Last day of tour

For our last day the sun has returned and we visited 3 sites. First was something quite different. At Lerna the visible remains are from 2600 BC. It is a large 2 storey house built of mud brick that was burnt in a fire baking and preserving the mud bricks. The ground floor was for storage, probably for a community, and the upper floor thought to be for residential. It is not known who the people were that occupied it, nor the successive waves of people that came after them.
We then visited Argos, from which the whole Argolid area is named but, like Sparta, very little remains are visible. There is an impressive large theatre cut into the rock of the hillside and a Roman bath house built by Hadrian, which was closed.
The final site was beautiful and peaceful with few visitors - Namea. It was not a settlement but the site of one of the Panhellenic games held every 2 years. A well preserved stadium complete with tunnel from the dis-robing room (they raced naked) and a picturesce temple. They now run revival games every 4 years that anyone can take part in (wearing white tunics!).
After a sumptuous lunch at a restaurant run by a winery (Namea is famous for its wine) we headed back to Athens and had a generous farewell dinner at a lovely rooftop restaurant. (Bad scheduling). A really good tour with an excellent archaeologist.Read more