My wake-up call came at 7:30. I dressed and went down for breakfast. Many of the students were there ready to depart, individually, or in groups, to the airport for their flights home. I said goodbye to each as they left.

Anne, Bob, and Drew came down at 8:00 and ate. Our rental car came at 9:00 but it was too small for all of our luggage. Bob tried to get a larger one through Anna but got a tirade of flak so we just consolidated and left the rest in the hotel deposit.

Even though it was after 11:00 when we finally left, Anne was adamant that we visit the American School . With Bob at the wheel, we drove through hair-raising Athens traffic to the school where we spoke with Bob Bridges, an archaeologist, and Albert Emmerer, a geologist. We bought sandwiches down the street and ate them in the school garden. After lunch we began our journey to Laconia .

The traffic going out of Athens was horrendous and chaotic. Fortunately, Bob, although nervous and agitated, was up to the task. Once we reached Dafni, the chaos subsided and by Megara we were on the new interstate-grade highway to Corinth . We stopped for souvlaki at the Corinth Canal a 6 km French project from 1893 that connects the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf . I had wanted to see this engineering marvel since I was in the 5 th grade. The deep canal is cut through 100m deep in Pliocene marls. From the bridge we watched a freighter and two yachts traverse the isthmus.

We continued along on new roads to Argos , past Nemea, to Tripoli and missed our turn south to Sparta and turned around by a cherry stand where bought half a kilo of delicious cherries. Bob told me the history of the Peloponnesian War. Earlier he pointed out Alto Corinth, a steep-sided fortified massif that was the site of the myth of Sisyphus. The road to Sparta was greatly improved since Bob's last visit 30 years ago but is more like a US State two lane road.

We passed through Sparta and stopped at the Temple of Apollo Amyklion which we could see the Mycenaean tomb of Vafio and the Paleopyrgi, not to mention the magnificent Taygetos Mountains west, which still had some snow on them. We sherded for awhile. Bob, as always, found the greatest assortment. We left the collection by an ashlar block.

We next visited Vafio which was an extraordinarily rich site that has never been put into the context of its time. It was a thalos contemporary with the one we saw on Mykonos but is much larger.

After an hour, we head south through Laconia to the coast at the charming seaside town of Githeio . We checked in at the Akthion Hotel across the street from the harbor. As we drank our wine on the balcony, two ferries docked displaying excellent seamanship. We could also see Kranae, the island where Paris and Helen spent their first night together.

We had dinner at a harborside sidewalk café before retiring for the night.