The Rough Guide said that Kassandra (the first prong of Halkadiki) was very developed and had little of interest except for beaches, so we headed for the second prong, Sithonia. On the way, between the two prongs, is an archaeological site called Olynthos. Set on a pair of low hills and with a commanding view over the land and sea around it, it was settled in Prehistoric times and became the main city of the Bottiaians between the 7th century BC until it was destroyed by the Persians in 479 BC. This settlement was built on the southern hill but a more recent settlement was built on the north hill, joined to the south hill by a low saddle. The northern hill was developed from 432 BC when it was used as the city of an alliance of 32 settlements in Halkidiki and it became very politically active and powerful. It did well for a short time but, less than 90 years after its formation, they made the serious mistake of upsetting Philip II of Macedon. He lay siege to the city, entered and destroyed it. This was however very useful for the archaeologists because the short life meant that the buildings that have been preserved are often exactly as they were originally built without the many phases of alteration and rebuilding found on most sites. This Classical Greek city has two claims to fame – it was built on the Hippodamean system, the earliest example of a planned housing estate, and has the oldest known Greek mosaics (late 5th and early 4th centuries BC). The Hippoddamean system, as we were told on almost every information board on the site, consists of a strict grid system with each square of the grid containing 10 houses on a back-to-back basis (5 to the North and 5 to the South) and between them a drainage channel that took away the water that came off the roofs. The plots were quite large and must have provided comfortable houses, all with similar but not identical layouts. A typical house had an open courtyard (often with a cistern or well and an altar for domestic worship), covered portico, kitchen (with chimney), bathroom (with clay bath and drainage system to take away the waste water), reception rooms (normally including an Andron, a men's dining room, sometimes with mosaics) and bedrooms. A few houses had second floors and some had workshops and shops either inside the house or attached to it. A large area has been excavated but this is only one third of the Classical city, still they know what the other two thirds contains, more 10-house blocks! When the houses were excavated, they showed direct evidence of Philip's attack with signs of fire and they found many lead slingshots and arrowheads engraved with the name of Philip II. This kind of evidence must be an archaeologist's dream – unless, of course, it was someone trying to put the blame on Philip!
We had a light lunch of tzatziki, bread and chips washed down with frappe (cold frothed coffee) at the site café – excellent portions and reasonably priced. We then moved on to Sithonia and were pleasantly surprised by the east coast of Sithonia. There was a very pretty combination of islands and sand spits near the top of the peninsular, very few settlements on the way and vast areas of unspoilt mountain woodland. There must often be very good views of Mount Athos but it was very hazy today and difficult to see anything. Mount Athos is a self governing part of Greece (actually a 'Theocratic Republic') that has many Orthodox monasteries on it and does not allow any females (humans or domestic animals) on its land. So, if you have 'women trouble', then this is the place to come, although you will have to convert to the Orthodox faith first if you want to stay. You don't have to be a Greek to become a monk there, many Russian, Romanian and Serbians have moved to Athos although the Greeks insist that all monks adopt Greek citizenship. However, you could become a lay worker, many of these live on Athos, including Muslim Albanians who work in agriculture or as manual labourers. We trained our binoculars on Athos and were able to make out some of the monasteries and admire the severe mountain of Mount Athos itself.
The Armenistis campsite, where we are staying tonight, is notionally in Sarti but is actually a long way from that town, in fact it is in the middle of nowhere. It is large and has a very good beach, bar, shops and restaurant but we still wondered how they managed to fill it.
Photos: The southern hill of Olynthos – remains of the prehistoric settlement were found on the edge of this hill; A block of houses with the drainage ditch between them. The houses only had low rubble stone walls, topped with unbaked mud brick, reinforced with wood. This technique apparently gave them much better resistance to earthquakes but made it very easy for Phillip's army to destroy them; A pebble mosaic showing Bellerofon riding Pegasus and killing Chimaera.
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