Day 6—It’s all Greek to us!

Uh, no.  Not THAT Grease!

Today, we went to see Greece!!

We went that-a-way!

We arrived in Piraeus early this morning.  Piraeus is the largest port in Greece, and the largest in the Eastern Mediterranean.  And since Athens isn’t actually on a port, well, that’s where we go.  Our tour was to leave at 7:15, so we grabbed a fast breakfast in the buffet, and barely made it to the meeting point.  We got there at 7:12 and they told our group to head to the bus.

If you look at a map of Greece, it sort of looks like a crocodile.  There is a large land mass (Peloponnese) at the head, that kind of looks like a four fingered hand.  The isthmus at Corinth is at the wrist.  Sparta is in the middle of the hand.  Athens is across a body of water, not on Peloponnese.

Flooded freeway after only two days of rain.

It should have been an hour’s bus ride, but after 90 minutes, we finally saw why it was such a mess.  There had been rain for the last 2 days, and it was collecting in the low lying areas.  The main freeway was under water, as well as an entire neighborhood!  There were three busses in our tour group, and the first one departed before getting word that the freeway was closed, so they sat in the traffic for several hours, missing the first part of the tour.  We were pretty happy with our hour delay!!

The Canal ...and Theresa.

Finally, we arrived at the pedestrian bridge over the canal at Corinth.  To save sailing hundreds of miles around from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea, the Romans tried to build it many centuries ago, but did not finish.  But between 1881 and 1893, the Greeks and Hungarians (Ottomans) worked together to complete it.  The canal is only about 4 miles long, but the walls are about 250 feet high.  At the water line it is about 65 feet wide, and only 25 feet deep.  But the walls are sloped between 17 and 77 degrees.  By cutting through the isthmus, they made Peloponnese into an island.  We walked over the bridge to the island, and then back.

Temple of Apollo (mostly)

We then went to Ancient Corinth.  The city predates the Acropolis part of Athens.  One of the temple ruins, the Temple to Apollo, was built almost 100 years before the Parthenon.  After several wars with Persia (including the battle that was the basis of the movie “300”), eventually the whole area came under the control of Rome.  So, the ruins of ancient Corinth contained ancient Greek and ancient Roman artifacts. 

The place where St. Paul was charged by some Corinthians.

Within the ancient city, our tour guide pointed to many structures and told us stories pertaining to the building.  In the “fountain” (really more of a reservoir), the new wife of King Jason threw herself to try to stop the burning of a poisoned dress given to her by the spurned first wife of the King. 

On the “Beme” (or Veme), they held trials for crimes.  St. Paul was brought up on charges by the local Jews for his teaching, but the Romans, judging his crime was talking, not action, had little interest in what they saw as an irrelevant squabble.

And of course, we saw...Corinthian Capitals!!!  I'll try not to bore all of you.  There are three basic kinds of Greek pillars, based on the design of the top (capital).  Corinthian was the most decorative, with a design based on a leaf from a plant.  So, of course, seeing a Corinthian Capital in Corinth...well, that needed some blog space!  :-)

The main road into the ancient city...
Imagine shops crowded on both sides.

Public toilets.  There were walls...but still.

As a port city, I thought this was very apropos!!

A 5th Century Church.

A real life Corinthian Capital!!!

More Corinthian capitals!

The leaf which inspired the capital...well, not THE leaf.  But a descendent of...

"Ode"  (get it???)  :-)

We toured the small but packed museum, which included two statues that stood before two graves/sarcophagi, which included the bones of two young (?) men.  They were from about 600 BC, and the statues were in exquisite condition!  

One of the practices in the ancient city was to make a model of the body part on which one had an ailment.  Given that Corinth had a temple with about 200 prostitutes, and was a big port town, you can well imagine some of the samples, but there was one thing that was pretty interesting.

A 6th Century BC Brain model. 
And, yes, they did have "brain surgery".

So, there was this race...and it was a dead heat...
No one got a head!!!!  Ha ha ha!!!!  (oh, c'mon!)

The quick blue dolphin jumped over the lazy dog!  LOL!!
(I'd like to thank the Academy, the dog,...)

In the canal.

Finally, we went on to the canal cruise.  It was a large catamaran, but mostly unremarkable.  They served a little buffet, and were supposed to have wine and ouzo (the Greek liquor), but they ran out of the ouzo.  So, I asked for the local beer instead.  The brand was “A”, but then spelled out “Alpha” in Greek.  (Sort of like naming a beer A, then spelling it below “Aayy”.)  I found it funny!!

Alpha!!!  (the beer)

Chugging under a couple bridges.  Rather tight fit!

Looking back into the Canal.

After the cruise we headed back to the ship, and finally arrived about 3:50 (pertinent since the ship was to leave at 4:00).  Since it was a ship’s tour, we knew we were in no risk of being left behind.  We had “Tea”, then ran off to a trivia contest (not winning).  After dinner, there was a final trivia contest (yeah, there is a theme here!), and this one was a visual trivia of landmarks.  Out of 25, out foursome got 23...but lost.  We went to the evening show, a magician.  He was entertaining and high energy.  But, it’s a long day and a late night!  So, until tomorrow!

A quote from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians...in Corinth!