Ancient Assos is located in Behramkale on the coast of northwestern Turkey, with the island of Lesbos lying about 11 kilometers offshore to the south. Founded by Aeolic colonists from Methymna in Lesbos in the 1st millennium BC, the city was constructed on the terraced slopes, partly...
We made a short stop in the ruins of Troy (🎫 100 TRY). The site resembles an overgrown archaeological dig and it’s very difficult to imagine what the ancient city would have looked like. So, if you come to Troy expecting a rebuilt ancient city along the lines of Ephesus...
Philippi, overlooking the coastal plain and the bay at Kavala, was founded in 356 BC by the energetic Macedonian dynast Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. He fortified the Thasian settlement called Crenides to control neighboring gold mines. He derived a fortune from the gold mines...
We visited Amphipolis archeological site, an ancient Greek city on the Strymon River, located about five kilometers from the Aegean Sea. It was a strategic transportation center, it controlled the bridge over the Strymon and the route from northern Greece to the Hellespont, including the...
Thessaloniki, formerly Salonika, lies on the western Chalkidikí peninsula at the head of a bay on the Gulf of Thérmai. The city was founded in 316 BCE and named for a sister of Alexander the Great and became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. As a military and commercial...
We drove from the south of Peloponnese (🛣️ – 4,80 EUR, ⛽ – diesel 1,939 EUR / l) to reach where the Olympic Games took place every four years from 776 BC, until their abolition by Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD. The ruined ancient sanctuary of Olympia has been inhabited since...
Surrounded by the teal waters of the Aegean Sea, imposing Monemvasia is an iceberg-like slab of rock, with sheer cliffs rising hundreds of meters from the sea, linked to the mainland by a single, highly defensible 200 meters long causeway. While uninhabited in antiquity, the rock may have...
We spent a night in the modern little town of Sparta to recover from climbing ancient Mystras. In the evening, we had our favorite gyros, then we found a lovely pastry shop with excellent ice cream and after that, we washed it all down with a beer in a trendy bar. The next morning we took...
Former Byzantine capital and fortified city Mystras is spread over a steep mountainside of Mt. Taygetos and surrounded by verdant olive and orange trees. It is the single most compelling set of medieval ruins in Greece (entrance 12 EUR). Treading the cobblestones, worn smooth by centuries...
In a small valley in the Peloponnesus, the shrine of Asklepios, the god of medicine, developed out of a much earlier cult of Apollo (Maleatas), during the 6th century BC at the latest, as the official cult of the city-state of Epidaurus. Its principal monuments, particularly the temple of...