Brauron and Sounion

Today's adventure was a day trip to three archeological sites. However, unlike my past travel adventures, I really don't have that much to say about them. This is in part a result of the reshuffling of buses and professor assignments, so that the professor that was taking my group around lacked the gift for making the sites come to life that the two professors that I had been traveling with possessed. And in part it's because I'm really tired.

The first site was Brauron, which is the site of a temple to Artemis. In classical times, young girls were taken there to serve Artemis as "little bears" (there was a Greek word for that, but I can't remember it at the moment). The temple was pretty. There was a spring with a stream running through it, so the landscape was actually green for once, and I could smell the water. I'd forgotten how much I missed the smell of fresh water until I was standing by that stream.

The next stop was an ancient silver mine and theater. We didn't stay for that long, because there really wasn't a lot to see there.

The third and last stop was the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, which is a very pretty temple. It's at the southernmost point of Attica, and supposedly it used to be possible to see the Athenian Acropolis from this site (I was unable to do so, but in Classical times there was probably less air pollution). It looks out over the sea, and it's relatively well preserved. According to myth, this is also the spot where King Aegeus threw himself into the sea after having spotted the black sails of Theseus' ship returning safely from Crete. There is also a famous piece of grafitti there, from Lord Byron, but I wasn't allowed to get close enough to the pillar where it was to see the graffito in person.

I am now looking forward to having some kind of break. I have had class or class field trips every day since the 6th without any break, and it's getting exhausting. I mean, even tomorrow and Sunday won't be real breaks, since I will be frantically writing my midterms and making preparations for my fall break adventures, but at least I'm not going to be expected to report somewhere at 8 in the morning and have my entire day planned for me.