Ποδηλατική περιήγηση στο γύρισμα του 20ου αιώνα

Μία ποδηλατική περίηγηση στην Ελλάδα, στο γύρισμα του 20ου αιώνα... Απόσπασμα από το βιβλίο του Richardson, διευθυντή της εδώ Αμερικανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας, με τίτλο Vacation Days in Greece. Πρόκειται για το κεφάλαιο με τίτλο The Bicycle in Greece (σελ. 47-53). Ενδιαφέρουσες βόλτες και ενδιαφέρουσες υπερβολές!  THE BICYCLE IN GREECE IT has been repeatedly suggested to me, by the regrets of a considerable number of the mem­bers of the American School at Athens, that Ishould give some public expression to the utility ofthe bicycle in Greece. I put aside certain tempta­tions to praise the bicycle generally, and speak of itonly as a help here in the study of archaeology.Every year men come to us saying: "I left mywheel at home, thinking it would be of little use inthis rough country." After some reflection on thedifficulty of having it sent over after them, theyrent wheels a few times, after which, deterredpartly by the awkwardness of having to hunt up awheel for every little excursion, and partly by suf­fering from the poorer quality of wheels that areto be had on loan, they drop the habit of bicycling.But the wheel has been so keenly appreciated hereby generations of students that this dropping out isto be very much deprecated. Archaeology does notconsist entirely in the study of books and museums.That it does largely so consist it must be confessed;but a legitimate and important part of Greek archae­ology is the knowledge of the face of the country;the tracing out of its ancient routes, going over the-47passes and climbing now and then a mountain; theskirting its coasts; the visiting its places of great re­nown; the studying of its battle-fields; and the see­ing of the landscapes on which rested the eyes ofPericles and Epaminondas, of Sophocles and Pin­dar. Especially important is this for one who hasbut one year to spend in Greece. It is well for him,even at the expense of some time which might wellbe spent in the museum or in the library, so to fillhis mind with the landscapes of Greece that, whenhe goes back and stands before his classes andspeaks, for example, of Leuctra, he may be lookingwith the mind's eye upon the slopes down whichthe Spartans came charging, the opposite slopewhere the Thebans stood, and the valley between,where they clashed. The class is then sure to catchsome of this vivid presentation, and feel that theyhave almost seen Leuctra themselves. If, then, oneshould spend the whole of his year in museums andlibraries, we might say to him, "This ought ye tohave done, and not to have left the other undone."Granted that one wishes to see the country andto become familiar with it, so that he will readGreek history, and Greek poetry, too, with othereyes, the bicycle becomes evidently indispensable.To take an example: One morning, to shake offa headache incurred by sitting too long in a closeroom at an invaluable meeting of the GermanSchool the night before, I bicycled with a member-48-of our school, who had never been there before, toLiopesi (Peania), the birthplace of Demosthenes,stayed long enough to chat with the villagers andtake a glass of their resined wine, with which one issupposed to drink in the gift of talking modernGreek, and came back to Athens, all in three hours,taking it very leisurely at that, and returning by aroundabout way, reached home full of oxygen andsans headache. We might have walked, to be sure,but not to Peania, unless we had given the wholeday to it.Railroads will take you already to many parts ofGreece, and one can now proceed by rail from thenorthern border of Thessaly to Kalamata at thesouthern end of Messenia. But even railroads can­not do all for us that the bicycle does. Exercise,open air, and, perhaps more than all, the delight inpropelling one's self, will make one prefer thewheel. We can reach Eleusis by bicycle as quicklyas the train takes us, and choose our own time forstarting, without the alternative of sitting some timeat the station or losing the train.There are many other charming spots in Atticawhere no railroad comes in to help. Marathon andSalamis are two such places, to which we make ex­cursions every year. One afternoon in May two ofus started out from Athens at half-past two, pro­ceeding aimlessly eastward against a rather pro­nounced wind. Suddenly the thought struck us-49-that Marathon lay in front of us. A definite goalis always inspiring, and we struck a good gait forMarathon. We reached it before five o'clock, andafter passing ten minutes on the top of the historicmound came back to Athens for dinner at quarterbefore eight. Last year some of us rode out onThanksgiving Day through Dekeleia to a pointwhere we saw Oropos and the Eub?an Gulf at ourfeet, and Dirphys, the highest mountain in Euboia,rising opposite us, and then turned around with therecollection of one of the finest views in the worldto add to