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Peloponnese, Greece

December 6th, 2022

Tuesday was a wet day and Doug had planned/hoped to do a marathon walk but the rain killed that idea although he did manage his Tuesday run before it began.  Instead he did a mediation seminar that morning.  It rained most of the day but we got our Christmas letter out, our Christmas shopping done and much more.  A good day for indoor stuff!

Wednesday morning it was pouring!  We had planned to leave today but were unsure and then decided to go for it.  The rain lessened by 9:45 so Doug went to dump and unplug and we went to drive to the water faucet when we got stuck!  The ground was far too soft after such a soaking.  Luckily the sky had cleared and the sun came out by this point.  We tried a few different strategies and then Fran went over to find George, the owner and ask for help.

He said he’d call someone with a tractor to get us out and apologized for not telling us to park in the direction we did.    He was not there when we arrived and the other fellow spoke little English.  He felt bad and said he should have come over to tell us to repark but as a matter of fact we did not even see him until this morning when Fran went to find someone to pay.  He did not feel quite bad enough thought to pay for the €40 “tow” as he had us split it 50/50.

The tractor arrived around 12:30 pm.  It took a few tries but he got us out.  The ground and George’s lawn were not in good shape after that but he told us not to worry so we didn’t.

We filled our water tank and left heading towards Ancient Olympia looking for a bakery enroute to get bread.  Upon spotting one we saw a UK plated IVECO unimog type rig right there in front and parked behind them.  Vince and Pia have been on the road about a year and we are pretty sure we’ve seen their rig before as it is quite distinctive.

We all walked over to the bakery and got drinks/snacks and chatted for about a half hour.

By the time we reached Olympia it was 2:30 and the site closed at 3:30 so we found a place to park nearby and decided to wait until morning.  One other camper (actually a car pulling a trailer) joined us.  We do not understand how a Honda Civic can tow a trailer that looks longer than our Coleman back in the US!

Olympia is a small town in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, famous for the nearby archaeological site of the same name. This site was a major Panhellenic religious sanctuary of ancient Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games were held every four years throughout Classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. They were restored on a global basis in 1894 in honor of the ideal of peaceful international contention for excellence.

The archaeological site held over 750 significant buildings, and ruins of many of these survive A location that has a special interest to both ancients and moderns is the stadium. It is basically a field with start and end lines marked off by transverse curbing. The athletes entered under an archway of a vaulted corridor at the start. Spectators sat mainly on the field’s sloping flanks. The length of this field became the standard stadium, an ancient Greek unit of distance, which appears in all the geographers. The stadium has been resurrected for Olympic use with no intentional alteration of the ancient topography. Transient stands are easily thrown up and removed.

The first major games to have been played at in the Olympia stadium were said to have first begun in the 7th century BC. These prestigious ancient games took place during the festival of Zeus at Olympia. Olympia was a sanctuary, but it was within the independent state of Elis, and since the Eleans managed the games, there was sometimes bias.

Full visitation is an extensive walking event. Some excavation is in progress there frequently. Moveable artifacts for the most part have found a home in one of the site’s three museums.

After our morning exercise, we got to the Olympia ticket office about opening time: at 8:30.  From November to April, the hours are shorter (closes at 3:30) and it is half price so €6 each instead of €12.  This gives you entry to two museums and the archeological site itself.  (It seems November is a good time to visit Greece with the reduced ticket prices.)

So first we went to walk the site.  This was very interesting and well displayed.  Naturally 2500 years later everything is not there but you can feel the spirit of the place and a sense of awe.

The gymnasium was a training area for various events; it is still under excavation:

We saw where the place where the Olympic flame used to be lit:

The nymphaeum remains:

The Temple of Zeus:

A prehistoric building dating back to 2500 BC!:

The Zanes – These were the bases upon which bronze statues of Zeus were placed.  They were erected with the fines imposed on athletes who had cheated.  Each base had an inscription with the name of the guilty athlete and his infringement.  They were positioned at the entrance to the stadium as a warning to all competitors:

The stadium: Track dimensions between start and finish lines were 192.27 m x 28.50m / 630′ x 96.6′.  Embankments did not have seating except for a platform for the judges on one side in the middle. The stadium is said to have held 45,000 spectators.

Doug took a stance at the start line:

Sidebar:  during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the discus events were held in this stadium and  no seating was added for the event.

