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| Olynthos |
We started the day with another road trip - the bus is starting to feel like a second home we spend so much time on it - to the ancient city of Olynthos. Olynthos was an important cultural center for the Bottiaians during the Classical period. It was destroyed by the Persians in 479 BC, when it passed into the hands of the Chalkideans. It was later destroyed by Philip II (Alexander the Great's father) in 348 BC. It is often studied today for its domestic architecture as there are several well preserved houses on the site.
After Olynthos, it was a 2 hour bus ride back to Thessaloniki where we had a short lunch break and then took a short walking tour of the city on our way to the Archaeological Museum. On our walking tour we stopped at the Rotunda of Galerius (Galerius was a Roman emperor), which has been both a Christian church and Muslim mosque throughout its history, and the Arch of Galerius. We then walked down to see the Palace of Galerius, which is one of the most important monuments of late antiquity in Thessaloniki (according to the sign). The palace is located in the heart of a busy downtown area and is currently being excavated. We were allowed to go down into the site and look around, which was cool.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the museum, which had a lot of really cool gold jewelry that was found in burial tombs, as well as some Roman statues which were neat. After that we spent the few hours before dinner relaxing. We went back to the same restaurant from the night before. This time I had a Greek salad and sauteed mushrooms - so good!
Tomorrow should be an exciting day as we are going to visit Vergina, the burial site of Philip II and Alexander the Great!
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