More Precious than Gold -- A Fine Harbour

The peninsula we call Greece today is a stubby thumb that projects southward into the eastern Mediterranean. Achaia forms the tip of the peninsula while Thrace, Macedonia, and the other Balkans form the first joint. The entire peninsula is a rocky, mountainous massif that makes travel by roads difficult even today. So often the edge of the sea was met by an unbroken wall of sheer cliffs. When a good anchorage was found, the ancient community which grew up around it often grew into one of the great cities of antiquity.