On Fri­day, we spent our day trav­el­ing to the south­ern­most tip of Attica, Thorikos and Cape Sounio.  We took a coach bus with a new tour guide, Αγγελικι, aka Λενα.  Our first stop was at Thorikos, which is home to one of the old­est the­atres in the world. The the­atre is from the 6^th cen­tury B.C.  We don’t exactly know what was per­formed in this the­atre, because it pre­dates the ancient plays, but we assume that choral per­for­mances took place here.  From the rows of seats, by seats I mean recon­structed slabs of rock, you can see water which har­bors Greece’s “Long Island.”  Their Long Island is a bit dif­fer­ent from ours, as it was used as a prison, most famously from the mid 60’s to mid 70’s to hold polit­i­cal (com­mu­nist) dissenters.

Thorikos isn’t only famous for its ancient the­atre, but also for its sil­ver mine.  In fact, there is a mine entrance right next to the the­atre.  When this ancient Greeks were decid­ing what to do with this pros­per­ous col­lec­tion of sil­ver, they found that they had two options.  The option which was orig­i­nally under dis­cus­sion was a plan that would dis­trib­ute sil­ver to all of the Athe­ni­ans.  I’m sure this was enor­mously pop­u­lar.  The other idea, brought for­ward by a man named Themis­to­cles was to build an enor­mous navy which would set Athens apart from all the other city states.  In the end, the Athe­ni­ans decided that a navy was prob­a­bly the best choice of action, a choice that def­i­nitely paid off dur­ing the Per­sian Wars.

After Thorikos we headed to Cape Sounio.  Now this is a truly amaz­ing place. The Cape is sur­rounded by water on all sides, except for the small stick of land that keeps it attached to the coast.  On the crest of the Cape is the Tem­ple of Posei­don.  From this Tem­ple you can see all of the ships that pass in and out of the ports sur­round­ing Athens. In ancient times, a ship would depart from port and then stop at the Tem­ple.  The ship­mates would pray at the Tem­ple and likely make a sac­ri­fice or give a gift to the God in order to ensure a safe jour­ney across the Mediter­ranean.  Out of all the places we have been in and around Athens, this is my favorite spot.  The wind is con­stantly blow­ing and you can feel the pres­ence of some­thing pow­er­ful on the Cape.

On our way back from Cape Sounio, we drove along the south­ern coast­line back toward Athens.  I’ve never seen water as clear and turquoise as this water. As a north­east­erner I’m always stunned by water that isn’t a dark blue/green mass of angry waves.

After much deserved 3-hour sies­tas, we ven­tured out to a bar to sup­port the Greeks in their attempt against Ger­many.  Though it was a rough game, the bar we were in was a blast: Small, cramped, lots of Greeks, lots of Amer­i­can music from the 70’s. It was hap­penin’.  We are plan­ning another excur­sion there on Wednes­day to watch Por­tu­gal v Spain, or pos­si­bly Thurs­day  to watch Ger­many v Italy

Our day on Fri­day was tir­ing, but fol­lowed by a com­pletely free week­end of just rehears­ing and flea­mar­ket adven­tures.  Though we had quite a the­atri­cal expe­ri­ence Sun­day night, which will be blogged soon.

Greece remains as ζεστι (hot) as ever! Stay φρεδο (cool, or iced… I forget!)

–Savan­nah (not Annika)