Corinth

February 26

Today the ship is still in Athens.  We've seen a lot of Athens, so we signed up for the excursion to Ancient Corinth, an hour and a half away by bus.  

And yes, we have already seen the Corinth Canal but we didn't know it would be a duplicate stop.  Exactly duplicate LOL.  They stopped at the exact same shop for the washroom break, and we got the exact same view of the canal.  Although the lighting was different today.  It was sunnier today, and we found the shadow of the bridge interesting.

On the way to Corinth, the guide talked and talked.  Then she noticed that most people were sleeping, so she stopped talking for awhile.

One thing she said that stuck with us:  the word "Mediterranean" literally means "middle of the world" (mid terra).  And if you look at a flat map of the world, they are not wrong.

imagecredit: https://www.alamy.com/3d-rendered-country-map-locator-pointing-on-a-global-destination-on-flat-world-map-symbol-carries-greece-flag-isolated-illustration-with-copy-space-image409555626.html

The remains of ancient Corinth are about 5 kms away from the modern city of Corinth.  Ancient Corinth was one of the most powerful and prosperous city states of ancient Greece.  It was strategically located and controlled vital trade routes.  

Our guide started us off at the small Archaeological Museum here.

This is the Fountain of Peirene, a famous ancient spring system with several chambers, once decorated with elaborate frescoes.

The Temple of Apollo was built around 550 BC and is one of the oldest Doric temples in Greece.  Seven of its original columns still stand.  That is amazing!

Most of the ruins you can see here were part of the Agora, or marketplace.

Anton was most impressed by the Acrocorinth.  It is a medieval castle perched on a rock 575 meters above the ancient city.  It was a military stronghold for over 2500 years!  But don't go visit without your boots.  The area is full of  Ohia vipers, the only venomous snake in Greece.

The Apostle Paul lived and preached in Corinth for 18 months around 51-52 AD.  He was put on trial at the Bema, a platform (seat) where Governor Gallio made public rulings.  This is actually confirmed by other archaeological findings.  A stone inscription at Delphi mentions Gallio and matches the dates from the following passage from Acts 18: 1,12-16,18

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.  While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment. "This man," they charged, "is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law."  Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, "If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you.  But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law-settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things."  So he drove them off.  Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time.

After being put on trial at the Bema Seat, Paul used his experience of judgement and wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Here is the Bema Seat:

After the tour while on our way to the bus, we stopped and bought a little urn for our mantel.  The shopkeeper told us to go see his workshop, which was interesting.

We got back to the ship at 1:30.  We popped into the buffet for a quick lunch.  Frankie was able to talk to Grace the head waitress again.  We received a menu in our stateroom and Frankie knew she was supposed to do something with it, but what???? Okay, order ahead.  Got it.  Too late for today.  

After lunch we went off the ship for an hour.  We made our way to the St Nicholas Church Piraeus.  No, not Santa Claus.  St Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and the Greek Navy. The church was built between 1879 and 1902.  

Frankie was most impressed by all the identical rugs covering the beautiful marble floors.  There must have been 100 of them.

On the way back to the ship (via a pharmacy), Anton grabbed an orange off a tree and decided the oranges are NOT ripe yet!

We stopped at the Duty Free shop and Anton accidentally knocked over a row of tiny metal Trojan Horses.  They went down like dominoes!

The ship left Athens at 5 pm.  As we were pulling out, we got a good view of that poor Celebrity ship that is still stuck in port.

At dinner we asked for a table that was not too close to other tables, a lot of people seem to like to wear perfume at dinner.  We got seated at the very back of the restaurant which is the back of the ship.  Great, no people, but the waitress reeked of perfume!  Grace came to see how we liked our spot and said she would set us up here in the future.  We said no, we didn't like the perfume the waitress was wearing but would deal with it tonight.  Two minutes later Grace shows up with 2 different waiters and has them waft themselves at our table.  One was okay, and he ended up serving us the rest of the night.  We found the situation rather comical.

And just for good measure, Grace had Frankie fill out her choices for tomorrow night's dinner.  No forgetting allowed!

Athens - Acropolis

February 25

We forgot to mention.  Last night when we were walking back to the hotel after dinner, there was a small demonstration in Syntagma Square.  They were there in support of Ukraine on the 4th anniversary of the war.  They focused on the 20,000 children that have been stolen by the Russians.  How sad.

Today we were with our tour director and guide again.  Finally - Acropolis Day!!!  16C.

To clear up any confusion:  The Acropolis (5th century BC) is the entire fortified hill (natural limestone) and it includes several ancient buildings.  The Parthenon is the most famous and prominent temple on the Acropolis.  It is dedicated to Athena.  We took lots of pictures here.  Just a few months ago the scaffolding was removed along the long side.

