Kostas And Greek History

June 29, 2019

Today started very early… for me. I was up at 7am, downstairs by 7:45am to meet Kostas, my wonderful host and driver for a private tour outside of Athens to The Corinth Canal, the ancient town of Corinth, the ancient civilization of Mycenae, the gorgeous city of Nafplio, as well as the theatre of Epidaurus.

Yeah, it was a full day!

The absolutely fantastic thing about this day was this lovely man, Kostas. I was told about him through a friend, saying that he’d never given a review online for a single person or service, but he wrote a glowing one for Kostas. So, I made sure to book through the same company, with ma’man Kostas.

They were quite clear in the discussions to book with the company (George’s Taxi) that none of the drivers are official tour guides. If Kostas isn’t a tour guide, then I’m not interested in knowing who is.

We spent 11 hours chatting, where he told me SO much about Greece that I never, ever could have found on my own. He told me about his kids, his wonderful wife, the economy in Greece, where it went wrong, how it could get better and why I should buy a Winter home here (which, by the way, I am seriously thinking about now… eeeek!).

There were videos on a tablet in the car to watch and help explain the sites I was about to see, but in truth, Kostas knew all of it and was able to embellish on the details in the video.

He took me to the best restaurant in Nafplio, where he essentially force fed me pasta and the local fish, fried cheese and gelato from an Italian man making a damn good living in Greece.

Then Kostas told me something very interesting, which explained why there are so many Kostas’s in Greece.

Is Greek culture to name your first born boy after his grandfather, with the middle name being after the father. So, Kostas son’s name would then be Dimitris Kostas Kalamantis (not sure if that was his exact last name). One funny thing he told me was that he has a younger son, and you name the second born son after the mother’s grandfather, and then the middle name still after the father. So, his second son’s name was Kostas Kostas Kalamantis. Double Kostas!

Now, the reason they always have a middle name is because there are SO many people with the same name, no one can open a bank account, or sign any kind of paperwork and know it’s really them. The middle name helps distinguish them as their own person.

And because the family names mean so much, people in Greece don’t really celebrate their birthday’s, but rather they celebrate their name day. As it turns out, the Kostas name day is May 21, so the wonderful Kostas that I met today celebrated that with his SEVEN cousins named Kostas, as well of hundreds of others on the same day.

I found that so interesting!

Anyhow, I digress.

Today was amazing, and tiring. I’m going to flood this post with pictures and little tidbits of information as they go, and then probably get to sleep relatively early tonight. Tomorrow is a free day, but then I have to get up at 3am (yes, in the morning) to fly to Santorini on Monday, so tomorrow will be an early to bed day as well.

Anyhow, here are some gorgeous pictures from the day.

This is a man-made canal, constructed back in 1882, and it took 11 years of constant digging to make. Before that, there was just a broken-in road where slaves would drag huge ships across the land from one waterway to the other. It would take over two days to move one ship, hence the need for the canal.

After the canal, we went to the ancient town of Corinth. Here are a few tidbits that I learned:

1. This is Ancient Greece to even Ancient Greece, meaning the Parthenon in Athens is a joke compared to how old the ruins in Corinth are.

2. The columns you see in the first couple of pictures are special because they are built of one piece, whereas the columns in places like the Parthenon are sections that have been piled on top of each other. aka. the lazy man’s column.

There was also a wonderfully air conditioned museum on site, in which I stood for longer than would likely have made the people working there comfortable.

Deal with it.

The lady in the back middle looks like she is busting a damn move!

Then after quite the drive, we ended up at the site of the ancient civilization of Mycenae. If I remember correctly, this was the first Greek civilization after the Ottoman Empire no longer controlled Greece.

Agamemnon was their King, and led the expedition to Troy, with the soul purpose of capturing their Queen, Helen of Troy.

They strategically places their location between two mountains so that they can coverage, and if you go to the very bottom of the city, and even the city over, you cannot see their space between the mountains.

They were also one of the first cities to have actual working plumbing! They installed pipes under their structures to ensure that they had water for when a great battle started.

Plumbing, in 1350 BC!

Then we made it to the city of Nafplio, where an enormous lunch happened. Honestly, Kostas just kept ordering food and putting more on my plate. In fairness, I didn’t resist that much.

Then he drove us to the top of the city to look down on it. We were VERY high, and very near an edge, but it’s just to beautiful to not see.

From there, we drove for a while and stopped at a gorgeous viewpoint. I’m not sure of exactly where it is, but it was stunning!

From there, we went to our final stop — the theatre of Epidaurus. This is an ancient stadium that is used today to house theatre festivals (one is starting on July 2, actually). You will see speakers set up, as well as padding for the seats all over the place.

It was built at the end of the 4th century, BC.

Kostas told me that the first 34 rows are from the original, original build, then the other rows were added when the Roman’s took over. Imagine sitting there to see a play? How cool would that be?

I would absolutely have gotten a ticket for when I was here, but it’s a 2 hour drive to and from Athens, so it just isn’t practical in the time I have here.

The above structure looks to be where they house the electronics for sound and projection when a show is on.

The whole theatre is really, really impressive in person!

Oh, and I saw this adorable cat.

Then it was a two hour drive back to Athens, and time to say goodbye to Kostas. I was actually a little sad to say goodbye, because he’s just such a wonderful, intelligent and kind human.

Just a short sorry about why I say these nice things about Kostas. He told me that his 18-year-old son had the opportunity to go to the same college as his older, 22-year-old son. Kostas and his wife work very hard, and even still, it is difficult to pay for two kids to go to two different schools because of the housing. College here is free, but housing and other expenses can add up.

So, while his son has the option to go to the college that his brother is, thereby saving Kostas and his wife a ton of money only paying to one housing location, he said to me, “Yes, that would save us a lot of stress and money, but, is it what my son wants? I don’t know. I don’t think so, so I am going to have heart to heart chat with him and see what he wants, because I don’t want him to make a choice for me. I want to have a happy son.”

Like, this guy, man. I told him that his sons are very lucky to have parents like him and his wife, and that many people are not as lucky as I am, and as his sons are, that our parents let us be who we want to be.

Anyhow, more digressing.

Kostas and I exchanged a lovely goodbye, and he drove away. I got changed into something less entirely covered in sweat (I know, super attractive), and grabbed a quick dinner.

Now I’m back “home”, did some laundry, and am now very, very much looking forward to watching something funny on YouTube, and having a very well-earned great night sleep.

Tomorrow is another no plan day, but I really should get to the Acropolis sometime!

Oh, Kostas also taught me that “acro” in Greek means “high up” or “at the top”, and “polis” means “city”, so the Acropolis means “high up city”!

So cool!!