The Ancient Theater of Epidavros
You enjoy the roadtrip from Athens with the splendid company of good friends.
You joke, laugh and lose your breath during the uphill walk.
You forget where you are. It is usually not until you get seated that it hits you: Your bum is resting on 2400-year-old marble.
As the marble longevity alone wasn’t impressive, the theatrical play was also written during the same era. The title of the play was “Wealth" and consisted of Aristophanes’ thoughts on the curse of quickly earned riches. Written in this very land 2.5 millenniums earlier and fitted like a made-to-measure suit on the current societal circumstance.
Apart from the crickets that didn’t stop singing for a sole second, showing zero respect to the author and actors, there was an additional thing that was buzzin’ in our heads: The fact that in ages when most other ancient civilizations' concerns were limited to issues nowadays solved by second grade students, the Greek philosophers presented deep insights on mental riddles yet to be solved by humanity. Which comes down to a hell of a pessimistic sign regarding the evolution of our race...
Then, it was the immaculate acoustics of the place. The cliché that a spectator on the last row can perfectly hear an actor whispering on stage is, quite frankly, an understatement. I’ve felt my spine going numb on an earlier visit, while crossing the stage and accidentally stepping over the altar: I heard my voice slapping my face amplified ten times over. One step back, everything was normal. But stepping on the altar once more made the soundstage open up dramatically and my voice was springing from seemingly everywhere. How on earth was this level of pristine acoustics possible to accomplish two and a half centuries ago, is beyond what a Physics degree in the University can help you explain.
All the above had to somehow be digested from our stomach, alongside a trio of highway souvlaki. Which, as most people know, is a completely different league in terms of resistance to gastric acids compared to a normal souvlaki. All in all, we managed to go to bed with a mosaic of both physical and metaphysical worries that night. Aristophanes would feel totally satisfied.-
You enjoy the roadtrip from Athens with the splendid company of good friends.
You joke, laugh and lose your breath during the uphill walk.
You forget where you are. It is usually not until you get seated that it hits you: Your bum is resting on 2400-year-old marble.
As the marble longevity alone wasn’t impressive, the theatrical play was also written during the same era. The title of the play was “Wealth" and consisted of Aristophanes’ thoughts on the curse of quickly earned riches. Written in this very land 2.5 millenniums earlier and fitted like a made-to-measure suit on the current societal circumstance.
Apart from the crickets that didn’t stop singing for a sole second, showing zero respect to the author and actors, there was an additional thing that was buzzin’ in our heads: The fact that in ages when most other ancient civilizations' concerns were limited to issues nowadays solved by second grade students, the Greek philosophers presented deep insights on mental riddles yet to be solved by humanity. Which comes down to a hell of a pessimistic sign regarding the evolution of our race...
Then, it was the immaculate acoustics of the place. The cliché that a spectator on the last row can perfectly hear an actor whispering on stage is, quite frankly, an understatement. I’ve felt my spine going numb on an earlier visit, while crossing the stage and accidentally stepping over the altar: I heard my voice slapping my face amplified ten times over. One step back, everything was normal. But stepping on the altar once more made the soundstage open up dramatically and my voice was springing from seemingly everywhere. How on earth was this level of pristine acoustics possible to accomplish two and a half centuries ago, is beyond what a Physics degree in the University can help you explain.
All the above had to somehow be digested from our stomach, alongside a trio of highway souvlaki. Which, as most people know, is a completely different league in terms of resistance to gastric acids compared to a normal souvlaki. All in all, we managed to go to bed with a mosaic of both physical and metaphysical worries that night. Aristophanes would feel totally satisfied.-
