty ruin: Pausanias found the site fully deserted when he came in the 2nd century AD.

Tiryns became bound up with the wider Greek myths of Heracles. Certain sources even name the city as the place of his birth. On a classical Greece tour, a source means an ancient text that records a story.

Why does the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus matter on a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour gains a lesson in drama and healing from the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. This stone theatre lies on the southeastern edge of the holy grounds of Asclepius. He was the Greek god of medicine, so plays and cures shared one setting.

In 1988, UNESCO gave the theatre World Heritage status, jointly with the Temple of Asclepius. Such status singles out a place prized by the whole of humanity. A temple is a building raised as the home of a god. On a classical Greece tour, a sanctuary means the holy ground set apart around such temples.

Contests in music, singing and drama at the theatre formed one strand of his worship. Worship means the honours people give to a god. Watching a play was seen as medicine too. People held that it helped both the mind and the body. In classical Greece tour terms, drama means plays acted out on a stage.

Roman builders left it unchanged, unlike a large number of Greek theatres. Its auditorium, the curved bank of seats, follows a plan drawn from three marking centres. With this plan, the builders gained fine acoustics and a wider field of view. On a classical Greece tour, acoustics means the way sound carries through a space.

• Front seats: The lowest rows of both tiers were places kept for important people.
• Euripos: A drain 1.99 m wide, the euripos, circles the orchestra, the round floor before the seats.
• Logeion: Two ramps led up to the logeion, the roof of the stage front where actors later performed.

The theatre rests against the western slope of Cynortion Mountain, close to the modern town of Lygourio. Today it belongs to the municipality of Epidaurus. For a classical Greece tour, a municipality means a district governed by its own town council.

Which healing story does the Sanctuary of Asclepius give a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour draws an ancient healing story from the Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus. This was the best-known healing centre of the Classical world. Ill people travelled there in the hope of a cure from the god of medicine.

Records place the cult of Asclepius at Epidaurus in the 6th century BC. A cult is the set of rites and prayers given to one god. At that time, the hill-top shrine of Apollo Maleatas had grown too small. On a classical Greece tour, the word asclepieion names a healing temple of Asclepius.

To find the right cure, the sick spent a night in a big sleeping hall. In their dreams, the god himself was believed to tell them how to regain their health. This practice is known as temple sleep, or incubation. For a classical Greece tour, incubation means a night in a shrine, hoping for a healing dream.

Three large marble boards from 350 BC keep the names, case histories and cures of about 70 patients. A case history is the written story of one patient’s illness. The listed cures include surgery, such as opening an abscess in the belly. An abscess is a swollen pocket of pus inside the body.

• Revival: The sanctuary rose again after a visit by the Roman emperor Hadrian in AD 124.
• Roman care: In Roman times it grew to 180 rooms for the dying and for women in labour.
• Late use: As late as the mid 5th century AD, it served as a Christian healing centre.

At the healing temples of Asclepius, the first stage of treatment was catharsis. The Greek word means purification, or making clean. It consisted of cleansing baths, purging and a cleansing diet. In classical Greece tour terms, purging means clearing waste out of the body.

How does Nafplio, once the seat of the Greek state, fit a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour connects with Nafplio, a coastal city of the Peloponnese. Nafplio serves as the chief town of Argolis, a regional unit. Greece splits each of its regions into smaller districts, and these are called regional units.

From 1827 to 1834, the young Greek state was governed from here, its first official capital. The word capital means the home city of a national government. The earliest written trace of the name is the so-called Aegean List. The list comes from the funeral temple of the Egyptian king Amenhotep III, in the 14th century BCE.

Under Ottoman rule, the town carried the Turkish name Mora Yenişehir. The first word comes from Morea, the medieval term for the Peloponnese. The second part, yeni şehir, is the Turkish term for new city. For a classical Greece tour, medieval means from the Middle Ages, between ancient and modern times.

Landfill work, chiefly after the 1970s, came close to doubling the ground the city covers. Landfill means new ground made by dumping earth into wet land. In 1212, Nafplio fell to French Crusaders serving the Principality of Achaea. A principality, in classical Greece tour language, is a realm under the rule of a prince.

• Venice: The Republic of Venice bought the lordship of Argos and Nauplia in 1388.
• Farms: Oranges and lemons grow on the plain around the city, beside peaches, apricots, olives and almonds.
• Sweet: Portokalopita, a sweet orange pie, appears among the local specialities of Nafplio.

In ancient times the town, then called Nauplia, served as the port of Argos. A port means a harbour town used by trading ships and fishing boats. On a classical Greece tour, Argolis names the ancient land around Argos and Nauplia.

