It’s Sunday May 1st and the ship is in Piraeus, the port of Athens, Greece. Before I write about my day today, I must tell about something I saw last night.
We finished dinner around 10:15 PM. During dinner the ship did a lot of vibrating and it was clear that the thrusters were being used but we weren’t in port yet. Apparently the distance we had to travel from Spetsai was not far so we essentially stopped for a while. Anyway, I got back to my cabin and went on my balcony. The drapes were drawn and I didn’t turn on the light so it was very dark with just the distant lights on the shore and the ship’s running lights. Our thrusters had churned up the sea and I saw this ethereal sight down at sea level. They were gulls looking for fish but they glowed in the dark and looked magical. As we started moving again they flew off.
Since I’ve been to Athens several times, I went on an excursion to the Corinth Canal and the ruins of the ancient city of Corinth. The Corinth Canal connects the Gulf of Corinth in the Ionian Sea with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It’s 4 miles long and only about 75 feet wide so modern ships can’t use it. In fact it has been closed since January 2021 because the walls of the canal were unstable. The canal cuts across the Peloponnesian peninsula technically making Peloponnese an island. It was begun in 1881 and first used in 1893 so it’s from the modern era. The idea was an ancient one though. The first to propose it was a ruler of Corinth in the 7th century BC. The project was too costly and instead a stone carriageway was built along which ships could be towed or goods carried from one sea to the other, eliminating a long sea voyage around the peninsula. Later rulers, both Greek and Roman, considered a canal but abandoned the idea. The only one who made a real try at it was the Emperor Nero. He brought 6,000 Israelite prisoners of war to construct it. Nero himself broke the first ground with a pickaxe. The project was dug about 2300 feet but then was abandoned after Nero’s death.
After a brief stop to take pictures we drove on to the site of ancient Corinth. The area was occupied beginning at least in the 3rd millennium BC. The first historical references of Corinth come from the 8th century BC when it became a commercial center. Corinth was a city-state as were Sparta and Athens among others. The city allied itself with Sparta during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. In 146 BC Corinth was captured and completely destroyed by the Romans. Around the time of Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC Corinth was rebuilt and became the principal city of the Roman occupation of Greece. Corinth had a population of more than 10,000 and had a theater and an odeon, a facility for musical performances that was smaller than a theater. After the fall of the western Roman empire Corinth became part of the eastern, Byzantine empire and was eventually conquered by the Ottomans after the conquest of Constantinople. The old city was completely destroyed by a large earthquake in the mid- 19th century. New Corinth was built a few miles away on the Gulf of Corinth. What remains of ancient Corinth now are just ruins which are still being excavated.
The principal feature still standing is the Temple of Apollo. Unlike the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, this building was built of limestone not marble and the columns are in the Doric style with much simpler capitals. The ruins of the temple lie next to what was the agora, the open public space found in ancient Greek cities. The agora was the place for markets and around its perimeter there would be shops. Nearby was a fountain house, a public building where people could come to draw clean drinking water to carry home in jugs and containers.
There was a nice little museum at the site with artifacts found so far. A few displays really caught my attention. One was a display of clay body parts like arms, hands, legs and feet. There was a sanctuary in the ancient city which was considered a healing place. The body parts were offerings from people who came for healing of various physical problems. Another display was a beautiful collection of miniature jugs, vases and other containers which were intricately painted. The last was a collection of life size statues which had no heads, just a hollow space where the neck would be. The Romans were into recycling our guide Sophia told us. If someone wanted a statue of himself, they would commission a head and neck likeness and it would be placed on one of these pre-made forms. So, for example, a general would have his head placed on a statue wearing the appropriate garb of a general. Pretty clever and frugal!
After our visit to Corinth we went to the seaside village of Loutraki and a restaurant called Ihthioessa for a fish and seafood lunch. We had a Greek salad, which I learned never has lettuce. In fact, if a Greek goes to a restaurant and he’s presented with a salad with lettuce he asks for the price to be reduced because the lettuce is just filler. Of course we had bread with tzatziki. Two big pots of perfectly steamed mussels came next along with fried calamari. Then we were each given a whole pan-fried fish, which was delicious but we had to watch out for the bone. There was local wine, no ouzo, and then finally a little cheesecake with raspberries. It was all delicious! On the drive back to the ship I think we all took a little nap.
The weather was perfect. For anyone coming to this part of the world it seems this is the ideal time. We had a nice breeze, low humidity and temperature around 75. I was very happy I choose to visit someplace outside Athens. Oh, I forgot to mention that St.Paul spent about 18 months in Corinth and wrote his "Letters to the Corinthians."
1 comment:
What a wonderful day you had Ann, we will again have to compare notes when you come home. Glad all is going well.
Hugs
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