SUMMER 1963 TOUR, p.31

Ben Oostdam's Autobiography:

Sunday, August 4, 1963, cont.: Our first stop after Nafplio # 2 visit was the ancient site of Tiryns. There is an acropolis and a majestic stone wall ("Cyclopean") with a perimeter of 750 meter and a thickness upto 7m (or more). Two parallel walls can be "roofed" by having the stones converge to a point ("corbelled") NOTE 1: This requires a lot of self-confidence to build - especially if you lack a second eye to give you depth-perception ;o] NOTE 2: It appears common practice to consider giant stone structures to have been built by giants (or dwarves if you are Irish), e.g. various pyramids, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Chinese Wall NOTE 3: As to corbelled enclosures, think of igloos and look at this pigsty!! MORE LINKS: Acropolis of Ancient Tiryns Tiryns - Dr. J's Illustrated Tiryns

Tiryns, looking towards Nafplio

We continued our trip, singing 'Waltzing Mathilda' and surprising a Greek police agent driving twice around the Argos square. We missed out on old Korinth because it just closed down, but we did see the Canal once again and drove on till dark, when we camped out on a gravel beach after buying some bread and grapes. Since Tony and I kept on talking and the girls wanted to sleep, we considered ourselved expelled and went out to a nearby bar to drink two carafs of Retsina , getting back to the tents by 23:00, after relinquishing c.q. relegating a couple of excitable British chicks to two exciting German tourists.