I was woken at dawn, by sparrows twittering, church bells ringing, and cockerels. I slipped out onto the terrace to take photos of the sunrise; but then, I'm afraid I slipped back into bed and did a Sudoku before getting up properly and showering. So in the end I was later getting going than I'd meant to be.
Still a bit tired after my journey here, I suppose. That's one of the things I've learned from this trip; I find travelling tiring, and that's okay. It isn't a new phenomenon, I always have found a day spent in transit surprisingly wearisome. What's new is finally accepting the fact, instead of being cross with myself about it.
Anyway, I'm finding myself progressively less tired after each journey-day during this trip, which has to be a good sign. As proved by the fact that although I was late getting up and getting down to breakfast, I have just "done" the ruins of Roman Corinth, instead of spending my first day here pottering about doing nothing much. I had my breakfast and then I spent 4 1/2 hours in one of the largest and most complicated sites I've yet visited.
I arrived at the gates of the Ancient Corinth archaeological zone just after 9.30 (I'd planned to be there before 9.00 as it opens at 8.00).
I didn't go in immediately as I stopped to peek at two other small ruins nearby; the Theatre and the Odeion. The former was open and unfenced, the latter completely shut, but one could get a good view through the railings. According to Pausanias, the theatre was next to a sanctuary of Athena With The Bridle, commemorating how the goddess helped the local hero Bellerophon capture the winged horse Pegasus; while near the Odeion he was shown the tomb-shrine of the murdered children of Medea.
Then I paid my six Euros and headed into the main excavation.
In the morning light, the columns of the Doric Temple of Apollo were standing dark against the sky, casting long oblique shadows. I wandered slowly around them, and stood gazing out at the whole site from the ridge of higher ground the Temple stands on, and feeling a tad overwhelmed. It is a very big area.
A van with a loud-speaker went by just as I was looking at the reconstruction on one of the interpretation signs and feeling slightly shell-shocked at the scale of it all; and a loud voice began urging people to come and buy fish. A bit surreal, and very Greek, to be staring at ancient Roman ruins and listening to a fishmonger's megaphoned patter about beautiful sardines and anchovies...
I realised as I began to walk around just how much my memories of my one previous visit had been shaped by frustration; at myself for being lame and slow and struggling with my walking stick, and at the guide, who was fast and impatient, and mainly interested in the Apostle Paul. I remember that I got left behind every time our group moved on. Several times, by the time I caught up, she was already near the end of her English spiel and about to switch to Dutch; so there were some things we were taken to see where I was never quite sure what they were. And the one place where she stopped and talked at length was at the Bema, the public speakers' rostrum where Paul is supposed to have defended himself before the Roman Consul Gallius. I'm not a huge fan of St Paul and I was irritated by the emphasis on him. Silly really; it's all just history and part of what has shaped our world.
Needless to say, today I watched as groups were all taken swiftly to the Bema and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it isn't due to anyone being extra-keen on St Paul, so much as that he's used as a hook to get visitors here in the first place. Ancient Corinth isn't in the front rank of really famous ancient Greek sites (I think that list probably goes; the Acropolis, Mycenae, the Theatre of Epidavros, and the Macedonian Tombs of Vergina, in that order); it isn't generally a bucket list place, though it was on mine. A strong story like that, featuring someone you learned about in school, probably really helps the place come alive if you aren't an ancient history snob like me.
The first coaches today arrived at around 10.00; so for the first thirty minutes I had the place virtually to myself. Even at the height of the day there were only a dozen or so guided groups onsite. They spread out enough that I could wander between them in a happy daze among the ancient stones baking in the sun.
Oh yes, there was plenty of sun. It's been another really fine day, a gorgeous perfect autumnal day with blue sky, cool air and hot sun, a few brave cicadas still singing, and the leaves on the plane trees just starting to turn.
I had to keep saying to myself as I walked round "It's only Roman, it's only Roman..." because so much of the site is really open and you can walk on the ancient road surfaces, touch the ancient carved columns and capitals. In the UK we would rush all of this stuff into a museum as soon as it was uncovered; but then, we'd be afraid of the damp getting to it. Here, even in the rainy season, that kind of persistent wetness just isn't a problem.
