Up early this morning and a long walk to the other side of
the old town to catch the 8.30am bus to the archaeological site of
Phaestos. The bus left at 9am. While
waiting, we befriended a lovely Athenian woman, Barbara, who spoke
excellent English and became our mentor for the first part of our day. The bus made its way through the mountains,
past squillions of olive trees and grape vines and eventually stopped somewhere
that was clearly not an archaeological site, and everybody got off the
bus. Our friend Barbara told us that we
had to change to another, smaller bus for the last part of the journey. So, two and a quarter hours after the bus was
supposed to depart Heraklion for a 90-minute journey we arrived at
Phaestos. Built on the top of a hill
with sweeping views all round, Phaestos was first inhabited from about 4,000
BC. A palace, dating from the middle
Bronze Age, was destroyed by an earthquake and the second palace built around
2,000 BC. This palace was damaged in
three subsequent earthquakes then destroyed by invading Achaeans about 1,400 BC
and not rebuilt, however there are substantial remains, including a grand
staircase leading into the palace, king’s and queen’s chambers, storerooms,
servants’ quarters and courtyards, round water storage chambers, and also on
display are a number of huge urns that would have been used for storage of oil or
wine. An impressive site. One of the key archaeological finds at the
site was the “Phaistos Disk”, a 16cm diameter clay tablet covered with writing
and dated to about 1700 BC, discovered in 1908.
Persistent efforts to understand the meaning of the writing have failed
(although two British researchers have recently concluded that it may contain a
prayer to a Minoan goddess). After having a good look round we parted company
with our benefactor and walked back down to catch the scheduled bus to our next
destination. It didn’t arrive. So after waiting 30 minutes we went back up
to the ticket office and they called a taxi for us to travel to Gortyna, which
fortunately was not too far away.
The archaeological site at Gortyna is the largest in Crete –
and some of it is hard to find as it is so spread out. Occupation of the area dates back to 7,000 BC
and, of this site in particular, from 3,200 BC.
It was once the capital of Roman Crete and may have housed up to 100,000
people. It is mentioned in Homer and was given a plug by Plato, among
others. Most of the ruins and relics
date from the Roman period, including the 6th century Byzantine
church of Agios Titos. However the site
also houses the 6th century BC Laws of Gortyna, the oldest code of
law in the Greek world, inscribed on a wall near the small theatre. There is also a plane tree under which Zeus
and Europa are rumoured to have had their “love nest” - whatever that means - and
a number of very old, large olive trees with gnarled root systems and branches
(in front of one of which we found seated an old, gnarled man). We then crossed the main road to basically
wander through the bush, occasionally coming across the ruins of the Temple of
Apollo, the Roman Governor’s residence and public baths, most of which have
been almost totally destroyed. We also
encountered an olive tree so old that it that had grown around a couple of
ancient columns.
We headed to the bus stop on the main road in plenty of time
for the bus back to Heraklion, which we had been assured would arrive at
2pm. It didn’t. About 2.30pm a small car pulled up and a
young man, Tony, asked if we would like a lift.
We gladly accepted and enjoyed a pleasant drive back to Heraklion with
this charming young man, 31 years old and single (and under constant pressure
from his mother to find a wife), who had been to a nearby town to take his grandfather to a relative’s funeral. He told us that he had spent six months in
the Czech Republic as a student and had regularly been offered lifts by the
locals when traipsing home along the road and now does the same when he sees
the need. We determined that he was not
actually going into Heraklion and insisted that he drop us at a bus-stop at the
edge of the city and, lo and behold, we stepped straight onto a bus that
brought us right into the centre of the old town. En route we saw a couple of young men busking
at traffic lights; the percussionist was sitting on the grass verge beating
time on a plastic bucket, an olive oil drum and a Nescafe tin (no Keith Richards, in skill or looks, we hasten to add). Another walk through the street market and
back to our apartment.
Tomorrow – Knossos.
The adv
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