We often seek out the UNESCO World Heritage Sites while we are traveling and we are rarely disappointed. If you aren’t aware, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has a list of over 1200 sites in the world that are exceptional natural wonders or they are examples of important cultural or historic places for the human race. Some are National Parks, some are historic old towns with remarkable architecture, some are religious buildings and some are just archaeology sites of great importance. There is a complicated criteria and submission process before places must be labeled UNESCO and they choose new ones every summer. The goal is for these areas to be protected so they don’t get ruined by tourism and development. We have been to 117 of them so far and track them on an app called World Heritage-UNESCO List. I actually don’t really like the usability of the app, but the map does let me know which sites are near us and can track which ones we have already visited. We don’t usually plan our trips around these sites, but will try to hit the UNESCO spots that are reasonable to the locations and routes we already have booked.
Greece has quite a few UNESCO sites so we are going to try and visit as many as we can during our 3 weeks in Greece this year. We have been to the Acropolis several years ago so we decided to skip that big tourist hub on this trip. There are 7 places near our route around the Peloponnese peninsula and our hope is to visit at least 6 of those. We expect most of these to be what we lovingly call “OGS” (Old Greek Shit) and/or “ORS” (Old Roman Shit). Traveling around Europe, we often walk by piles of old rocks and we will point it out to each other using our acronyms. We have been surprised by how many countries we have seen OGS and ORS. In seeing UNESCO sites, we know we will find the best of the OGS and ORS.
First UNESCO stop – The Monastery of Hosios Louckas which was about a 2 hour drive west of Athens. In order to visit a lot of these locations, we really need a rental car or be on a multi-day bus tour. M and I are not bus tour fans so we decided to rent a really reasonably priced car for the next 3 weeks. Only $24 per day. The monastery was started in 946 AD and is still operating as a monastery. It is a great example of Byzantine architecture and art. The church and surrounding buildings are in beautiful shape with many mosaics and frescos that have been restored. We were glad we stopped for this free site that we spent about an hour walking around.
We then continued to our drive to the town of Delphi where we had 2 nights booked in a hotel. The town was in walking distance of the famous UNESCO site where the Oracle of Apollo gave out life advice in the 6th century BC. We came here to see the OGS ruins and were blown away by the location. The site is 1800 feet up on the side of Mount Parnassus. The views make the archaeology remains really impressive today and it must have been even more impressive in Ancient Greece. We walked the ancient route that the pilgrims walked up the hill to see the Oracle. At some point in the early middle ages, landslides covered a lot of the site so some of the artifacts and bases of the old buildings were able to be restored. After walking through the site, we stopped at the museum to see the artifacts and statues that weren’t stolen by the Romans or early Christians. Only 12 Euros each to see such an important and impressive site and museum and we were glad we made the time to spend a day here.
The next day we made it to our third UNESCO site was the ancient town of Olympia which is famous for starting the original Olympic games. Another 12 Euros each for the museum and to visit the archeology site for more OGS. This time we started at the museum see the artifacts and understand the history before we walked the site. The temples and buildings here have not been restored like we have seen in other sites such as Paestum, Italy or Agrigento, Italy where the temples have been almost completed rebuilt. The Acropolis in Greece is also restored but that means that most of the structure is actually fairly new. Instead we saw a lot of original column pieces laying all over the ground everywhere. It is fun to see the restored structures but it also good to see the original stones as the actually are sometimes. We walked by the gymnasium, the temples of Zeus and Hera, and then saw the stadium where the Olympics actually took place. On the way back to the car we saw the cauldron where the Olympic torches get lit before each modern Olympic games. I was disappointed that there was not an “eternal” flame; it only gets lit a couple of months before each Olympics.
We have several other opportunities for UNESCO sites in Greece and we should be able to see some more with our rental car. Stay tuned! Next stop is 5 days in Stoupa, Greece which is in driving distance of the UNESCO site of Mystras near Sparti. More OGS!