enjoyment of our Thanksgiving dinner.In twenty minutes, had we so wished, we couldhave been in Oropos. On any day, one can startout from Athens and reach the end of Attica in anydirection, and get home to an early dinner. In fact,we have sometimes taken dinner at home after stray­ing as far as Megara and Thebes. The acquaint­ance which some members of our school havegained with Attica, in all its nooks and corners, bysingle day's bicycle-riding, is something notewor­thy; and when, in 1897, on Thanksgiving Day, weturned out ten men for a ride across Salamis toMegara for a luncheon, and came home by the shoreroad, we felt considerable esprit de corps.The notion of foreigners that the roads of Greeceare bad compared with those of other countries isan error. A bicycle journey through Italy andSicily disabused me of that notion. The worst-50-road that I ever tried was that between Caserta andNaples, and the next worse was that leading intoRome from the north. There are, of course, somebad roads in Greece; but even Sicily, to say noth­ing of worse roads in Italy, cured me of complain­ing against Greece. For a pure pleasure ride, theroad between Tripolitza and Sparta would be hardto match anywhere in the world. It is in capitalcondition, and, on account of its gentle grade, in­volves very little walking. Six hours suffice for thejourney in either direction, and the view either wayis superb. The ride through ?tolia and Acarnania,regions considered half civilized in the classicalperiod of Greek history, but always fine in naturalbeauty, with big lakes, and rivers that "move inmajesty" (a rare thing in Greece), and hedged in byhigh mountains, is perhaps the best in Greece.One rides from the shore of the Corinthian Gulfopposite Patras to Arta (Ambrakia) in two days,with a comfortable night at Agrinion, passing thehistoric Messolonghi and visiting the ruins of Cal­ydon, Pleuron, Aeniada, Stratos, Limnaea, andAmphilochian Argos, while to the right and left areother ruins which invite one to make detours if oneis not in a hurry. And one ought not to omit therecently excavated Thermon, the ancient capital of?tolia, even if it does cost an extra day. Thelong-known and impressive ruins of Aeniada, thechief city in Acarnania, also invite one to linger a-51-whole day instead of spending a few hours in pass­ing.The first five cities of ancient Greece in renownand interest were Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes,and Corinth. One can ride from Athens to Thebesor Corinth and back in a single day; he can alsoreach Argos from Athens in a day, leaving a ratherlong day's work for reaching Sparta. Any goodbicyclist would find it no great matter to leaveThebes and pay his respects to Athens on the firstday, visit Corinth and Argos on the next day, andsleep comfortably at Sparta the next night.One day in February the clouds dissipated them­selves in such a way as to make me believe that wewere about to have a few days of that winterweather which is "rarer than a day in June," andso, taking a train to Eleusis, to spare myself a littleat the start, I rode over the famous Treis KephalaiPass into Boiotia. I thought when I was at the topof the pass that the view presented was the finestin Greece. Not to mention lesser glories, Parnassuswas close at hand on the left, Dirphys almostequally close on the right, while very distant, butvery clear, directly in front, was "snowy Olympus,"a perfect mass of white. After lunching at Thebes,I wheeled easily along to Lebadea, entering it asthe setting sun was turning the white mountainsinto pink. The next day, more clear and beautifulthan the first, if that were possible, brought me to-52-Lamia in Thessaly, via Cheronea, Doris, andThermopyle. The third day, in order to get anearer view of Olympus, I rode and climbed up tothe top of the ridge which formed the old borderbetween Greece and Turkey, before Thessaly wasincorporated into the kingdom of Greece, and onwhich, in the late war, the Greeks made their laststand after the battle of Domoko. From this pointOlympus is, indeed, grander than from the passesof Citheron, while the whole Pindos range, and thegrand isolated peak of Tymphrestos, which somethink would prove, if properly measured, to bethe highest peak in Greece, stand up in majesty.Parnassus and the Aetolian Mountains make a fineshowing on the south. From this point, on thissame third day, as clear as the two preceding, Ireached Amphissa at evening, after climbing twopasses and enjoying new glories at each. It was, infact, a continuous intoxication, to recover fromwhich it required two days of archaeological studyat Delphi. This was, to be sure, almost equallyintoxicating, but, being an intoxication of anothersort, it let me down gently. In three days I hadgot a glimpse of nearly all Greece in such weatheras only a Greek winter can give.-53- [Richardson, Rufus B. (1903), Vacation Days in Greece,New York: Charles Scribner's Sons]