Various other building remains:

The Philipeion – dedicated to Philip II:

The Leonidaion where dignitaries and judges were housed during the games complete with its own swimming pool in the centre:

The Palaestra (had 72 columns) where non running event training took place and where athletes prepared for the games i.e. getting their bodies all oiled up:

We decided to skip the archeological museum and rather just visit the Museum of the History of the Olympic games and that was a good decision.  It was very well done with English and other languages at all the exhibits.

You are walked through time and learn the history of the ancient games.

Events of the ancient Olympics:

Running races, of course, such as:

  • The Stadion – the main race which meant running one length of the stadium
  • The diaulos was a sprint of two lengths
  • The Hippois with four lengths
  • The dolichos was run in various numbers of lengths from 7 to 24.
  • A race in armour wearing a helmet and greaves (shin amour) and carrying a shield.

The long jump – held similarity to the way it’s done to this day

The javelin – there were two types: one where the athlete had to throw the farthest and one with a target

The discus – one of the most popular events.  Everyone threw the same disc to make the contest fair.

The pentathlon

Wrestling, Boxing and the Pankration – a combination of the first two

Chariot races and Equestrian events – both held in the hippodrome (we did not see this).  There were races for fully grown horses, ridden by jockeys as well as races for mares and foals.

Boys games were introduced in 632 BC (the 37th Olympiad) making the competition a day longer – now three days.  They competed in running, wrestling and later boxing and pankration.

All participates competed in the nude and no women were allowed.

Various items on display:

bronze of Zeus
pottery with olympic events portrayed
bronze figure of a running woman
the discus made of bronze
bronze olive leaf laurels
a bronze chariot wheel
the classic discus thrower statue

Afterward we walked through the cute city of Olympia and bought our Greece souvenir (something to do with ancient Olympia made sense) and grabbed a snack at a shop before returning to Minou.  As we’d not driven yet today, we figured we should go about 100 km / 60 mi at least.

We went to see what is touted as a beautiful beach in a protected area, Voidokilia, and it was nice but not that spectacular to us.

There was a lagoon next to it and we saw flamingoes!

Then we drove a little further to the small village of Gialova to a parking lot a block from the sea for the night.  The beach here is not so nice; one side is covered in black dead seagrass but the other side is okay….

Beach sightings:

We saw a beached sailboat on that side up the coast:

Fran had noticed a few days ago that our back up light is not working and possibly the right brake light so Doug fiddled with them and then got the latter to work but not the backup light.  Seems we’ll need an electrical mechanic for that.

After a quiet and rather warmish night (the temps at night now that we are so far south are much warmer than back in Albania – hardly need any blankets!), we set out for the big city of Kalamata to find a mechanic to check the light.  Enroute we found diesel for €1.769 per litre and filled up only to find €1.739 a few blocks later.  Oh well, at least it seems the price is coming down.  After going to the one place we found on iOverlander, we learned they really only do brakes but they could take us to a place and they did so.  How nice.

We arrived at the non-English speaking mechanic at 9:50 and he had us drive Minou over a pit and after a while he seemed to be doing nothing after checking out some things.  MMMHHHHH.

About 30 minutes later a fellow arrived on a motorbike and Fran wondered if maybe he’d ordered a part and that must have been it because he got back underneath and after Doug tested it, we seem to be “cooking with gas” once again.  The whole visit took about an hour but it’s done – seems the relay needed to be replaced and Doug’s pretty sure he couldn’t have sussed that out himself.

We decided not to take the toll road to Sparta as it’s a much longer drive and we have time to go slow.  The old road is shorter but windy and hilly but obviously more scenic.  About 10km / 6 mi in we hit a detour which took us on more or less a one lane road that went up to 1200 m / 3940‘ through a couple of small villages.

It met back up with the main old road and we drove through a gorge:

Near the end we reached a few rough tunnels and rock overhangs:

We went to get groceries and then began to drive to Sparta – more specifically ancient Sparta.

Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.

Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until its forced integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city nevertheless recovered much autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B and prospered during the Roman Empire as its antiquarian customs attracted many Roman tourists. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives.

Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus. His laws configured the Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (citizens with full rights), mothakes (free non-Spartiate people descended from Spartans), perioikoi (free non-Spartiates), and helots (state-owned enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartiate men underwent the rigorous agoge training regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed considerably more rights than elsewhere in classical antiquity.

Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconophilia. Bertrand Russell wrote:

Sparta had a double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth…. The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato’s political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers…. [The] ideals that it favors had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism.

Our first stop here was to the Greek Olive Oil museum – we’ve seen SO many olive groves we figured we should learn more about them.   Did you know that olive trees are evergreen?

We spent about a half hour visiting this small but very good museum learning the history and the process which really has not changed that much over the millennia.   The earliest known primate oil processing were discovered in a Neolithic site in Israel dating back to the mid fifth millennium BC!  The earliest in Greece dates back to 1600 BC on the island of Crete.  The olives were probably crushed using pounders on stone basins and the pulp was pressed on an elevated stone base.  This method was used for over 3000 years.  Separation of oil from water was based on gravity as the light olive oil would float to the surface and get skimmed off with a wide mouthed utensil.  It would then be stored in large clay pots and place in storage.

More olive facts:

  • It may surprise you to learn that the only difference between green olives and black olives is ripeness; unripe olives are green, whereas fully ripe olives are black.
  • They contain antioxidants, which help to prevent chronic inflammation
  • Green olives have high sodium content which means they have a salty, savory flavor that has numerous culinary uses and low cholesterol content. Green olives also tend to have a tangier, bitterer flavor than black olives.
  • Since olives are low in cholesterol and rich in monounsaturated fats, studies show that daily olive intake can improve your heart health.
  • Unripe green olives taste more peppery and have a green leave note, while black olives, with their bitter mixed mellow taste, have floral notes.
  • If you’re looking to reduce your saturated fat intake, black olives are a slightly better choice. If you’re trying to boost your vitamin E intake, green olives are a healthier option than their black counterparts.
  • Green olives undergo a fermentation process that involves soaking in a lye solution before being cured in salt brine. Ripe olives skip the fermentation step and are cured right away.
  • Between 4 and 5 kilos of olives are needed to produce 1 litre of olive oil. The tree’s age only affects the quantity produced, not the quality.
  • An olive tree starts to produce between the ages of 5 and 10, and its production starts to decline after it is 100 years old.
  • Olive trees were used for timber and fuel. The fruit is used for fuel, kernel oil, food and soap.  The oil is used in cooking and for lighting lamps. In ancient times it was used as perfume and was also smeared on athletes before competitions and soldiers before battle 
  • At harvest time, olive trees are also pruned to give a desire shape and to achieve optimum ventilation and maximum exposure to sunlight.
  • A tree can bear fruit for centuries given proper care.
soap made from olive oil
olive oil products on display
old olive press & pulping equipment
old olive oil lanterns

Harvesting is still done by hand to this day but there ae tools to speed up the practice of picking.  Beating the branches with a rake is a faster method and today there are tools called vibrators and beaters are often used due to the lack of labour and this reduces the cost but increases damages to the trees.

modern beating tool

 

We had already decided to spend the night here in town and the pickings were slim but there was a free parking lot by the small university and we parked there before walking into the city to see it and make our way to the ancient city.  We saw the Spartan soldier statue:

Then it was King Leonidas statue:

Leonidas I was a king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line, a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles and Cadmus. Leonidas I was son of King Anasandridas II. He succeeded his half-brother King Cleomenes I to the throne in c. 489 BC. His co-ruler was King  Leotychidas. He was succeeded by his son, King Pleistarchus.

Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Greco-Persian War, where he led the allied Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) while attempting to defend the pass from the invading Persian army; he died at the battle and entered myth as the leader of the 300 Spartan. (think: the movie “300”). While the Greeks lost this battle, they were able to expel the Persian invaders in the following year.

The temperature today reached nearly 20C / 70F which is very pleasant.  We then wandered over to the free ancient site of which there is not a great deal to see but we were there….

We saw the remains of the agora:

The theatre from above as it’s being restored:

A round building:

Upon returning to Minou, we chilled for a bit and then had a quiet night.  We seem to be on a truck bypass of Sparta but there were not a lot of trucks and it was nothing that couldn’t be blocked out with earplugs.

Saturday morning we were up a little earlier and there were a few sprinkles early but we left about 8 and it stayed dry after that getting better as we approached the sea once again.

