Guided day-trip from Athens to Mycenae?

I see a number of those "3-day tours" originating in Athens that cover
Mycenae, but I don't want to do one of those. I want to see the ruins
of Homeric Mycenae, but I want to do it as a day trip from Athens
(back to my hotel the same night), for a number of reasons. Can anyone
recommend a reputable guided-tour operator that runs day-trips from
Athens to the Mycenae ruins? Thanks in advance for any info.

"Steve G" wrote in message
ps.com...
I see a number of those "3-day tours" originating in Athens that cover
Mycenae, but I don't want to do one of those. I want to see the ruins
of Homeric Mycenae, but I want to do it as a day trip from Athens
(back to my hotel the same night), for a number of reasons. Can anyone
recommend a reputable guided-tour operator that runs day-trips from
Athens to the Mycenae ruins? Thanks in advance for any info.

Chat Tours has a full-day tour.
http://www.chatours.gr/

We did this with Chat quite a few years ago. The bus was nice, the guide
good and the lunch adequate. Ordinarily we don't do guided group
sightseeing, but this tour enabled us to see quite a few sites in the one
day we had free to sightsee outside Athens.

GG

On Apr 13, 6:54 pm, "GG" wrote:
"Steve G" wrote in message

ps.com...I see a number of those "3-day tours" originating in Athens that cover
Mycenae, but I don't want to do one of those. I want to see the ruins
of Homeric Mycenae, but I want to do it as a day trip from Athens
(back to my hotel the same night), for a number of reasons. Can anyone
recommend a reputable guided-tour operator that runs day-trips from
Athens to the Mycenae ruins? Thanks in advance for any info.

Chat Tours has a full-day tour.http://www.chatours.gr/

We did this with Chat quite a few years ago. The bus was nice, the guide
good and the lunch adequate. Ordinarily we don't do guided group
sightseeing, but this tour enabled us to see quite a few sites in the one
day we had free to sightsee outside Athens.

GG

Did the tour include a trip to Nemea? I had not been before, but we
went last autumn, on an impulse having missed the turning to Mycenae,
and it was well worth it. They also have a nice new museum. (Apart
from the exhibits, the bathrooms are unique in Greece as having a sign
that says "please put the paper in the toilet, not the bin".)

B;

Perhaps this possible(?) site in Mycenae might interest you. Regards,
Walter

AGAMEMNON'S MURDER

The events and the Bathroom location are all iffy or plain myths,
brothers and sisters might be half-brothers/sisters in different
versions and my historical outline is just bits and pieces of different
versions of possible truths and myths.

So take this trip report with a grain of salt. But remember they can't
say for certain what did or didn't happen 3200yrs ago!

Also the red plaster floor in the Bathroom was covered-over by dirt
after the excavation, so you can't see it today. Regards, Walter

Agamemnon was the mean King (of Mycenae) in the movie 'Troy', who was
always at odds with Achilles.

**After the Trojan War he returns home and his wife kills him in the
bathtub, for good reasons IMO .

*The 'Bathroom' location as the official on-site guidebook describes
it is 'iffy'. "This part of the palace includes a room of which only a
corner has survived, with traces of red plaster on the floor; it has
been fancifully identified as the bathroom in which Agamemnon was
murdered".
*
**But* and these are just my guesses and I'll like any input from
any
Greek history buffs or pros.
**It would be an ideal and practical location for a royal palace
bathroom.

**Mycenae is completely walled except for this small section where
the cliff is defense enough along with a corner of the palace complex
built atop the cliff.

**Mycenae has no running water, water must be carried up either from
springs outside the walls or from an underground fountain/cistern within
the walls (~100 steps down to the fountain/cistern).
* So water was carried by workers or slaves to fill this bath and with
no running water there is no need to have a drainage system within the
fortification. **

Now when you want to drain the dirty bathwater it's alot easier to have
the bathroom near the edge of the site's fortifications/walls.
It's either that or build an underground drainage system thru the very
rocky ground and under buildings to outside the fortification.
Or have workers/slaves bail the bath with buckets and walk them to a
drainage area.
*This bathroom location is right on the cliff, all you would need is a
drain thru or under the wall.

**Ok the official guidebook is calling this a Bathroom as in
bathing.
But how about a w.c. there also? The waste would just drop down the
cliff and you would have clean or used water handy for personal use or
cleaning the w.c. area?
**Different timeframe but the Romans often put w.c.'s after Baths
and used the bath's waste water to flush them. So a water supply and a
w.c. kind of go hand-in-hand so to speak .

