Day 20 (Friday) Athens - Corinth

Woke up to luxury this morning at the "New" Hotel (refer yesterday's Blog) - had a beautiful breakfast, but still a bit tired after the very late night.

Another wise decision - we had decided on Tuesday to do just a half day trip- to Corinth today rather than a very long excursion to Delphi and that turned out for the best.

Left at 8.45 for the hour long bus trip down the coast highway to the Corinthian canal, an amazing excavation completed in 1893 but first attempted by Nero (who obviously failed). This canal lets ships head straight from Athens to the west Mediterranean rather than the long way round the peninsular.

Next stop was the ancient port of Kalamaki where Paul landed to visit Corinth. Part of the old port is still visible and  also the remains of a church built on the site to commemorate the arrival of Paul.

Off to the excavation of the ancient city of Corinth, once the most wealthy city of the region and home to about 600 000. Apparently St Paul lived here for about 18 months to two years, wrote the letter to the Thessalonians (where he had worked earlier) from here and this letter is apparently the oldest Christian document. He returned here twice to follow up with the Christian community he had established. He was put on trial at the "Bema" (speaker's platform) in the "Agora" (meeting place) which is clearly visible in the excavations but was not imprisioned here (as he was in Ephesus). Fascinating stuff and it is quite amazing to visit the spots where these events actually happened.

Back to Athens about 2 for a lovely lunch and get the bags sorted for the cycle/sail which starts tomorrow. There are heaps of terrific street restaurants in Athens, all willing to offer lots of deals so we're off to Plaka for tea to enjoy some more Creek cuisine.

Trivia: more word origins today - As above, the meeting/market area of Roman cities was known as the Agora and as such was a crowded place - thus the term Agrophobia for fear of crowds. Another one : Pan was a greek God who was half man and half goat and exceedingly ugly - so ugly that people would run away from him in fear - thus the origin of the term panic

Pictures:
*the Corinthian Canal
*the "Bema" - speakers platform in Corinth where St Paul was put on trial
*Appollo's temple in Corinth - originally a Greek structure from 6th century B.C.