We found diesel for €1.689 per litre which is $6.75 a gallon; a nice surprise.

We drove to Gythio to check it out based on a recommendation but it was not so great.  While it had a lovely boardwalk (mostly marble) along the sea we could have skipped it.

We went to see the ancient theatre which we couldn’t even get that close to without walking in very wet grass:

And then over to the little islet attached to the city by a small bridge but it although the castle/museum was in decent shape – and it was closed – it really wasn’t worth the stop – it has 3 beaches outside the city  not in it so that was another drawback.

On our way to our next destination, we did stop at one of the two beaches on the east side because Fran saw there was supposed to be a ship wreck there.  We could see the beach before the turn off and lo and behold there was a ship:

We also saw the parking area and there had to be ten RVs parked there.  We seem to be seeing more and more RV’s as we are in the south of Greece where the temperatures are still comfortable.  Today it hit 21C / 72F and it was dry the rest of the day.  We stopped to check out the beach and it was quite nice with soft sand and made our way to the wreck for  closer look:

We decided to push on to Monemvasia because we’d only driven 45 km / 27 miles and the weather may get wet tomorrow.

We drove to the port town of Gefyra and parked at the harbour/pier where iOverlander had informed us there was free parking with two power points.  Bonus!  Upon arriving there were 4 motorhomes parked at one end so we headed over there; no one knew anything about power.  So Fran walked the length of the pier and found that right near the beginning, on the other side of the wall, there were plugs and a water tap (although we’re not sure it’s potable).  There were two boats on trailers parked right in front of the wall there but we have a long extension cord and just parked behind them and reached the power with no problem.

The reason it come here is to see Monemvasia.  This was another recommended stop so we were skeptical.

Monemvasia is a town and municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese, surrounded by the Myrtoan Sea. The island is connected to the mainland by a short causeway 200 metres (660 ft) in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 m (330 ft) above sea level, up to 300 m (980 ft) wide and 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long. Founded in the sixth century, and thus one of the oldest continually-inhabited fortified towns in Europe, the town is the site of a once-powerful medieval fortress, and was at one point one of the most important commercial centres in the Eastern Mediterranean. The town’s walls and many Byzantine churches remain as testaments to the town’s history. Today, the seat of the municipality of Monemvasia is the town of Molaoi.  The name “Monemvasia” is derived from the the narrow strip of land “moni emvasi” (which means single entrance) which links via a bridge the rock with the locast. 

After parking and getting plugged in to charge up the batteries, we grabbed our windbreakers (the wind had really picked up) and walked the 2.3 km / 1+ mi to the little town on the island.  The bridge used to be an old stone bridge with 14 arches with a drawbridge in the middle.  This lasted until the end of the 19th century.  A new bridge was built in 1971 and has seen recent renovations:

You walk about half the length of the island before reaching the town.

It has huge thick walls and they reach all the way to the top of the cliff.  By the time we got there, the sun was fully out and it was quite pleasant even too warm with just a shirt and jeans.

It’s very cool and a bit touristy with lots of shops along its main narrow alley (no cars allowed) but it has such a great vibe and it’s fascinating to walk around.  We walked all the way to the upper town into the fortress.

Then back down to the central square along the walls.

By now it was past noon and we were hungry and Fran was tired of stairs(!) so we looked for a place to have lunch with a sea view.  The last place (right at the entrance) that we checked had a rooftop patio and it was perfect but we forgot to take pics.  We could see not only the see but the cliffs and fortress walls atop them.

The sun began to hide behind some incoming clouds so we decided to walk back to Minou.  No sooner had we begun our walk back when the sky once again cleared and upon arriving at Minou, we grabbed our camp chairs and sat outside.  There were now about ten motorhomes along the pier (and one in the dirt lot nearby) but it seemed we were the only ones who had power or knew about the power.

We are at the most southern point we are going to go here on “mainland” Greece – about 36ºN which is about the same as Las Vegas, hence the 23C / 75F day we’ve had.

