Greece is a place where the remains of over 3,000 years of civilizations can be seen, often in close proximity. From our base in Nafplio Maryl and I set out by bus and car to see the monuments and stones left by five of those civilizations: Mycenean, ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian. As I already mentioned, right in Nafplio are the three Venetian fortresses, the newest remains, evidence of the mighty naval power from the 13th through the 17th centuries. To see the others we had to hit the road.

On Monday we took a bus to Mycenae to view the ruins of the ancient city which is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. The citadel was built around 1600 B.C. on an delta-shaped acropolis protected on two sides by deep gorges. We entered through the grand entrance, the broad entry gate whose massive lintel supports a gigantic triangular stone bearing the reliefs of two giant lions (whose heads are lost, regrettably). It was here, in archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann's interpretation, that King Agamemnon, hero of the Trojan war, reigned; and here where, on return from ten years in the siege of Troy, he met his death at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. We scrutinized the ruins on a day when the fringe of a dark cloud tangled with a bright sun, casting us alternately into sun and shade. A sharp, cold wind gusted out of the deep ravine on one edge of the site, making us wish we might walk within the two-storey walls of the original palace for shelter, as much as for historical interest. But all that remain are the foundations.

The tragic tale from Mycenae must be true, because Maryl's scholarly Blue Guide to Greece directed us to the death chamber where Agamemnon allegedly met his end. And just down the road we walked into the enormous tholos tomb where he was buried, a sort of subterranean igloo built of huge quarried blocks with vaulted ceilings 40 feet high, all covered over with earth. (Here Schliemann unearthed what he dubbed the Treasure of Atreus.) To avenge the death of his father, the legend goes, Orestes (urged on by his sister Electra), murdered his mother and Aegisthus, bringing a tragic end to the curse on the House of Atreus. We walked also to the site of Clytemnestra's tomb, not nearly as imposing, and the adjacent tomb of Aegisthus, the top of which had collapsed entirely. Then we brooded over the sad tale, drinking crimson juice squeezed from fresh blood oranges served at a snack bar right beside the bus stop. While waiting for the 3 o'clock bus back to Nafplio, we enjoyed a panoramic view of farmland and olive groves in the Inachos valley below us.

On Tuesday morning, December 31, as I opened the window of our room at the Hotel Dioscouri for a view of Nafplio and the water below, I was surprised to hear a brass band playing a boisterous version of a familiar contemplative tune that I know as “Minstrels.” Although I could not see the band at first, it was clear from the sound that they were marching through the streets of the town. The first couple times it was entertaining; by afternoon we would be tired of hearing the tune over and over. While we were in various shops—in the camera stores where we tried to find a replacement lens cap for Maryl's camera and in the pharmacy where we stopped to inquire about medications for the sore throat and cough that Maryl too was catching—this scene would repeat itself frequently: Two or three children walk in and one begins sounding a musical triangle; then they sing, in Greek and in unison, words to the tune we had heard the band playing. The shop owner would usually silence them before they finished the short eight-bar song, handing them each a few coins or a small-denomination bill.

It was clearly a popular Greek custom, a sort of “sing or treat” that continued all day on the eve of the new year. As we walked through the town going about our business, we encountered the well-uniformed marching band several times, always playing the same tune, with variations only on the final chord, a rewarding moment of closing discord. Because we needed to check a directory for the address of a rental car company, we walked to the OTE, the telephone company. There the marching band showed up again, playing their tune through to the end indoors, loudly, as they passed a box around the office. Evidently, they were collecting funds for some charity. Their volume would have made it impossible for anyone in the phone booths to carry on a conversation; but the lone patron we saw—a woman who must have been another tourist—delightedly popped out of the booth to photograph the band.

At Ikaros Car Rental, a walk several blocks into the new town we again saw children come in to sing “Minstrels.” This generous proprietor, John, gave each of them a 200 drachma note, worth about 85 cents. After they left he told us, in good English, how much he had enjoyed doing the same thing as a child. When we saw the rental rates—38,000 drachmas for a small Nissan “Sunny” for three days—we realized how he could afford to be so generous. This in spite of their advertising that had claimed “very cheep prices.” But it was our only hope of seeing some of the more remote sights, and I looked forward to being at liberty on the roads of the Pelopon­nese, so we accepted the deal without complaint.

After stopping for gasoline at a Texaco station, we set off at noon for nearby Epidauros to see the ancient theatre of The Sanctuary of Asklepios built by the Greeks and expanded by the Romans. Its limestone bench seats are still in place and still in use for summer­time performances. It has a capacity of 14,000 people, but the acoustics are reported to be so good that a coin dropped at center stage could be heard in the last row. As if to test the rumors, visitors with genuine talent were taking the stage and performing. One tenor belted out an excerpt from an aria in Italian, and two others responded from the upper rows. Then a fair-skinned man with a South African accent delivered a few lines from Hamlet's soliloquy. Somewhat intimidated by these first-rate performances, I was confident enough only to play a verse of “Minstrels” on my ocarina from the relative anonymity of the middle rows.

Also at Epidauros is a sanctuary of Asclepius, the god of healing. According to our guide­books, people suffering from various ailments in Roman times would come here for a cure, to be offered such low-cost alternative therapy as being licked by a snake. Maryl and I found no snakes or disciples of Asclepius to administer them, and, unfortunately, simply being at the “Asclepion” did not hasten an end to our coughs. But the sun was shining and the air was still, so it felt nice to be out in the green countryside in a site surrounded by a scattering of pine trees. Among the few recognizable structures in the jumbles of rocks here were the Greek baths, where basins carved in rock were full of rain water, and the Roman baths, where some of the floors were still tiled with mosaic-sized bits of stone. Two structures—the abaton, a sleeping area for the ill, and the tholos, an offertory location—were undergoing complete reconstruction.  

More about Mycenaean Culture (about.com)