Nearby, other columns mark the entrances to ruins of once-luxurious villas. At the House of Helen, only the floors remain. Other mosaics excavated at the site now grace the museum walls. Smooth river pebbles depict a centaur and griffin in soft shades of grey, brown and white. The third day finds us riding across the Macedonia Plain to two ancient sites, Dion and the Royal Tombs of Vergina.
Smoke rises from burning rice fields.
Dion, the Macedonians' sacred city, rests among stately poplars in the foothills of Mount Olympus. Among its Hellenistic sites is the Sanctuary of Isis, a temple where women prayed for fertility. Later, the Romans built a city here. Excavations unearthed vast public baths with mosaic floors and a sub-floor heating system. In 1977, excavations near Vergina unearthed an entrance to a tomb that had eluded pillagers.