Some of the other buildings on the Acropolis include:

imagecredit https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/classical/a/temple-of-athena-nike

This is the paved marble walk up the Acropolis:

On the way up, we came across a gigantic rock that is called Mars Hill (formerly called the Areopagus).  This is the place where the apostle Paul was invited to preach when he was in Athens.  At the time, the Areopagus served as a meeting place for the highest council of Athens.  

The Temple of Athena Nike was completed in 420 BC during the Peloponnesian War.  The temple holds a strategic position on a steep bastion.  It symbolized the city's divine protection and power.  Nike means "victory", and inside the temple there was a wooden statue of a wingless Athena.  She was wingless so that victory would not leave the city.  The statue was last recorded in 1676.  But alas, victory did leave the city and the statue was lost when the Ottomans demolished the temple in 1687 in order to build defenses.  The temple was reconstructed again in the 1830s after Greek independence. 

The Propylaea is the main entrance to the Acropolis.  It was commissioned by Pericles and built between 437 and 432 AD.  It was a symbolic partition between secular and religious ground, and it also contained the world's first public art gallery.

The Erechtheion, built between 421-406 BC, is the second largest temple.  It is uniquely asymmetrical with a 4 pillared porch with 6 Ionic columns on the north side, and the Porch of the Caraytis on the south side.  The Porch of the Caraytis has statues of six graceful maidens.  Only the priests were allowed onto the porch with the maidens.  The ones here are reproductions.  

The Erechtheion is dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon, and it is here that we find Athena's olive tree.  

There are other sites to see on the Acropolis:

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus (called the Herodion), was built in 161 AD by the wealthy Roman senator Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife.  It was built of marble and had a cedar of Lebanon roof.  It could hold 5000 spectators.  It was destroyed by fire in 267 AD but restored in the 1950s.  It is just finishing a 3 year restoration. We had done some research and knew that singers such as Frank Sinatra, Elton John, and Pavarotti have sung here.  But the guides said no, no, it is much too small for someone like Elton John.  An hour later they came to us all amazed and said that yes, they found out that Elton John did indeed sing here.  

The larger Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus was built from the 6th century BC, seated 17,000 spectators, and is considered to be the world's first known theatre.

And the most famous of the sites on the Acropolis:  the Parthenon.  It was constructed between 447 and 432 BC under Pericles.  It was primarily dedicated to Athena.  In the 6th century AD, it was converted into a Christian church, then a mosque in 1458 with the rule of the Ottomans.  The Ottomans used it to store gunpowder, and the temple was severely damaged in 1687 from an explosion during the Venetian siege of the Acropolis.  It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.

The original artwork of the temples on the Acropolis has been moved to the Acropolis Museum.  

In the courtyard you can see the ruins of an ancient Athenian neighbourhood (4th century BC to 12th century AD):

The third floor of the museum is dedicated to housing the original sculptures that came from the Parthenon.  These are the original maidens from the Erechtheionin.  When they were first moved to the museum, everyone was all excited to finally see the backside of the maidens!  To support the structure above the heads of the maidens, the sculptor made the necks extra thick and hid it with thick hair.  Each maiden has a different hairstyle.

After the tour, we were transferred to our ship, the Viking Star.  The ship can accommodate 930 passengers and has a crew of 465.  Each stateroom has a veranda, and there are no casinos and no children under the age of 18.  Wi-fi is included (yay!) and every port of call includes one complimentary excursion.

Check in was extremely easy peasy.  We boarded around noon and it seemed that the people in our tour group were the only ones on board!  Right away we headed for the buffet, had a nice lunch, and started exploring the ship.  We found the shuffleboard and a putting area.

We thought it might be a good idea to get a load of laundry done (FREE on board!), and walked to 4 different decks to the launderettes but not a single machine was free.  I guess others had the same idea!  We finally went back a bit later and nabbed a machine and went to do some unpacking in our teeny tiny stateroom.

There is a Celebrity ship that we can see that has been stuck in port here for 10 days.  They lost power due to a technical failure (no more lights, air conditioning, or toilets), had to be towed into port, and the cruise which had just started, was cancelled.

Dinner with Pierre and Robin, and then we made it an early night.  Zonked!

Athens on Our Own

Tuesday, February 24

16C.  We could tell who the locals were because they were wearing big puffy coats and toques, and the tourists were in short sleeved shirts.

Today we explored Athens on our own.  Which meant we met a surprising number of our tour group at our late breakfast.  We all slept in!

Our total for today was about 20,000 steps and 15 kms of walking.

Nearby is the Church of Kapnikarea, an 11th century Byzantine church built around 1050 AD.  It was constructed over the ruins of an early Greek temple.  It was almost demolished in the 1830s to make way for a new street and the modernization of the city, but King Ludwig I of Bavaria insisted on preserving it.

