Adventures of a teenage author...

This is Marta, author of the Darkwoods series and of Marta's Blog. I created this blog specifically for blogging about my 2015 study abroad adventures in Europe, but it's becoming the blog for all my travels. I hope you enjoy all the pictures and stories!

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Mytilene - Greece!

A short ferry ride from western Turkey is the Greek island of Lesbos, and on this island is the ancient city of Mytilene. We took a day trip to Mytilene to see some of the ancient sites here.

I have over 200 pictures from Mytilene, so I'm going to do this one in several posts again, and I'm going to save some of them for posts about general scenery, so look for those later.

First, coming into Mytilene from the ferry, we saw the castle we would be exploring:



Modern Mytilene from the sea:


First, we walked up to a museum that hosted items found in some of the ancient houses that have been excavated. Some of the first things we saw were floor mosaics:





After that, we saw some statues. I'm only going to post my favorite here. The nose is missing from time, not from the artist's decision, but I still think it's cool to see. It is a Roman statue of a child with Down Syndrome:


After that, we saw more floor mosaics. This next one, I originally thought was Medusa, but it turns out the things I thought were snakes were really crab legs. I cannot for the life of me remember this guy's name, so I just call him Crabhair:


(It might be Karkinos, but that guy was an actual crab, so I don't think that's right.)

The figures in the four corners are representations of the four seasons. I'm not completely sure which one is which, but my best guess is that it goes winter, spring, summer, fall:





Next, some beautiful Greek pottery:


If I remember correctly, these were for poorer people to cook food in. The lower basins held coals, and the deep bowls held the food.

And finally, outside the museum was an olive oil press. The olives would go between the two stones to flatten them, and then they would be dumped in a barrel of water. The olives would sink, and the oil would rise.



That's all for now - castle next!

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