Saturday night a rain storm blew in and boy did the wind howl and rock Minou.  Rain was on and off and never all that hard but the wind persisted into Sunday.  Doug did his Sunday long run and his best in a long time.  He was quite happy.  As the weather looked not as bad as predicted we decided to move along some.  Fran had thought we could stay another night if it was going to rain all day and she could catch up on photo editing but while Doug was out she got more than half of it done.  Our next stop was heading back north again and it was about 180 km / 111 mi away which was more than we need/want to do in a day so around the 100 km / 60 mi mark, we stopped outside Leonidio on the coast at Plaka Beach.  There’s a parking lot off the beach where many campers go for a free night (or more).  It has bathrooms, beach showers, rubbish bins and easy access to the pebble beach.

It was only 1:15 pm and we got the last spot!  There were 20 campers here in total from all over Europe.  After parking, Fran went for a walk on the beach – so many colourful pebbles:

She found some “Christmas” rocks: green, red and white:

We both slept well that night as there was no wind blowing us around and it was pretty quiet.  We awoke to mixed skies and we left by 8 am to make our way north along the coast and around the bay to Nafplio.

It was a nice mostly coastal drive:

We stopped for gas at 1.689 again and then saw it for 1.629!  Before stopping in the city, we drove a little outside of it to visit to Bronze Age bridges – we’re talking 3200 years old!

We planned to stop at the not so known bridge first but due to the lack of parking there, we moved up the road to the 2nd more popular one:  The Arkadiko bridge :

The corbel arch bridge belonged in Mycenaean times to a highway between the two cities of Kazamar and Mycenaexxxx, which formed part of a wider military road network. It has a culvert span of ca. 1 m and is made in the typical Mycenaean manner of Cyclopean stones. The structure is 22 m / 72’ long, 5.6 m / 18.4’wide at the base and 4 m / 13’ high. The width of the roadway atop is about 2.50 m / 8’2”. The sophisticated layout of the bridge and the road indicate that they were specifically constructed for use by chariots.  Built in the Late Helladic III period (ca. 1300–1190 BC), the bridge is still used by the local populace.

The second bridge required that we park on the side of the road and hike in a few hundred metres down a dirt road in a field and then a little used path.

Doug was so impressed; he really enjoys this sort of thing.

Nafplio has a large fortress overlooking the city but we opted not to climb 999 steps to get up there as it looks very similar to the fortress we visited in Monemvasia and apparently is not well maintained.  We could see it as we drove through Nafplio and again a section of it from the parking lot.

We then found a parking lot up from the beach in Nafplio where we had breakfast and both went for walks in town.  Fran chose to walk around the Cliffside with lovely sea views to get there.

and just before reaching the town, saw this castle in the sea:

The water castle of Bourtzi  (from Ottoman Turkish burc meaning “tower”) is a Venetian castle located in the middle of the harbour of Nafplio.

There is a ferry to take you over to it but it appears not to be working today.

We both met up again at Minou and had a quiet afternoon reading and getting things done online.  It’s nice to have a short driving day and some time to do stuff in the afternoon.  The weather continues to be mixed today but no rain as yet.  It’s not quite as warm as Monemvasia but still reaches the upper teens C / high 60’s F with a wind that can feel cold especially near the water.

We left Nafplio the next morning and made our way to the Bronze Age settlement of Mycenae – 3500 years old!

Mycenae is an archeological site in north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece, Crete, the Cyclades, and parts of southwest Anatolia. The period of Greek’s history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae. At its peak in 1350 BC, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 and an area of 32 hectares

The Lions Gate, the Treasury of Atreus, and the walls of Tiryns are just a few examples of the amazing architecture found in Mycenae and Tiryns. These discoveries’ structures and layouts are great instances of the human creative talent of the time. Greek architecture and urban planning have been significantly influenced by the Mycenaean civilization. Mycenae which stands as the pinnacle of the early phases of Greek civilization provided unique witness to political, social, and economic growth during the Mycenaean civilization. The accomplishments of the Mycenaean civilization in art, architecture, and technology, which inspired European cultures, are also on display at this location. These sites are strongly connected to the Homeric epics. The earliest examples of the Greek language are also visible at Mycenae, preserved on Linear B tablets. These achievements of the Mycenae demonstrate how this site satisfies the requirements for outstanding universal value.

There are also faint traces of Neolithic settlement on the site although it was continuously occupied from the Early Neolithic (EN; c. 5000–c. 4000 BC) through the Early Helladic (EH; c. 3200–c. 2000 BC) and Middle Helladic (MH; c. 2000–c. 1550 BC) periods.

