Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 6 - Sunday May 15th 2016 - Athens (Pireus) Greece

So the alarm woke us up again once more and after a quick coffee and breakfast it was time to head down to the theatre to meet at the designated Royal Caribbean spot for our trip out for the day. Corinth and the Corinth Canal.

Now before I go on we should explain that Piraeus which is the port we have docked in today is a very short distance from Athens itself but were not going there. Odd? Well not really, we have been to Piraeus twice before on cruise ships and each time we have headed for Athens central and ultimately the Acropolis. As impressive as this ancient wonder is a third time might of just been a bit too much and our trip today would take us in the opposite direction and on to new memories and a different look at ancient Greece.

We boarded coach number two with our Greek female guide who happened to be a fully trained archaeologist. Now she was a mind of information and facts and dates and she spewed information endlessly but that was the problem. The coaches P.A. system did not fall quiet one part of this day trip and after an hour or so as interesting as she was her voice did start to grate just enough for you to tune out from what she was saying sometimes

The coach headed out of Piraeus and followed the coast passing a large car boot sale selling what looked like junk and scraps and make shift Syrian refugee camps

You have to remember that modern Greece really is in a state of disrepair at the moment with an all but bankrupt economy and and influx of refugees that still keep arriving putting the already fragile financial reserves of the country in great peril.

Our first stop was a bridge that crosses over the top of the Corinth Canal to take in the spectacle from above. Later we would be travelling down it by boat but this stop was to give us that different perspective. As we stepped of the coach we were all approached by Syrian refugee children, barefooted and begging for euros. The Greeks would be understandably shooing them of away from us all despite being able to see the despair in their eyes. They were bare footed and dusty from the dry land. There clothes were torn and ragged and faded form the sun. The dust from the dry land had impregnated the fabric of their clothing but this was a better option than what they had left behind? We gave them some euros…..

So back to the canal, with its high canyon walls and brilliantly blue ocean carpet it really is a feast for the eyes to see. The canyon itself is some 25 metres wide and 80 meters high and it’s this height to width ratio that makes it so impressive. It was actually started by the same people that built the Suez Canal but they did not finish it due to running out of money so it was finished by a Greek company in the end. As we looked down on the canal Yachts came sailing through under motor power and it really added to the sheer scale of this feat of engineering. We were really looking forward to going through it later on the boat itself but for now it was time to board the coach again and head off into the surrounding hills and the ancient city of Corinth.

To look at its fair to say that Corinth is nowhere near as impressive as the Acropolis or Pompeii or Ephesus but its place in history is very import and and it could be the oldest ruins in the whole of ancient Greece but it’s hard to date it that accurately. It was built by the Pagans and ultimately destroyed by the Christians (you got to love religion) as Greece was fed Christianity. The Christians then plundered the town for its stone and granite to build new cities and town and churches for the new one god hence why much of the city is now random stones laid around the ground with only very few structures remotely resembling their past and their glory. Those that had been refurbished had been restored by archology teams over the years since the town was rediscovered by a school of American archaeologists.

The city itself was built high upon a hill overlooking the two bays (the Corinth canal was later built to connect these two bays) and it has predominantly an important trading town imposing high taxes on goods arriving making the city wealthy.

The town has many claims to fame in both its religious importance and also in terms of architectural reference. Ever heard of a Corinthian column? Think of the front of the British Museum…. yep those columns…..named after the columns first used here. There are many many historical facts we learnt as our guide walked us round the site, far too many to list here but the important things is that Corinth really is an important town in the worlds history and evolution and although I can’t say its impressive it certainly made sense of many history lessons or stories you picked up along the road of life as they started here. We were stood in the middle of a real history lesson.

We were soon on the coach again and heading back towards the Corinth Canal and the motor powered catamaran that would take us down the length of the canal itself. There were three coach loads of day-trippers waiting at the one gang plank to get on-board todays vessel and I’m sure it does not take much imagination to realise that it was a bit of a shove, push, nudge, elbow scrum to get on board as everyone wanted to be on the open top deck. Somehow we managed it and sat right at the back of the boat really looking forward to the cruise.

As we said before the colour of the water here is just a dream like blue and so crystal clear.

Ancient writers refer that in 602BC, Periandros the Tyrant of Corinth and one of the Seven Sages of Antiquity, was the first man to seriously consider the possibility of opening a canal through the Isthmus. Periandros is said to have given up on his plans fearing the wrath of the gods. Pythia, the priestess of the Delphic Oracle, warned him not to proceed. As time marched on and old fear of gods changed and indeed gods changed the Canal was finally completed in 1893 some 2495 years after it was first thought about. It connects Corinth Bay to Saronic Bay and saves some 131 nautical miles in the process. `We travelled both up and down the canal and the same time a Greek buffet was laid on for us. We were at the back of the queue for the food as we had been taking the canal in, so by the time we reached the food we really were left with a few cucumber slices and over oily potatoes that had been on the bottom of the tray but it really did not matter. The one thing you are never short of on a cruise is food and we have already engaged in far too much of it!

The canal trip was worth every penny it cost and even worth putting up with an organised coach tour and we were so glad that we had tried something different. Now it was time for the coach once more and an hour’s drive back to the boat in Piraeus.

Back on board Trev was feeling the effects of not having had the best lunch so we headed up to Seaplex and the hotdog van to get him a snack then it was back to the cabin, reading for a bit going for coffee and just chilling. We were by this stage in the early evening feeling tired but dinner was calling with tonight a return to the American Icon restaurant.

The table next to us started up a conversation that never seemed to end, don’t get me wrong they were lovely people and really nice to talk but it made eating our dinner a little difficult. Still they were as we say lovely and after that was a long dinner with mixed service we left them behind to walk the outside decks on deck 14 and 15 as the weather has really started to get warm now. So with a big dinner inside us (four courses tonight) and feeling tired it was time to give in to it and Trev went back to the room and ultimately to bed. I just could not face going straight to bed on such a full stomach so I went down and met up with Michael and Martin in the wine bar, had a glass of wine and came back to the cabin to find Trev fast asleep.

Shattered myself I don’t remember falling asleep at all.

The way it should be…….another great great day.