This is the land of Homer’s heroes and the great Bronze Age citadels from which they came. The home cities of Agamemnon, Menelaus and Nestor help us to put the Trojan War into its Greek context as a meeting with the world of the Hittites of Asia Minor, at a time when Greek colonists were hungry for land, and introducing their way of life to new territories across the sea.
Perhaps this was the memory immortalised by Homer in his epic poems. Certainly many aspects of the Mycenean culture rediscovered by Heinrich Schliemann clearly echo the world described by Homer.
We finish in Athens, and now spend two days here seeing not only the National Museum, but also the new Acropolis Museum, both with incomparable collections which illustrate all aspects of life and death in Ancient Greece.
Starting with the oracle at Delphi, as all great journeys should, we cross to the Peloponnese and travel through a beautiful countryside of mountains, plains and seascapes. Your journey follows the course of history through the coming of Rome, and then early Christianity, visiting the impressive Byzantine and Frankish city of Mistra.
