Concordia CMLL Study Tour

By Adam Groening

~Pleistos River Valley far below, one fine site to sight whilst breaking one’s fast (Delphi)

Blog post day has arrived, Aimé and I doubled up and pitted against one another in a spirit of Pythian competition. I hatch a plan to retroactively like each previous blog, thereby reminding their authors of both my existence and the concept of blog posts. Ideally, this will generate reciprocal likes. A perfect scheme, and fully intact…

Leaving our alpine abode, we’re on the bus in record time. No one is left behind after all, and we’re properly monastery bound.

~A canine rearguard controls traffic as we depart for Hosios Loukas (Streets of Pythi-Delphia)

But then…

Vassilis drives a little further before finding a safe turn around.

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We arrive at the monastery a bit later than forecast, bus-time from the gods that my Phaistos presentation is grateful to have been granted.

~Wildfire swept the area in August 2023, though most of the Monastery was miraculously saved (Hosios Loukas)

Hosios Loukas is another beautifully Byzantine church sequence, though much shorter than was Mystras. This is also an active monastery, and as was foretold, I soon come across the oozing ossuary of St Luc. Is a picture disrespectful? Surely not, when no disrespect is intended. I give a procession of the penitent time to clear out of frame and take my shot (not pictured here).

~View towards the Open Court, taken from the Exo-Narthex of the older of two adjoined churches, the 10th c. Church of Panagia Theotokos (Hosios Loukas)

Bees too were promised, but the best I do is a nice wooden half super propped up next to a bush. Near as I can tell, none of the ladies are home.

~Beehive super, unoccupied: out beehind the Katholicon (Hosios Loukas)

In the gift shop, I buy some monastery honey and a wee wood and brass trinket box: though not monk made, it is of Grecian manufacture, so I am assured. I stare hard at the wall of icon fridge magnets, thinking of a daughter far away who keeps a collection, but move on.

As we board the bus, Vassilis instructs us each to take an envelope from the seat by the door. These contain a variety of gifts. Mine, and I kid you not, contains a fridge magnet, though in lieu of saints, its main subject is a traditionally dressed Greek couple hanging out front the Parthenon. A touch of the divine, conduit con conductor? Make of it what you will: me, I will be making a regifting of it, to an aforementioned daughter.

~Clay larynx, 14th-13th c. BCE. Cemeteries of Tanagra (Archaeological Museum of Thebes)

We arrive to Thebes at 12:30, and I hear mention of a 4:30 planned departure. As we dig into the museum, the why of it becomes clearer. As a nearly continuously occupied settlement dating from the Neolithic to the present day, Thebes has a great many stories to tell. First Clarisse and then the museum starts us with a primer on early Theban myth. We travel the centuries, from pre-history to the gunpowder age.

~Ottoman gunshot (Archaeological Museum of Thebes)

I manage to do it twice.

We roam the streets in search of lunch, spreading out in all directions, but ultimately converging back at the first option.

Clarisse presents the Mycenaean Palace of Thebes. She is thorough. The specific challenge of urban archaeology once more rears its head. Backdrop to the ancient house of Kadmos, a modern house proudly flies a Greek flag beside laundry prouder still: both defining and declaring inherent ownership of a place we are only visitors to.

~Pictured here, over 3000 years of continuous occupation (House of Kadmos, Thebes)