FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: The Peloponnese

Private tours seems to be a theme of late...today's tour was one giving us a taster of The Peloponnese, the peninsula to the west of Athens on the Greek mainland. We had 10 hours to see as much as we could. Our enabler today was George, our driver guide. He was ready to go in the comfy Mercedes right on 0800 and we were off.

First stop. Corinth Canal. Construction only began in the late 1880's and prior to this, people would carry their boats across the isthmus taking up to one month to do so. It was no Panama Canal but still pretty impressive. The nearby Ancient Corinth was a popular site for various reasons, one of them being where the Apostle Paul preached Christianity and was judged by the tribunal in the Agora. We got to the Temple of Apollo before the tour buses and was able to admire the Doric temple in peace.

Corinth Canal linking the Corinthian Gulf to the Aegean Sea

The ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Ancient Corinth, with pillars made from a single slab of limestone

Examples of mosaics found at Ancient Corinth

Ancient Greek Bath House

Ancient Corinth with Acrocorinth in the background

Next up Mycenae from 2000BC. The mind boggles. This was where the stuff Homer wrote about happened. Achilles, Agamemnon, Helen of Troy...lucky we had our resident Ancient Greek expert in Jonah. By now it was getting hot and we weren't sure how people did this in summer! There were many struggling to make it up to see the site of Agamemnon's Palace, ourselves included.

Mycenae Cyclopean walls

The ancient Lion Gate of 1250BC

Walking around "Grave Circle A" and ancient royal cemetery

Entrance to a tholos tomb

Extremely spacious inside!

It was a relief to get to the port city of Nafplio, the capital of Greece until 1834. We were informed that the old city offered the unique architecture of Venetian, neoclassical and oriental elements. We saw a very pretty town which was pleasant to walk and wander. Our highlight was lunch at Buonos. George recommended a seafood restaurant and offered to order for us in Greek. He was however unable to get a parking spot nearby! Fortunately for us, this time the owner was very friendly and pleasant. We settled upon a whole seabass, prawn linguine (apparent the area known for its prawn) as well as razorclams cooked in garlic and white wine. The food was AMAZING!

View from Acronafplia

So many restaurants! We would have been wandering around for a while if not for George

Our table and view for lunch

Razorclams with garlic and white wine

Looks ordinary but packs a punch!

Our whole sea bass

The streets of Nafplio

We had time to squeeze in a visit to the Theatre of Epidaurus dating from the 4th century BC. We were too afraid to test out the acoustics reportedly still excellent even to this day. By this stage, we were exhausted. George had to contend with our snores on the 2 hour drive back to Athens. George had some last minute driving tips to help us for our next leg. The first was to do with speed limits and his pearl of wisdom goes something along the lines of...If signed at 80km/hr, you can go at 100-120 comfortably but maybe not 130 because after all it is not the autobahn. And do be careful because the speeding fine is around 500-600 euros. But you should be fine because there are not many police outside of Athens. Um ok.

The second tip was to do with roundabouts. Once you are in the roundabout, you have to give way to traffic coming into the roundabout. UNLESS, there are stop signs going into the roundabout, in which case you use driving rules for roundabouts like in Australia. Eh?!?! Say what? Luckily for us, he says, there should not be too many roundabouts in Greece. And with that he dropped us back at our hotel!

Getting ready to enter stage left! or is it right?!

So many steps up...

They desperately needed a rest...

The impressive theatre of Epidaurus. Did you know that ancient Greek "hospitals" were always next to a theatre?

We had just enough time for a quick rest before we farewelled Athens at the Point A restaurant. We've saved fine dining for last and it didn't disappoint. It had been a whirlwind visit to Athens and 2.5 days was just about right for us. We were ready to explore the rest of Greece.