*This Bathroom is within the King's Palace and right behind the
Megaron, which was *the* principal room in the Palace, it was the King's
Throne Room (the throne was probably in the middle on the southside
wall: this would follow Mycenaean tradition as would a bathing room
close-by the Megaron like in Tiryns and Pylos).

So this location would cover the King's Throne Room and Court where he
conducted day to day business and also his private residence.

*Also I don't know if this is relevent but the bathroom in Nestor's
Palace (Mycenaean palace in Pylos) was located nearby his Megaron had a
white plaster floor and our bathroom location has a red plaster floor.
Was this a common flooring material or only used in bathing rooms?

**I'm more into Roman history than Greek but I threw together this
*version* of the events and there are very many .
**It's just to give you some idea of the historic myth while you are
standing there looking at this scant rubble ruin that once was a corner
of a room that *might* have an intriguing story to tell. A perfect
example of "if these walls could talk" . *


*Myths, truths, lies, stories, legends make-up Helen's Trojan War and
the events surrounding it.

**But there were Greek-Trojan Wars in this era and Troy was
destroyed ~1180BC which is the right time-frame for our Trojan War
story.

**Homer (700-800BC?) is credited? for writing the Iliad, an epic
poem about these events and people.
So for ~400yrs this story was told as an oral tradition, then put in
poem form and finally written down.
**So it is probably based on a true event (the war) but
Hollywoodized (myths) over the years.

**King Agamemnon was very likely a real king, who perhaps was killed
by his wife.

**Helen of Troy, there is no proof that she existed but there is no
proof that she didn't. Two kingdoms going to war over a kidnapped queen
is as good a reason as any .

Who knows perhaps a close or distant member of a royal family that was
captured or kidnapped by the Trojans. Going to war over the abduction of
a queen makes a far better tale than the abduction of the king's 2nd
cousin-twice removed . **

**But if you traveled all the way to Mycenae and are now standing in
this 'Bathroom' location in the sweltering summer heat. Why worry about
what is the truth and what is the myth after 3200yrs .

We will *never* know what actually happened, so we might as well go
with what we got , anything else will just get in the way of this
mythical tragic story of Love, Hate, Rage, Revenge, Murder, Human
Sacrifice, Jealousy, Matricide and Forgiveness.

*IMO it's not a big stretch to believe that a war actually did happen
and Agamemnon's wife murdered him in the tub.
But a 'Romeo & Juliette' Helen and Paris, a Superhero Achilles, etc
plus a huge wooden horse is pushing it .

**There are two brothers, one is the King of Sparta (Menelaus) and
the other the King of Mycenae (Agamemnon). Just like in the movie Troy
.

*They marry two Spartan sisters, Clytemnestra marries Agamemnon and
Helen marries Menelaus.

**Helen is the most beautiful girl in the World and every King,
Ruler and famous man wants to marry her.
**Her father chooses King Menelaus for the political connections but
makes all the others promise to always defend Helen and her husband
before he made his final choice known to them.

*Paris is a prince and son of the King of Troy but his mother exposed
(abandon) him to the wilderness as an infant.
She was told in a prophesy that her son when he reached manhood would
destroy Troy.

**But he is found by shepherds and raised as one of their own. *

*Then one day three Goddesses of beauty Athena, Hera and Aphrodite
appear before him (I saw a movie like this once and then they all took
off their...ahhh...well never mind.
*
*The goddesses ask him to choose who is the most beautiful one among
them.
**They all try to bribe him (one with power: another with wealth &
military victories: and one with Love) Paris chooses Aphrodite's bribe
(Love) and that is to make the most beautiful woman in the World fall in
love with him.
**And that woman was a Queen called Helen of Sparta. *

*So off he sails to Sparta where King Menelaus treats him as his
honored guest.
**But the King must leave to attend a family funeral in Crete, so he
leaves his wife behind to entertain Paris.

Menelaus is an older man, it was an arraigned marriage and he cheats on
her. * *Paris is a young handsome Prince with a 'Goddess Aphrodite
Love Spell' ® working it's magic for him .
*So it was a no brainer for the young beautiful Helen .

**So off they sail to Troy but on the way out of the palace they
grab the King's treasury.
Hey if ya going to steal the King's wife and ya might as well grab his
money too.

*Menelaus is fit to be tied when he finds out, he wants Helen and
Paris dead!..dead!..dead! plus his money back. *

*He goes to Mycenae to get his brother's help, Agamemnon agrees and
they call-in all their markers (the other Greek Kings who promised to
defend Helen and her husband).

They get a vast army together with a fleet of a thousand ships ready to
go and kick some Trojan butt, but Agamemnon can't his ships to
start...no wind . **
**The Goddess Artemis is ticked-off at Agamemnon because of an
earlier animal killing, so no wind for him.