We were quite impressed by how much was there and how much was actually able to be made out.

This is a view of the site from the parking area:

Upon purchasing our tickets €6 each, we first visited the museum:

Right outside the museum is the Vaulted Lions Tomb which no longer has a roof; believed to have been built in 1350 and contained 3 pit graves:

The Lion Tomb, situated outside the citadel walls, suffered the collapse of its tholos (roof covering), and thus offers a wide-open view. The tomb, which dates to c. 1350 BC, housed three simple pit graves which were found empty.

Then we wandered the rest of the site seeing:

The Lions Gate which was constructed in the middle of the 13th century BC.  This is the earliest example of monumental sculpture in Europe.  It dates back to 1240BC and the threshold, lintel and jambs are made of conglomerate.  The heads of the animals were probably made of stetitle but have not survived.  The gate had a double door secured with a sliding bar.

The Lion Gate is the popular modern name for the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae.It was erected during the thirteenth century BC, around 1250 BC, in the northwestern side of the acropolis. In modern times, it was named after the relief sculpture of two lionesses in a heraldic pose that stands above the entrance.

The gate is the sole surviving monumental piece of Mycenaean sculpture,] as well as the largest surviving sculpture in the prehistoric Aegean. It is the only monument of Bronze Age Greece to bear an iconographic motif that survived without being buried underground. It is the only relief image that was described in the literature of classical antiquity, such that it was well known prior to modern archaeology.

We walked through the palace at the top of the hill but there was not a great deal left of it.  It had large terraces and various levels.  It was surrounded by buildings like storerooms, reception areas and workshops.  Much of the palace was destroyed in fires in 1180 BC but evidence suggests it was used for a further one hundred years.

We moved on to Corinth – actually Ancient Korinthos to see that archaeological site and museum but upon arriving were directed to a sign showing that the place is closed on Tuesdays!  Dang!

Corinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece. The modern city of Corinth is located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northeast of the ancient ruins. Since 1896, systematic archaeological investigations of the Corinth Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have revealed large parts of the ancient city, and recent excavations conducted by the Greek Ministry of Culture have brought to light important new facets of antiquity.

For Christians, Corinth is well known from the two letters of Saint Paul in the New Testament, First and Second Corinthians. Corinth is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as part of Paul the Apostle’s missionary travels. In addition, the second book of Pausanias’ Description of Greece is devoted to Corinth.

Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, with a population of 90,000 in 400 BC. The Romans demolished Corinth in 146 BC, built a new city in its place in 44 BC, and later made it the provincial capital of Greece.

Well we could view the main temple and the Odeon; the latter was located right by the parking lot and the former is tall and quite visible from the parking lot as well.

We had already decided to get a campground tonight to get power for a night before heading towards Athens.  Less than a klik away from the Ancient Korinthos ruins is a CamperStop which is very popular.  They charge €15 for 24 hours and there are toilets, hot showers, Wi-Fi, power points, water taps and dumping stations.  They even have a little mini market for some basics and they make and sell bread every morning and make and offer dinner for €8 at night.  By dark, there were ten motorhomes parked here!

We got parked and had brunch before hot showers and online time.  Since the showers are not really in a building per se (missing a front wall) we opted to do showers this afternoon as the shower curtain in front of you is the only thing protecting you from the outdoors and the morning would be cooler!

The place is pretty full with lots of French plated RV’s a couple of German, a Swiss and a UK plated one.  When we arrived there was even a young Aussie woman who was travelling on a bicycle and sleeping in her tent. We chatted with Mia for a while then she packed up and left.

It sprinkled on and off all afternoon so being in a campground turned out to be a good idea.  We have an appointment at an RV place tomorrow just outside Athens to get our cassette toilet tank repaired (Doug set this up a few weeks ago) and then we are going to pick up the batteries we ordered as well as a couple of other items from the father of the friend of a friend Doug has been chatting with.

After dumping and filling, we left CamperSpot Korinth to head into Athens to get laundry done and get the cassette for the toilet repaired.

Enroute we took a bit of a detour to the submersible bridge across the Corinth Canal.  This is the narrow body of water that separates mainland Greece from

It appears they are doing a lot of shoring up of the walls of the canal this year due to landslides in recent years.

Now we head towards Athens but we’re going to make a few stops on the outskirts first.