Close by to the Temple of Apollo there's an area where there was a group of little temples and monuments along the top of a slope, with steps up to each one from the Agora; the Temples of Aphrodite Genetrix, Apollo of Klaros, Herakles, Poseidon (built over a spring-house), and Tyche, the goddess of fortune, plus one that has never been identified, and a private monument to one Gnaeus Babbius Philinus, who built the little Poseidon Temple. Pausanias mentions these in succession, just the way you find them now, as if he too went past them all in a row. He also mentions "a sanctuary of all the gods" in the same area, but presumably no-one thinks this is the unidentified temple because it's too small for that...
Then down to the Spring of Peirene, supposedly created when Pegasus cracked the dry earth open with his hoof. Pausanias says the water of Peirene is sweet to drink and was also use in bronze foundries - quite what for is slightly cryptic as there's one of those infuriating bits of missing text here.
You can't go inside the Peirene Spring, only look down at the decorative façade and the row of entrances to the public basins where people could draw water. In the 1920s the American archaeologist Carl Blegen apparently spent a good deal of time crawling around on his hands and knees in ice-cold spring water, exploring all the passageways at the back of Peirene and mapping the sources. There's a photograph of him in the site museum, standing at the entrance to one of the basins, barefoot and rather grubby, smoking a well-deserved cigarette.
You can still hear the water when you stand there; it's absolutely rushing through. Even though I wasn't able to drink from it, I can vouch that Peirene is still flowing fast through its ancient channels.
Finally I went along the marble-paved Roman road to Lechaion, which Pausanias calls "the straight road" as though that's a distinctive feature (of a Roman road?!). It goes past the colonnade of Apollo and the Baths of Eurykles ("Corinth has plenty of baths -the best known of them... was built by a Spartan, Eurykles"). It was the Cardo of the city, the main north-south road, and according to the interpretation sign there it was still in use as a regular road right up until 1858, when it was damaged and blocked by an earthquake.
Corinth in ancient times had two seaports, Lechaion on the west of the Isthmus, a couple of miles away and connected to the city by a pair of Long Walls, and Kenchreai to the east. Between the two, for good measure, ran an extraordinary thing called the Diolkos; a paved road for hauling ships over the Isthmus of Corinth between the ports. Sadly I won't be getting to visit the remains of that, or either of the ports. I'm almost out of time on this trip!
I was fairly tired by now, but that didn't stop me visiting the museum. It's one of the larger ones I've been in outside Athens and unsurprisingly it has a lot of excellent Roman exhibits, including fine glasswares, mosaics, statues and portrait busts. But also a fascinating room of prehistoric and Archaic finds from the local area, and some lovely Byzantine pottery from the settlements here in the Middle Ages.
It's taken so long to write Sunday up because I have been struggling to describe my visit without simply resorting to saying "Then I saw this and then I saw this and then...". There is so much to see that it would have been quite feasible just to write a long list like that; I haven't covered everything in this description. Corinth is amazing and should be on anyone's itinerary. The excavated area is just a small part of the ancient city. It must have been so splendid in its heyday...
And now Monday is drawing to a close and I still have my walk up Acrocorinth, and the tremendous castle at the top, to record! I also need to have some supper and pack my case. Tomorrow I move on back to Athens, for my last day here. And on Thursday morning I fly back to London.
That's a pretty strange thought, I must say. This has been an amazing month.
The gradual progression of dawn across the sky, until the eastern face of the Acrocorinth is lit up suddenly by the first rays of sunlight
Still a bit tired after my journey here, I suppose. That's one of the things I've learned from this trip; I find travelling tiring, and that's okay. It isn't a new phenomenon, I always have found a day spent in transit surprisingly wearisome. What's new is finally accepting the fact, instead of being cross with myself about it.
Anyway, I'm finding myself progressively less tired after each journey-day during this trip, which has to be a good sign. As proved by the fact that although I was late getting up and getting down to breakfast, I have just "done" the ruins of Roman Corinth, instead of spending my first day here pottering about doing nothing much. I had my breakfast and then I spent 4 1/2 hours in one of the largest and most complicated sites I've yet visited.
I arrived at the gates of the Ancient Corinth archaeological zone just after 9.30 (I'd planned to be there before 9.00 as it opens at 8.00).
Looking into the site from the road
I didn't go in immediately as I stopped to peek at two other small ruins nearby; the Theatre and the Odeion. The former was open and unfenced, the latter completely shut, but one could get a good view through the railings. According to Pausanias, the theatre was next to a sanctuary of Athena With The Bridle, commemorating how the goddess helped the local hero Bellerophon capture the winged horse Pegasus; while near the Odeion he was shown the tomb-shrine of the murdered children of Medea.
