I took a quick hour bus up to Mikines, site of the Mycenae acropolis. In the second millennium BC Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. Now its of course a pile of rubble with markers all around saying where things used to be, but it was still pretty cool. Theres a museum with a ton of pottery and iron figures they found in and around the city. The highlight for me was a beeh...

THE BEACH!! I caught the bus to Nafplia this morning no problem, and following the advice of the hostel owner here in Athens I headed up the 999 stairs to the castle with my 999 pound pack. About 100 stairs in I was thinking that the beach below was looking REALLY REALLY nice, but I managed to make it to the top and back down safely (oo it was tempting to jump from the cliff, but I had two grandmothers' voices in my head, and they were yelling... so I didn't) ...

After the tomb of Agamemnon I headed up to Korithos to see the canal and the old city before heading back to Athens. When I climbed on the bus I saw the two Norwegian guys from yesterday and they were headed to Korinthos too. I gave them all my unreliable bus and train schedules along the way and said good bye at the station and I headed off to find the canal. I stopped at a hotel to get a map and directions, which turned out to be a waste of time because the ...

Ok so that '4 hr direct train at 5 am' was really a 6 hr trip at 6 am, with 2 train changes, good thing I didn't have anywhere to be! I got to Ancient Olympia around noon, thanks to a German family waking me up on the train... I doubt I would have slept through it, it was the last stop on the line, but it was nice to be looked out for. When we got there, thanks to the delay, there was no way to make it to Nafplia that night, so I enjoyed the day and decided to ...

METEORA! I got to the bus stop a little early, just in case the bus was early. About 20 minutes before my bus was to come another bus showed up, so I asked the driver if it was mine and he said yes... but I'm not sure he knew what he was talking about. So I had time to wave goodbye to Michelle and Monica and hop on the bus. There were two American guys on the bus so I asked them to see if they were heading my way. They said no, they were headed to the Monast...