Corinth day trip
Day 23, April 21
We had to be up early this AM for our Corinth day tour. We grabbed some croissants at the corner store on the way to Hotel Attalos. Almost as soon as we got there, around 0730, a bus pulled up and a girl asked us, "Are you Leslie Spence?" It irks me that my email still puts my name as Spence instead of Anderson, and that part of the account is unchangeable. So I'd have to change my email, which has been easily the same for years, in order to change it, which I am loathe to do. Anyway, of course I said yes in answer to the girl's question (didn't bother correcting her), and we followed her into the bus.
We spent the next hour and 15 minutes driving around picking up other people and then waiting at the bus stop for certain people to change busses for the all day tour vs.
Our guide seemed like a nice lady, and talked all along the way into a little microphone, telling us about certain buildings throughout the city and then certain landmarks as we went along. She had an Italian accented way of speaking English (saying eh on the end of every phrase, like, "And over therEH, you will seeEH the building of ParliamentEH, which was builtEH inEH the 18thEH centuryEH" and it was quite distracting, and sometimes hard to understand, but we were used to that from our stay in Italy.
Anyway, we stopped at the Corinth Canal for 30 minutes, and it appeared to be every tour bus's favorite stop as the bridge and shops were jammed with crowds.
We also stopped at a little beach with an ancient port, and our guide told us that Paul might have landed here on a journey to Corinth!
After that, we finally headed to the Corinth site. The Acro-Corinth, visible up on the big hill behind the ancient city, dates mainly from the medieval times - you can still see the wall from that time period. We did NOT go up there, but stayed in the ancient city. Our guide took us briefly through the museum and then around the city for about 30 minutes, just pointing out a few highlights, and then (finally) turned us loose to check it out on our own and take pictures.
My favorite part of being there was standing in front of the Bema, or speaker's platform, where Paul actually stood and spoke to the Corinthians. It was an incredible experience to touch stones he might have touched, and walk on the ground he actually walked on! To be in the same place as someone we read about so often in the Bible, and to think about what he said there, and the life he lead - it was just really cool.
We ran out of time for lunch, so we stopped at a tiny market shop and bought paprika flavored Bugles and an apple for a snack.
On the way home, our guide was silent the whole way! I guess she's only paid to talk on the way out there. It was fine, though, because I was super-sleepy and kept dozing off. Lucky us, we got dropped off first on the way home!
We wandered around Monastiraki for a while, checking out the seemingly endless pedestrian streets of shops! For our first Greek dinner, we tried Goody's near our hotel, which had burgers on their menu (we decided to put off trying real Greek food one more night since we were craving something familiar). I tried the Green Burger, which was almost like a burger from home, and Jesse got the club sandwich (turkey and cheese).
Tomorrow we get to wander Athens. Acropolis, here we come!
