I visited Mycenae in July 2018. The city was the center of the Late Bronze Age civilization that was the main precursor to the classical Ancient Greek culture. Mycenaeans’ period of domination over the Mediterranean came around 1600 BC. Little visible remains of that glorious period, though; Mycenae is mostly piles of rocks, with very few surviving discernible features, making a site like Delphi quite well-preserved by comparison (of course, Delphi is about a whole millennia younger).

In fact, the signature surviving feature of Mycenae greets the visitors at the very entrance to the city – the Lion Gate, dating from around 1250 BC. Beyond the gate, the site is mostly parts of walls, overgrown foundations, and a couple of grave circles; the city’s dominating position over the Argolid Plain offers sweeping backdrops. Since there is little left to preserve on the site, very few areas are out of bounds to the visitors. This goes really well with the smaller children, who can replace the boring exercise of looking at the rocks with a much more exciting exercise of climbing on and over the rocks.

The onsite museum's collection of artifacts is simply exceptional.

Mycenae is located on Peloponnese a little over an hour and a half drive from Athens. The site itself can be seen in under an hour; the museum will require at least another hour, if not more. The tomb of the mythical king Agamemnon is a separate site a short walk away. Tiryns - the other location of this WH property - is located about 20 minutes away by car. We drove past it on the way to the seaside town of Nafplion. From the road it looked to be a smaller site and definitely much less crowded.