Roman stepped street beside the ancient theatre
Earthern embankments of the ancient theatre, looking from the wings, stage left
Carved column capital in the theatre
The rock-cut seats of the Roman Odeion
Then I paid my six Euros and headed into the main excavation.
In the morning light, the columns of the Doric Temple of Apollo were standing dark against the sky, casting long oblique shadows. I wandered slowly around them, and stood gazing out at the whole site from the ridge of higher ground the Temple stands on, and feeling a tad overwhelmed. It is a very big area.
Only seven columns are still standing, out of an original forty-two (six on each short side and fifteen down each long side) and the majority of the cut stone has been robbed-out over the centuries
Cuttings in the bedrock show where the foundations of the Temple were
A very large site...
A van with a loud-speaker went by just as I was looking at the reconstruction on one of the interpretation signs and feeling slightly shell-shocked at the scale of it all; and a loud voice began urging people to come and buy fish. A bit surreal, and very Greek, to be staring at ancient Roman ruins and listening to a fishmonger's megaphoned patter about beautiful sardines and anchovies...
I realised as I began to walk around just how much my memories of my one previous visit had been shaped by frustration; at myself for being lame and slow and struggling with my walking stick, and at the guide, who was fast and impatient, and mainly interested in the Apostle Paul. I remember that I got left behind every time our group moved on. Several times, by the time I caught up, she was already near the end of her English spiel and about to switch to Dutch; so there were some things we were taken to see where I was never quite sure what they were. And the one place where she stopped and talked at length was at the Bema, the public speakers' rostrum where Paul is supposed to have defended himself before the Roman Consul Gallius. I'm not a huge fan of St Paul and I was irritated by the emphasis on him. Silly really; it's all just history and part of what has shaped our world.
Needless to say, today I watched as groups were all taken swiftly to the Bema and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it isn't due to anyone being extra-keen on St Paul, so much as that he's used as a hook to get visitors here in the first place. Ancient Corinth isn't in the front rank of really famous ancient Greek sites (I think that list probably goes; the Acropolis, Mycenae, the Theatre of Epidavros, and the Macedonian Tombs of Vergina, in that order); it isn't generally a bucket list place, though it was on mine. A strong story like that, featuring someone you learned about in school, probably really helps the place come alive if you aren't an ancient history snob like me.
The first coaches today arrived at around 10.00; so for the first thirty minutes I had the place virtually to myself. Even at the height of the day there were only a dozen or so guided groups onsite. They spread out enough that I could wander between them in a happy daze among the ancient stones baking in the sun.
General view of the Agora, with a guided group at the Bema
Me, just wandering
Oh yes, there was plenty of sun. It's been another really fine day, a gorgeous perfect autumnal day with blue sky, cool air and hot sun, a few brave cicadas still singing, and the leaves on the plane trees just starting to turn.
I had to keep saying to myself as I walked round "It's only Roman, it's only Roman..." because so much of the site is really open and you can walk on the ancient road surfaces, touch the ancient carved columns and capitals. In the UK we would rush all of this stuff into a museum as soon as it was uncovered; but then, we'd be afraid of the damp getting to it. Here, even in the rainy season, that kind of persistent wetness just isn't a problem.
Strolling on bits of Roman carving...
Close by to the Temple of Apollo there's an area where there was a group of little temples and monuments along the top of a slope, with steps up to each one from the Agora; the Temples of Aphrodite Genetrix, Apollo of Klaros, Herakles, Poseidon (built over a spring-house), and Tyche, the goddess of fortune, plus one that has never been identified, and a private monument to one Gnaeus Babbius Philinus, who built the little Poseidon Temple. Pausanias mentions these in succession, just the way you find them now, as if he too went past them all in a row. He also mentions "a sanctuary of all the gods" in the same area, but presumably no-one thinks this is the unidentified temple because it's too small for that...
On the right are the bases of the row of little Roman temples
Steps up to one of them from the Agora
I think the circular one was Gn. Babbius Philinus' monument
Spare columns kept in storage
The Romans were very keen on decorative carving - masses of it - sometimes it seems as though every possible surface was decorated. There's a lot of it lying around as a result
Looking down between two of the small temples, into the Agora
I wandered along the great stoas, the colonnades of shops that once lined the Agora, and across the wide open space of the Agora itself, looking at the remains of a couple of the dedications there; a Heroon and a giant freestanding column. 
