Corinth

Set out from Athens quite early this morning for Corinth, a out an hour and a half's drive away. We had one stop en route to admire the 6km long canal built in the late 19th century, linking one side of the isthmus with the other. It seemed quite narrow and we were wondering what size vessels would be able to negotiate it, so it was a real bonus when we came back the same way a few hours later and happened to see a small tugboat towing a very large container ship out through it.

We spent an hour or two in ancient Corinth, which is a little distance from the modern city of Corinth. Andro gave us a tour of some of the ruins excavated from the marketplace area of the old city, including colonnade streets, the temple of Apollo, and the Bema where Paul would have been brought before the Governor for judgement. Andro told us that the area that has been excavated only amounts to about 5% of the original old city, but much of the surrounding area is now developed with modern housing so not able to be excavated. We had a bit of time also to look around the adjacent museum, which housed many items found in the old city, and gave plenty of info about life in old Corinth. I took photos of quite a few old inscriptions - will see later whether I can resurrect enough Latin and Greek from university days to actually decipher much of them!

When we left ancient Corinth, Mike persuaded Andro, and our rather nervous driver to take us up a steep and narrow road to some fortifications (from Byzantine times, I think) overlooking the whole area. We had a brief photo stop there and the driver did a superlative job of manoeuvring the bus around and getting us down again. Thankfully, we didn't meet too much other traffic either on the way up or down.

We had a fairly leisurely lunch at a restaurant beside the canal and now we are en route to Delphi.Leia mais