Minature archaeology....

Brandon and I decided to visit the archaeological site of Gournia today. It's out last day with the car, so we might as well visit one more place that would otherwise be out of our reach. Now Gournia is an original Minoan inhabitants. We learned before we went that while it's quite interesting, it's small, because the original dwellers were about 1 meter tall! I'm even taller than that. It would have been fun if the houses and cities were more intact, but all that remains is basically ground floors and basements of storage and work rooms. Here is a snapshot of the site when you first walk up to it.

Here are some steps. There are quite a few steps because it's on a little hill.

We really appreciated the little signs they had in various locations.

Here is the room mentioned above. They don't have the wine press in it's original location, but you can see the bench and the hole that was used for it.

Here I am in a doorway. As you can see, it wasn't very big!

Here is a graph of the palace. You can sort of see the steps in the center of the image. All that remains now is the ground floor.

Here are those aforementioned stairs. And you can also see a little of a sanctuary and living quarters.

The palace walls were more elegantly crafted. The stones must have been specially selected, and chiseled to  be smooth and rectangular. They were also more compactly laid to form the wall.

Not sure the significance of this pillar/column in the middle of the palace, but there were four of them. Perhaps at one time they were decorative/supportive, and apart of the Minoan religion. The carved stone on top of this pillar was the only one of the four, so we're not sure if it was set there after the cities destruction, or whether it is an original part.

This here looks like the base of a column, also in the middle of the palace.

Some palace stairs. These also seemed a little better crafted than the rest of the cities stairs.

Here is the palace terrace. It was probably a lovely place to sit on warm afternoons.

Here is the palace bathroom! This was about halfway through our tour, and I was sorely tempted to use it! Not really... it's not private enough....

Here is the shrine that is written about above. You can see the room slightly to the left, and the multi-stone bench on the center right.

I finally got the camera, and decided to take a picture of Brandon coming down the hill. The walls, walkways, and steps were different than the other sites we have been to. The sizes and shapes of the rocks were more random and varied, and you can also see the mortar they used to hold their stones together. Some of the other sites also used mortar, but you can't see it because the stones are all cut to the same size/shape and fitted very snugly together.

Since this was the only place we went to see today, and it wasn't that far, we were back before 1400. It was actually a very nice day to lay out by the pool. It was a little windy, but today the breeze was warm.

Brandon and I also played some doubles with Dion and Suvas, to which Dion and I lost sorely. I think it's probably because I'm such a poor player. It's a good thing he was not overly competitive, otherwise that wouldn't have been any fun for me.

Brandon was able to beat Dion in a singles game of tennis, however, so even though I feel bad Dion lost twice, I'm glad Brandon was able to improve so much from yesterday to today.

Tomorrow Brandon and I might not do anything, and just hang out around the hotel and town. Actually, we might spend the next week doing that. I will try to find something interesting every day, but I won't make any promises!

See you tomorrow!