We walked through the neighbourhood of Monastiraki ("Little Monastery"), which is one giant flea market of shops, oh my!  Anton bought himself a very interesting cap:

We meant to find the Ancient Agora of Athens, just past the Acropolis.  But we found the Roman Agora instead.  This was built to be the new commercial and political center by Julius Caesar and Augustus in the 1st century BC during the Roman occupation of Athens.  

The Roman Agora of Athens contains the Tower of the Winds, although The Tower of the Winds predates the Romans. 

It was built around 50 BC by Andronicus of Cyrrhus, and is considered to be the world's first meteorological station.  It is built of marble and is an octagonal shape about 12 meters high.  Each wall face is oriented to a compass point.  There was a weather vane in the shape of a triton (merman) on top of it.  

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds

Besides the weather, the tower also tracked time using sundials and a clepsydra.  A clepsydra was a water clock powered by a system of floats and weights.

imagecredit https://www.the-athenian.com/site/1974/10/01/the-tower-of-the-winds/

Also here is Hadrian's Library, built in 132 AD by Emperor Hadrian.  It was once a major center for learning with thousands of scrolls, some lecture halls, and a courtyard with a pool.  It was deceptive from this view, because when we saw it from the front a bit higher up, it was only a facade.

We accidentally found The Church of the Virgin Mary Pantanassa-Monastiraki.  Oops, Anton wasn't supposed to take pictures, so he gave them a little money.

We did find the Ancient Agora of Athens but didn't buy a ticket to go in.  After awhile, all the ancient ruins start to look the same!  The Ancient Agora of Athens served as the city's commercial and political center for nearly 900 years, from 600 BC to 267 AD.  It was decimated by the Persians in 480 BC but quickly rebuilt.  

The best preserved ruin here is the Temple of Hephaestus.  This was a place of worship for Hephaestus the god of blacksmiths, and Athena, the goddess of pottery and craftsmanship.  It stands almost entirely intact because it was converted into a Greek Orthodox church and used into the 19th century.  The roof is nearly complete and 34 of the columns are intact.

The other well preserved structure is the Stoa of Attalos.  Stoa means walkway.  It was built in the 2nd century BC as a gift from King Attalos II of Pergamon.  It was a commercial hub with 21 shops on each of its 2 floors.  It was destroyed in 267 AD but rebuilt in the 1950s with funding by John D. Rockefeller Jr. 

We walked through the Plaka District, known as the "Neighbourhood of the Gods".  It is the oldest district of Athens and is a maze of narrow cobblestone streets, cafes, and shops, and ruins.  Mostly shops LOL.

This is Hadrian's Arch, 18 meters tall.  It was erected in 131-132 AD as a gateway to welcome Emperor Hadrian's visit.

Also nearby is the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  It was started in the 6th century BC and finished by Emperor Hadrian in 131 AD.  It was one of the largest temples of Greece, measuring 96 X 40 meters.  Fifteen of the original 104 columns remain.

Here is what it likely looked like compared to what it looks like now:

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Olympian_Zeus,_Athens

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Olympian_Zeus,_Athens

We found the Panathenaic Stadium, built in the 4th century BC.  It is the home of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.  The Olympic flame torch relay still begins here to this day.  The stadium is made entirely of white marble.

We didn't pay the €12.00 to go into the stadium, although we kind of wanted to.  It was open air.  They had a "WC" that Frankie wanted to use.  There was a turnstile and you couldn't pass without inserting one and a half euros.   After we left the stadium, we turned the corner and found a free street one.

We walked back to our hotel via the National Garden, with 38 acres.  This is a free public garden and it is a peaceful escape from the busy city center.  The little walk back actually turned into a 3 hour explore because we enjoyed the Garden so much.  There was a small zoo, ponds with fish, flower gardens, and a pond full of turtles.

There were wild parrots everywhere.  This one was helping himself to some fresh oranges:

We found the white colour of this Oriental Plane Tree very striking against the blue sky:

Anton made a new friend.  Greece seems to be full of stray cats.  The people here treat them kindly.  On both of our last 2 days of touring, our guides brought along bags of cat kibble to feed the stray cats.

Back in the area of our hotel, we stopped for a cup of tea.  Frankie's tea was called Gunpowder China.  It was very strong green tea.  The waiter asked if he should make it less strong in the future.  It seems they mostly serve coffee, not tea.  The outdoor flower boxes are all full of blooming cyclamen.  In a month or so, they will chuck them and plant something else.

We found motorcycle alley:

All the cars here have scrape marks on the fenders and bumpers because parking is so tight.  This guy might have some fun when he tries to leave:

We met Robin and Pierre at 5:30 and went to a restaurant named Athinaikon for dinner.  After the waitress made about a dozen trips to the chef to make sure the food was okay for them, Robin and Frankie ordered drunken chicken for supper.  She was the most cheerful waitress ever.  The restaurants always bring a free dessert "on the house".  Since Robyn and Frankie couldn't eat it, they received a free shot of very potent liqueur instead.