The South Stoa
...which housed shops, drinking houses, a council chamber, a public fountain and the headquarters of the administration for the Isthmian Games
A statue still in situ outside the Bouleuterion or council chamber
This giant column wasn't part of any structure; it must have supported a statue or other dedication; perhaps the large bronze Athena Pausanias mentions?
The "Heroon of the Crossroads"; an early Bronze Age cemetery at the meeting of the Cardo and Decumanus, the main north-south and east-west streets. It was turned into a cult sanctuary although we have no record of who was supposed to have been buried there
The Heroon with the Bema in the background
Then down to the Spring of Peirene, supposedly created when Pegasus cracked the dry earth open with his hoof. Pausanias says the water of Peirene is sweet to drink and was also use in bronze foundries - quite what for is slightly cryptic as there's one of those infuriating bits of missing text here.
You can't go inside the Peirene Spring, only look down at the decorative façade and the row of entrances to the public basins where people could draw water. In the 1920s the American archaeologist Carl Blegen apparently spent a good deal of time crawling around on his hands and knees in ice-cold spring water, exploring all the passageways at the back of Peirene and mapping the sources. There's a photograph of him in the site museum, standing at the entrance to one of the basins, barefoot and rather grubby, smoking a well-deserved cigarette.
You can still hear the water when you stand there; it's absolutely rushing through. Even though I wasn't able to drink from it, I can vouch that Peirene is still flowing fast through its ancient channels.
Finally I went along the marble-paved Roman road to Lechaion, which Pausanias calls "the straight road" as though that's a distinctive feature (of a Roman road?!). It goes past the colonnade of Apollo and the Baths of Eurykles ("Corinth has plenty of baths -the best known of them... was built by a Spartan, Eurykles"). It was the Cardo of the city, the main north-south road, and according to the interpretation sign there it was still in use as a regular road right up until 1858, when it was damaged and blocked by an earthquake.
The Lechaion Road, looking north
The Colonnade of Apollo, which probably housed more shops
The Baths of Eurykles
This monumental staircase is pretty much all that's left of the formal entrance to the road that Pausanias describes
And this is part of the road to the eastern port of Kenchreai
Corinth in ancient times had two seaports, Lechaion on the west of the Isthmus, a couple of miles away and connected to the city by a pair of Long Walls, and Kenchreai to the east. Between the two, for good measure, ran an extraordinary thing called the Diolkos; a paved road for hauling ships over the Isthmus of Corinth between the ports. Sadly I won't be getting to visit the remains of that, or either of the ports. I'm almost out of time on this trip!
I was fairly tired by now, but that didn't stop me visiting the museum. It's one of the larger ones I've been in outside Athens and unsurprisingly it has a lot of excellent Roman exhibits, including fine glasswares, mosaics, statues and portrait busts. But also a fascinating room of prehistoric and Archaic finds from the local area, and some lovely Byzantine pottery from the settlements here in the Middle Ages.
This one is not Roman but 5th century BC
Mycenean-era pottery
And finally these two lovely bits of Byzantine ceramic; a sailing ship...
...and a loving couple
I had arrived at 9.30; I snacked late morning on some nuts and grissini, and I finally left at about 10 past 2 in the afternoon. Staggered as far as the nearest café and was welcomed by a friendly Greek-Canadian woman who sat me down at a shady table and brought me moussaka and salad and a large ice-cold soda water. To Tavernaki tou Gambrou; perfect lunch stop. It's taken so long to write Sunday up because I have been struggling to describe my visit without simply resorting to saying "Then I saw this and then I saw this and then...". There is so much to see that it would have been quite feasible just to write a long list like that; I haven't covered everything in this description. Corinth is amazing and should be on anyone's itinerary. The excavated area is just a small part of the ancient city. It must have been so splendid in its heyday...
And now Monday is drawing to a close and I still have my walk up Acrocorinth, and the tremendous castle at the top, to record! I also need to have some supper and pack my case. Tomorrow I move on back to Athens, for my last day here. And on Thursday morning I fly back to London.
That's a pretty strange thought, I must say. This has been an amazing month.
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