Corinth

Acrocorinth walls

After Athens, we're renting a car and driving to see several other places including Mycenae, Delphi, and Meteora.  The original plan was to visit Corinth as part of this, but it was apparent that we needed a bit more time to fit it all in.  So we switched things up and rented a car for the day on Thursday to drive over to Corinth and see everything we wanted to without being too rushed.  At only a little over one hour's drive from Athens, it made for an easy day trip.

You can see to the Gulf of Corinth

Our first stop was to the Acrocorinth.  This was the acropolis of ancient Corinth. Acropolis means "high city" and the citadel atop this large monolithic rock some 1900 feet above the surrounding countryside gave impressive views all the way to the sea and was vital to the defense of Corinth from invaders.  As with Greek history throughout time, this place was occupied at various times by conquering empires who would convert buildings and make additions in their architectural style.  We stayed for lunch at the small taverna just outside the walls of the Acrocorinth before heading back down to visit ancient Corinth.

Ancient Corinth was where the Apostle Paul lived and worked for a short time while spreading the Gospel of Jesus.  I wrote a more detailed description of Ancient Corinth when we visited in 2018 (click here).  We would have enjoyed staying a little longer here, but because it's the off season, many historic sites close early in the afternoon.

Our final Corinth destination was to the Corinth Canal.  The canal was constructed in the 1880s and connects the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth.  In ancient times, the Corinthians built the Diolkos, a road built with pavers in which they pulled boats across the isthmus from one sea to the other.  This saved an immense amount of time from having to sail around the entire Peloponnese which was a much more dangerous sailing route in addition to the extra 500 or so miles.  You can still see this road today, and when we visited we saw that they are actively preserving this section, building a nice viewing area with lights and sidewalk.

We were on the Gulf of Corinth side and saw a low-lying bridge crossing the canal.  It turns out that this bridge doesn't open in the traditional sense to allow ships to pass.  It actually submerges into the water and boats pass over it.  Of course we had to drive across it.  The canal isn't wide or deep enough for today's cargo ships to use it, so most boats are pleasure craft or tourist boats.  We were hoping to see the bridge submerge while we were there, but there isn't enough boat traffic so it would have been quite the wait.  We'll just have to be content in watching YouTube videos that show the bridge in action.

Requisite selfie with the canal