What does the Palamidi fortress add to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour earns a Venetian chapter through Palamidi, the fortress of Nafplio. It rises east of the Acronauplia, the old walled core of the town. A fortress means a heavily walled stronghold built for defence in war.

Venetian builders raised it on a hill 216 metres high, while Venice held the area again. That period ran from 1686 to 1715. In classical Greece tour terms, the Venetians were the people of the Republic of Venice. Palamidi was in fact the last major building work of their empire overseas.

Its design is a typical baroque fortress. Baroque is a grand and showy European style of art and building. The plans came from the Venetian engineer Antonio Giancix. Pierre de la Salle, a French army engineer, carried out the building work. On a classical Greece tour, an engineer is an expert who plans and builds structures.

In 1715 the Ottomans captured the fortress, and they held it until 1822. In that year, Greek forces took it during the Siege of Nauplia. The eight bastions first bore the names of Venetian provveditori, officials who ran lands for Venice. A bastion is a part of a fort wall that juts out.

• Ancient names: Greeks later renamed bastions after leaders such as Epaminondas, Miltiades, Leonidas and Themistocles.
• Two more: The remaining two bastions honour St Andrew and Robert, a French Philhellene, or friend of Greece.
• Prison: Miltiades bastion once held prisoners, among them Theodoros Kolokotronis, a revolutionary hero.

Venice had assigned only 80 soldiers to defend Nafplio. As a result, the Ottomans retook the city with ease in 1715. Those 80 men formed the garrison of the whole city. For a classical Greece tour, a garrison means the soldiers stationed to guard a place.

Why is Olympia central to the story of a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour draws its sporting thread from Olympia, home of a great sanctuary of ancient Greece. Its ancient Olympic Games returned every fourth year. The first games came in the 8th century BC, and the last in the 4th century AD.

The sacred precinct, called the Altis, was dedicated mainly to Zeus. Zeus ruled as king of the gods. A precinct means ground closed off within set boundaries. The name Altis comes from a word in the local Elean speech meaning the grove. The area was wooded, with olive and plane trees in particular.

Pelops, a king who stands between myth and history, lies buried in the Pelopion. His name lives on in the word Peloponnese. The running track’s length became the standard stadion. The stadion served the Greeks as a yardstick for long distances. On a classical Greece tour, the word stadium comes from this measure.

Pausanias, an ancient Greek travel writer, counted over 70 temples at the site. Treasuries, altars and statues stood there as well, raised for a range of gods. In classical Greece tour terms, a treasury was a little stone house holding one city’s gifts. An altar is a stone block on which gifts to a god were laid.

• Buried: Over time, deposits up to 8 metres deep covered the whole site.
• Found again: Richard Chandler, an English antiquarian or student of old objects, found the site again in 1766.
• Finds: The German dig that began in 1875 recorded 14,000 objects in total.

Pindar, a Theban poet of the 5th century BC, credits Heracles with founding the sacred precinct. He set it beside the tomb of Pelops, in honour of his father Zeus. For a classical Greece tour, Heracles is the Greek hero known to the Romans as Hercules.

What links the Temple of Zeus at Olympia to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour takes its model Doric temple from Olympia. The Temple of Zeus, built in the second quarter of the 5th century BC, set that model. Doric is a plain, sturdy Greek column style, with no base under the column.

Work on the temple ran from roughly 472 BC to 456 BC. Its outer columns stood in a grid of six by thirteen. That means a row of six columns at each end, with thirteen down each flank. On a classical Greece tour, a column means an upright stone shaft carrying the weight of a roof.

Pausanias gave its height to the pediment as 68 feet and its breadth as 95 feet. He put its length at 230 feet. A pediment means the shallow stone gable over each end. Its roof tiles, of Pentelic marble, were so thin that light passed through them. Pentelic marble comes from Mount Pentelicus near Athens.

The eastern pediment shows Pelops racing Oenomaus in a chariot contest. The western pediment shows Theseus and the Lapiths in a Centauromachy. A Centauromachy is a fight against centaurs, beings with a man’s upper body on a horse’s frame. In classical Greece tour terms, a chariot means a fast, two-wheeled racing cart drawn by horses.

• Sculptors: Pausanias credits Paeonius with the eastern pediment and Alcamenes with the western one.
• Metopes: The metopes, square carved panels above the columns, show the twelve labours of Heracles.
• Echo: The Second Temple of Hera at Paestum, in Italy, copied its form closely.

The carved decoration used imported Parian marble, from the island of Paros. Its pediment figures follow the Severe style and are given to the Olympia Master’s studio. For a classical Greece tour, the Severe style means an early, plain and serious manner of Greek sculpture.

Why does the lost Statue of Zeus still count on a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour recalls a lost wonder in the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. It stood on the ancient list of Seven Wonders. That list picked out seven great works of building and art from the old world.

