Mycenae and Nafplion

We drove to a palace on a small hill, in the ancient town of Mycenae. We heard stories about the man who rediscovered it, Heinrich Schliemann, who sounds like a cross between the characters in Indiana Jones and Secondhand Lions. This city is where Agamemnon would have lived, one of the great leaders of the Greeks at Troy. We went down into one of the tombs, called tholos because they are shaped like beehives, and read a scene from the Greek tragedy Agamemnon. Then we hiked up to the summit, passing under the famous entrance called the Lion's Gate.
Then we traveled to Nafplion, a cute seaside resort town. It took some doing to find the beach, for it is all the way around the other side of a large cliff, past the docks. I didn't bother going all the way to the beach but clambered down to the white rocks hanging a few feet above the sea and sat reading my book. The rocks were riddled with small holes through which one could see the waves. The sun was warm, but the breeze felt good on my skin. The mountains are purple in the distance, sailboats pass by, and up on the cliff is a fortress.