I’ve passed by the “Occu­py Toron­to” camp­site a few times, this week. Nor­mal­ly, I’m not much impressed by polit­i­cal demon­stra­tions. In North Amer­i­ca, they have proven woe­ful­ly inef­fec­tu­al over the last gen­er­a­tion. The peo­ple who orga­nize them are usu­al­ly far more inter­est­ed in the pas­time of demon­strat­ing that in accom­plish­ing any goals. In fact, they are most­ly counter-pro­duc­tive, because the Pow­ers That Be long ago fig­ured out how to turn them to their own advan­tage. So I always wince when I see the usu­al band of scruffy teenagers wear­ing cir­cle-As, the aging hip­pies, the pre­dictable “polit­i­cal the­atre” stunts, the mean­ing­less slo­gans, and the drea­ry chants. Those in pow­er love these peo­ple, espe­cial­ly the self-styled “anar­chists,” because they re-inforce author­i­ty, rather than threat­en it. Noth­ing dis­cred­its real oppo­si­tion in the eyes of the pub­lic more effec­tive­ly than a few sec­onds of TV footage show­ing a teenag­er with his face paint­ed, scream­ing unin­tel­lige­able slo­gans. They see what appears to them to be a mob of brain­less pranx­ters. The issues can then be safe­ly buried by the media. Read more »

We chose to vis­it Myce­nae dur­ing our lim­it­ed time on the main­land. As the Myce­naeans were the suc­ces­sors (and per­haps con­querors) of the Minoans, their most impres­sive ruins of were a fit­ting choice. They are dra­mat­i­cal­ly locat­ed on a steep hill, flanked by a deep canyon, from which you can see the entire­ty of the Argol­id plain, and even a fleet approach­ing by sea would have been vis­i­ble. The “cyclo­pean” walls are extreme­ly impres­sive, many of the blocks weigh­ing over twen­ty tons. I thought the famous “Gate of the Lions” would be one of those icon­ic images that dis­ap­points in real life, but it lives up to its rep­u­ta­tion. It was vis­i­ble in his­toric times with­out exca­va­tion. The exca­va­tions and very cau­tious recon­struc­tions by Greek archae­ol­o­gists have not involved the laisse-majesté prac­ticed by Evans at Knos­sos. What you see is large­ly the citadel as it was in Late Hel­ladic IIIa (cir­ca 1250–1200 BC), open to the pub­lic with only enough recon­struc­tion, path­ways, fenc­ing and edu­ca­tion­al plaquing to make it com­pre­hen­si­ble to the pub­lic and yet keep it from being destroyed by vis­i­tors. Read more »

Pho­tos tak­en in West Crete:

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The Idaean Cave on Mt. Koussanas

… the Gods have placed sweat.
Long is the road there­to and steep and rough at first.
But when the height is won, then is there ease, 
Though griev­ous­ly hard in the winning.

- Hes­iod

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Pho­tos tak­en in south­ern Cen­tral Crete:

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A love­ly Argiope Loba­ta we came across. It’s ven­omous, but not dan­ger­ous. Fil­ip’s fin­gers (I think) show the scale.

We left Aghia Pav­los with only a vague plan to explore West Crete. We set­tled on using a mix­ture of main and back roads. The Cre­tan land­scape is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly com­plex and var­ied. With­in min­utes you can switch from some­thing that looks like Afghanistan to some­thing that looks like Bohemi­an or South­ern Ontario wood­land. Noth­ing can be reached in a straight line. A road between two vil­lages, marked as a few kilo­me­ters long, will be pre­cip­i­tous climb by mul­ti­ple switch­baks, or descend into a maze-like com­plex of canyons, and yet appear on the map in the “plains” region. His­to­ri­ans won­der if the com­plex­i­ty of Knos­sos’ floor plan inspired the myth of The­seus and the Labyrinth. Well, any­thing Cre­tan might have inspired it, because the whole land is a nat­ur­al labyrinth, and any giv­en patch of it is a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth, and every vil­lage is a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth.  Read more »

Pho­tos tak­en at Aghia Triada:

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Pho­tos tak­en at Phaestos:

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