The seated figure rose about 12.4 m high. The sculptor Phidias made it around 435 BC. The Eleans ordered the work for their new temple. They were the people of Elis and the keepers of the Olympic Games. On a classical Greece tour, a sculptor means a maker of statues in stone, metal or ivory.

The statue was chryselephantine, built from carved ivory plates fixed with gold panels over a wooden frame. The Greek word joins the terms for gold and ivory. Zeus sat on a painted throne of cedarwood. Ebony, ivory, gold and precious stones decorated that throne. Ebony is a heavy, near-black timber.

The geographer Strabo wrote about the size of the seated figure. In his view, a standing Zeus was tall enough to unroof the temple. To unroof means to lift or tear the roof off a building. A geographer, in classical Greece tour terms, is a scholar who maps and describes the earth.

• Right hand: It carried a small gold and ivory figure of Nike, who stood for victory.
• Olive oil: Keepers coated the statue with olive oil to protect the ivory from damp.
• Praise: The orator Dio Chrysostom said one glimpse made a man forget all earthly troubles.

At the workshop of Phidias, diggers found tools used to work gold and ivory. Ivory chippings came to light there as well. For a classical Greece tour, chippings are the small flakes left over from carving. Ivory comes from the tusks of elephants.

What do the rock pillars of Meteora bring to a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour gains a landscape of giant stone towers from Meteora. This rock formation lies within Trikala, a regional unit of Thessaly in northwestern Greece. A rock formation is a large natural mass of stone with a shared origin.

Twenty-four monasteries rose on the giant pillars, chiefly after the middle of the 14th century. A monastery is a walled community of monks under a shared rule of prayer. Meteora lies between Kalabaka, a town, and Kastraki, a village. Both places sit at the northwestern edge of the wide Plain of Thessaly.

In 1988, UNESCO gave World Heritage status to the six surviving monasteries of Meteora. The award honoured their architecture, beauty and religious and cultural worth. The name Meteora means lofty or high. It shares its root with the word meteor. On a classical Greece tour, a meteor means a space rock that burns across the sky.

The pillars are not volcanic plugs like those found elsewhere. They consist of sandstone mixed with conglomerate. Sandstone forms when grains of sand bind into solid rock. Conglomerate holds rounded pebbles locked in a finer natural cement. A volcanic plug, in classical Greece tour terms, is the hardened core of a dead volcano.

• Hermits: In the 800s CE, hermit monks, who lived alone in prayer, settled on the pinnacles.
• Earthquake: The tall, slender columns survived a tremor of magnitude 7 that struck in 1954.
• Royal visit: No woman had entered the Great Meteoron until Queen Marie of Romania came in 1921.

Earth movements in the Paleogene period, roughly 60 million years ago, pushed the seabed upward. This created a high plateau with vertical fault lines in thick sandstone. For a classical Greece tour, a fault line means a break in the crust along which rock slips.

Which story does Varlaam Monastery give a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour borrows a cliff-top story from Varlaam Monastery at Meteora. The monastery sits on a rocky precipice 373 metres above the valley floor. A precipice is a sheer rock face that drops almost straight down.

Varlaam rises in the Pineios Valley, to the northeast of Kalambaka town. Its site lies 595 metres above sea level. A valley is a long dip in the land between higher ground. Kalambaka is another spelling of Kalabaka, the town beside Meteora. On a classical Greece tour, sea level is the zero point for measuring land heights.

Among the monasteries of Meteora, Varlaam ranks second in size. It is also known as Agion Panton, or All Saints. Its name honours Varlaam, a monk who scaled the cliffs in 1350. A monk lives under religious vows. For a classical Greece tour, a saint is a holy figure revered after death by Christians.

After Varlaam died, the monastery stood empty for two hundred years. In the 16th century, two monk brothers came to the rock. They were Theophanes and Nektarios Apsarades, and in October 1517 they set about rebuilding the churches. In classical Greece tour terms, the 16th century means the years of the fifteen-hundreds.

• Three churches: Varlaam raised three churches, hauling the materials up the cliff face.
• Long effort: The brothers, who came from Ioannina, spent twenty-two years lifting materials to the top.
• Holy remains: The monastery was said to hold a finger of St John and a shoulder blade of St Andrew.

UNESCO writes of the net that once hoisted pilgrims up the 373-metre cliff of Varlaam. In its words, the net stands for a fragile, traditional way of life that faces extinction. A pilgrim makes a journey of faith to a sacred spot.

What does the name Thermopylae tell a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour gains a lesson in names from Thermopylae, whose Greek name means hot gates. Its hot sulphur springs gave the pass this name. Sulphur is a yellow mineral that lends spring water a sharp, rotten-egg smell.