**But a soothsayer tells him he can appease the Goddess by
sacrificing his daughter (Iphigeneia).
*Agamemnon knows his wife and daughter will never go for this, so he
tricks them into coming to the harbor by claiming that he has arranged
his daughter's marriage to Brad Pitt...I mean Achilles .

Well the old sure-fire 'Virgin daughter sacrifice to the gods' works
and the Goddess lets the winds blow towards Troy.

Clytemnestra is in a rage that her husband killed their daughter just
so he could jump-start his ships.

**In time she takes a lover (Aegisthus) and exiles her son (Orestes)
who disapproves of mom's adultery. *

Now*it's 'party time' in the palace with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus
ruling over Mycenae.

*But finally after 10yrs all good things must come to an end.
Agamemnon returns victorious from Troy. And to make his earlier
marital problems even worst he brings back a war trophy, Princess
Cassandra (sister of Paris) as his concubine.

**Clytemnestra wants to avenge her daughter's murder and is also
ticked off with this concubine affair.
Plus both she and Aegisthus know once the King finds out about their
affair it's all over for them (Agamemnon's father threw his adulterous
wife off a cliff!).

That night there is a feast to celebrate Agamemnon's victory and return
home. **After the feast Agamemnon retires to a nice warm bath.
Ahhh... great to be back home in the palace after a long decade of
work.
With a loving wife, the (surviving) children and the dead King of
Troy's Princess daughter as your love toy.
*Life is good! **

*But Clytemnestra who has some issues goes and murders Agamemnon in
his bath.
She throws a large cloth over him and then either stabbed him with a
sword or chopped him with an axe, possibly with the help of her lover.
*
*And then out of sheer jealousy she murders Cassandra, like she even
had a choice in the matter of becoming Agamemnon's war trophy. **

*Clytemnestra's son returns 7yrs later and kills both mom and her
lover to avenge his father's murder.

**Basically all the other major players are killed Paris, Achilles,
Troy's royal family, etc along with a cast of 10's of thousands.
**KIng Menelaus finally gets Helen at the end of his sword but her
beauty just overwhelms him and he cannot kill her. **So they sail
off into the sunset and back to Sparta, where they live out their lives
('happily ever after'? Who knows and when death finally takes them
they are buried together.


LOCATION AND PHOTO:
Ok go to this map/plan:
www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21104a/00/lk04a012.jpg
See the number '17' (listed as 'Bathroom') and just below it the 'square
sideways U' like this |_| but turned 90deg to the right.
**That is the surviving upper left corner* of the so-called Bathroom
which is described in the official on-site guidebook.
So below that corner* and to the right is the Bathroom *[x] where
*perhaps* Agamemnon was murdered?

Now go back to the 'Map/Plan' website photo. See the purple area below
17 and to the left, that is the Megaron or Throne Room labeled 19.
Today on this floor you can see impressons of where the circular hearth
once stood in the center with the 4 columns around it like this [ : ].

**The photographer in this photo is standing *in* the Bathroom while
taking this shot of the Megaron.
www.grisel.net/images/greece/Mycenae11.JPG

The underground Fountain/Cistern I mention is #26 in the upper right
corner of the 'Map/Plan'.
You can walk down (100 steps) into it but you definitely need a small
flashlight/torch to see.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...lf/Cistern.jpg
www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21104a/00/lk04a017.jpg **



...And Paradise Was Lost...like teardrops in the rain...

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Apr 13, 6:54 pm, "GG" wrote:
"Steve G" wrote in message

ps.com...I see a
number of those "3-day tours" originating in Athens that cover
Mycenae, but I don't want to do one of those. I want to see the ruins
of Homeric Mycenae, but I want to do it as a day trip from Athens
(back to my hotel the same night), for a number of reasons. Can anyone
recommend a reputable guided-tour operator that runs day-trips from
Athens to the Mycenae ruins? Thanks in advance for any info.

Chat Tours has a full-day tour.http://www.chatours.gr/

We did this with Chat quite a few years ago. The bus was nice, the guide
good and the lunch adequate. Ordinarily we don't do guided group
sightseeing, but this tour enabled us to see quite a few sites in the one
day we had free to sightsee outside Athens.

GG

Did the tour include a trip to Nemea? I had not been before, but we
went last autumn, on an impulse having missed the turning to Mycenae,
and it was well worth it. They also have a nice new museum. (Apart
from the exhibits, the bathrooms are unique in Greece as having a sign
that says "please put the paper in the toilet, not the bin".)

B;

It didn't include Nemea, but did include visits to the Corinth site (which
is no longer included on the tour), the theater at Epidarus, and the
Acropolis at Mycenae.

GG