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AcroKorinthia

Corinth Travel Blog › entry 8 of 23 › view all entries

David and Sylvia off on a trip to Greece: the first week with easycruise visiting Delphi, Naphlia, Corinth, Patmos & Athens. Then we took a plane to Mykonos, Ferry to Santorini and a plane to Crete..Visiting Knossos, Malia, Gortina, Gornia,... and many more! We traveled without reservations and had times when we were a little nervous about where we would spend the night... but it worked out & we had a blast.

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World › Europe › Greece › Corinth

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AcroKorinthia

October 24, 2008

View from Acrocorinth down to ancient Corinth... amazing...

We left the ship early and got into the car.... We had decided to drive to Naphlia .... originally the ship was supposed to be docked there but they said it was too shallow of a bay so we would need to either take a bus or find our own way.... Thank goodness for a car so we could drive ourselves early.

When we had visited ancient Corinth a few days ago I had looked longingly at the ancient towers at the top of a mountain above Corinth.... AcroKorinthios.... I asked David if he would consider looking for the entrance to see if it would be possible to get up to it.... He's such a good sport.... He drove around until he found the signs and we followed them up an incredibly steep mountain .

sign at the parking lot

.. at some places the road was in poor repair and dropping over the sides.... yikes.... it was a pretty sheer drop. (Yeah, Angela.... you would have fainted....) We kept going up and up.... We could see the modern city of Corinth and the Ancient site getting smaller and smaller....

We finally arrived at a little parking lot. It had a cute cafe / coffee shop and a snack wagen with a flat tire. There were several cars in the parking lot. This astonished us as it was a steep climb and it was only 8:45 in the morning. We walked in and found there was no entry fee and they gave us a free map / brochure. (David said there's no fee because only the brave and tenacious would visit) We walked through the site and were astonished at how large it was.

the castle wall

We first went to the side of Corinthia and spotted ancient Corinth below us... We were so high above it! The walk in the lower part was very steep... it was all up hill or down hill.... We walked around the side and found some workers repairing one of the walls. To carry the concrete, water and sand they had a unique and efficient catapillar / wheelbarrow. It was motorized and bumped along the path carrying the load. The path was really rough stones. We had to watch where we walked constantly as it was so rough. We looked out the side by the workers and could see the orchards of olives and oranges. We were sooo high! But we were not at the highest place in the site.

We looked up at the top buildings.

A worker w/ the tool of the year: tractor/catapiller/wheelbarrow.

.. It was so far up.... David looked at me sternly and said we are not going up there as it would take an hour up and an hour back..... I couldn't argue... but.... I saw a path that a second group of concrete workers had made that was in the dirt and ground instead of on the rough rocks... It went towards the top so we followed it up.... we got to another level and we were lots closer to the top ..... The level had the water wells and what appeared to be a watering system ..... We continued following the workers path and got amazingly to the next point..... we left the worker's path and joined the normal tourist path.... On one of the flat rocks next to the trail someone had placed a group of what I thought was rocks then I realized it was pottery shards.

David showing the wall is taller than he is

.. I looked at the pile of rocks next to it and saw a bunch of shards... I just about fainted... But then I kept seeing them on the path... I picked up several and took pictures... (it doesn't take much to entertain me....) We walked almost to the last and highest buildings then turned back.. We got high enough to see the beginning of the Corinth canal.. the pathways were not well marked and it was difficult going once we left the workman's dirt path ....

We headed back ... There was a very old church on the grounds that appeared to be used sometimes.... It had the most interesting door frame ... old carved marble .... Inside was a bunch of chairs and pictures ... We were the only tourist until we were walking out the front area.

David relaxing on the cafe back porch

...

We got back to the parking lot area and stopped to have a cup of coffee at the little cafe... (we try to help the economy...lol..) We sat on the back balcony area looking out and down at the olive orchards far below us .... people were working in them and we could faintly hear the chainsaws.... It was so peaceful with the birds singing... the people who owned the place had a couple of young kids running around playing... Life is Good!

When we walked out to the parking lot the snack wagen was open ... a lady was there with her little 2 years old daughter. We bought two waters and I tried to talk to the little girl. I tried hello in Greek, hello in English ... her mom was urging her to answer.... then I blew a kiss..... Ahhh.... the universal language of love... she began blowing kisses over and over .... It was so cute! David and I loved it!