We flew from Rhodes to Athens this morning. Our flight was late, so it was close to 2 when we got our car rental. We hit the road - terrific, wide, multi-lane, with little traffic. Hooray! Our first stop was the Corinth Canal, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnese from the Greek mainland. The canal was dug through the Isthmus at sea level and has no locks. It is 4 miles in length and 70’ wide at its base. Several rulers of antiquity dreamed of digging a cut through the isthmus. The first to propose such an undertaking was the tyrant Periander in the 7th century BC. The project was abandoned but Periander instead constructed a simpler and less costly overland portage road, along which ships could be towed. Remnants of that road still exist next to the modern canal, begun in 1881 and completed in 1893.
Our next stop was the ancient city of Corinth. It was mid afternoon by the time we arrived and we were hungry, so we ate lunch at a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the ruins of Corinth and the castle, Acrocorinth, on top of the mountain. Lunch was huge and delicious, gyros and Greek salad.
We ended our day in Nafplio, where we are staying two nights. We were greeted royally at Aetoma Hotel. After coffee and cake, we went out for a sunset stroll, locally called the “Arvanitia Promenade.” Nafplio is considered one of the most beautiful towns in the Peloponnese, with its three castles, the Palamidi - 1000 steps up the hill, the Akronafplia - inhabited since prehistoric times, occupied and built onto by the Byzantines, Franks, Ottomans and Venetians, and Bourtzi - a small Venetian fortress on a rocky isle. Nafplio is one of favorite places of our trip so far!