Thermopylae is a narrow pass and a modern town in Lamia, in Phthiotis. A pass means a narrow way squeezed between high ground and the sea. In Greek myth, the Hot Gates formed one of the entrances to Hades. Hades was the underworld, the home of the dead in ancient Greek belief.

In one legend, the waters grew hot when Heracles washed off the poison of the Hydra. The Hydra was a monster serpent of Greek myth. In ancient times the area was called Malis, after the Malians, a Greek tribe of the Spercheios delta. For a classical Greece tour, a tribe means a people bound by kinship and custom.

The ground of the battle fought in 480 BC is buried today beneath 20 metres of soil. In classical Greece tour terms, BC means before Christ, the way years before the Christian era are counted. Soil, in this sense, means loose earth, sand and mud piled up over the old ground.

• Moving shore: Since 480 BC, the shoreline has crept seaward, up to 9 km in places.
• Epitaph: Simonides’ epitaph, a verse for the dead, is cut in stone atop a hill facing the Leonidas monument.
• Pylagorai: Delegates of the first Amphictyony, a league of tribes, were called Pylagorai, or gate-assemblers.

In 480 BC an outnumbered Greek force held off a much larger Persian army at the pass. Xerxes, the Persian king, led the invading force. For a classical Greece tour, Persia was a great empire based in the land now called Iran.

Why does Mystras, a Byzantine capital, matter for a classical Greece tour?

A classical Greece tour stretches into Byzantine times with Mystras, high above ancient Sparta. In the 14th and 15th centuries, it was the seat of power for the Despotate of the Morea. A despot was a high Byzantine prince, and his domain was a despotate.

Byzantine is the label for the Roman Empire of the east, ruled from Constantinople. Its last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, served as despot of Mystras before taking the throne. In 1989, UNESCO named Mystras a World Heritage Site for two reasons. It was a well-preserved Byzantine city and a witness to late and post-Byzantine art.

Wheeled vehicles were impractical on the steep slope, so a good share of the streets are footpaths. The final Palace of the Despots had three storeys. Its top floor held a large audience hall, with apartments and storerooms below. For a classical Greece tour, an audience hall is a great room where a ruler received visitors.

Learning and culture of the Byzantine world had their final centre at Mystras. The philosopher Gemistos Plethon lived there until his death in 1452. He followed Neoplatonism, a school built on the ideas of Plato. For a classical Greece tour, a philosopher means a thinker who seeks wisdom about truth and life.

• Houses: Two hillside homes, the Frangopoulos and Laskaris houses, date from the early fifteenth century.
• Nuns: Only a community of nuns at Pantanassa Monastery lives there today.
• Frescoes: Its churches bore rich frescoes, paintings on wet plaster, and were known for their libraries.

In the 1830s, the town was abandoned. Builders then laid out the new town of Sparta, about eight kilometres east. For a classical Greece tour, Sparta names both the ancient city-state and this modern town. A city-state governed itself and its surrounding farms.

What do travellers ask about Classical Greece tour, and what are the answers?

Classical Greece tour questions turn to four places in the Peloponnese and Boeotia. They are the Philippeion and the Hermes statue at Olympia. The others are Bourtzi, a castle in the harbour of Nafplio, and Hosios Loukas, a monastery near Distomo.

Before a classical Greece tour, what is the Philippeion at Olympia?

Built of limestone and marble, the Philippeion was a tholos, or round building, in the Altis. Leochares, a sculptor from Athens, designed it as a memorial. It marked the win of Philip II at Chaeronea in 338 BC. No other building in the Altis was devoted to humans instead of gods.

For a classical Greece tour, which statue came out of the Temple of Hera?

The statue is Hermes and the Infant Dionysus. Diggers found it in 1877 inside the ruined Temple of Hera at Olympia. Tradition credits it to Praxiteles, with a date in the 4th century BC. Today the Archaeological Museum of Olympia holds it on display. In Greek myth, Hermes carried messages for the gods.

Within a classical Greece tour, what is the Bourtzi castle of Nafplio?

Bourtzi is a Venetian water castle set on an islet at the heart of Nafplio’s harbour. In 1502 the Venetians stretched a chain from a mound of boulders to the city. The chain kept hostile ships out of the harbour. After restoration in the 1930s, it ranked among the earliest tourist centres in Greece.

Which walled monastery in Boeotia comes up in classical Greece tour questions?

Hosios Loukas is a walled monastery close to Distomo, a town in Boeotia. It was founded in the mid-10th century. Since 1990 it has shared UNESCO listing with Nea Moni and Daphnion. Its main church, the Katholikon, is the earliest surviving church of the domed-octagon type. An octagon has eight sides.