10th June 1984 - Mycenae

Sunday 10^th June  Got up early and walked to the railway station to catch the 8.36 train to Corinth. It had only three or four carriages and there weren’t enough seats for everyone. We crossed the Corinth Canal; it is highly amazing.

  In Corinth, I walked to the main square, had a toasted sandwich and went to the bus stop for the south. It was good timing because I didn’t have very long to wait. Arrived at Fihti, 2km from modern Mikenes, and walked to the youth hostel there (just a few rooms over a restaurant).

   Then I walked up the road and first went to Agamemnon’s Tomb [a tholos, or beehive, tomb which is actually known, now, as the tomb of Clytemnestra] to satisfy a long desire to see the chamber off the main room with a proper light – the torch I had bought in London. There are a few blocks of marble in there. [When we were there in 1970, for some reason I knew that the torch was in Mum’s make-up box, but she wouldn’t open it, so we couldn’t have a look at the inner chamber except in the dark. Of course, later she found that the torch was in the box. I had a talent for knowing where things were. Also at Mycenae, in the car park, we met someone with connections to our school – student or teacher. I think his name was Merlin, or something odd like that.]

Interior of the tholos - you can see the doorway to the interior chamber.

   I then went up to the Palace itself. Fortunately, most of the bus groups were having lunch so there weren’t all that many people there. The Lion Gate is still there, with swallows’ nests (looking like wasp nests) under the archway. The Royal Burial Circle. I’m sure we didn’t go right to the top in 1970, but there’s a fine view from there, but hazy. On the other side, near the North-east gate and a well with water and tadpoles in it, is a doorway leading down to a flight of uneven steps that lead to not much of a room. The walls are wet and the steps slippery. [The “Secret Stairway (99 steps down to an underground cistern)”]

 

Down the steps of the Cistern

  I clambered over the rooms just above the Lion Gate – not many people go there because it’s all overgrown with weeds. Mycenae is certainly an outstanding site, being on top of a hill.

   I decided not to go back down the road, but through a gate at the back of the carpark onto a dirt road which passed the hill where Ag’s tomb is. Here grow olive trees and little shrubs with yellow flowers – down further were about a hundred beehives. Going down this way, I found one of the other tombs – the roof had fallen in and weeds and small trees were growing in it and in the way to the entrance. It was much smaller than Ag’s; I think there are supposed to be about twelve tombs all together. This does not include the couple more recently dug caves which are inhabited by goatherds. I think they’re quite near the village.

   Back at the hostel I had a shower, washed some clothes and wrote several postcards before having a small dinner on the roof top and writing this. It’s good being outside because in the room is a German with the smelliest feet. And there are no political broadcasts over the town PA, which is so much nicer and quieter and a relief. Spoke too soon.