Day 21 Piraeus to Napflio

We picked up a hire car to start our week long road trip around Greece and our first stop was the Corinth canal, a very narrow stretch of water linking the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf and the Aegean sea. We walked the foot bridge and watched a boat pass by. The bridge, like many all over the world had some padlocks on it but weirdly most people had tied pieces of plastic bags and even a few socks on it. Perhaps we should have demonstrated our love by tying an old chocolate wrapper we had handy to the railing of the bridge over the Corinth Canal, definitely one for eternity!

Our next stop was in Ancient Corinth and the Acrocorinth which is a fortress on a mountain, built back in the 4th centurt BC. It was a bit of a hike to the top but the view over the Peloponnese is superb, however on the way back down the stone path was very slippery from all the centuries of people walking over it.

The Temple of Apollo was at the bottom of the mountain and was a nice place to stop for lunch before we drove on to see one of only two submersible bridges in the world, both of which go under the Corinth Canal. They work the opposite way to bridges that open up to let boats through, these ones submerge eight metres to allow boats to pass over the top. It would have been good to see it working and there was a sign that told you the next time it would be in operation but as it was in Greek it was all Greek to us. We drove over it while it was dry which was probably a good thing as its apparently quite slippery when still wet so not a good thing to be attempting in a hire car.

Our next stop was Epidaurus which has a magnificently well preserved amphitheatre, unfortunately a peaceful visit  was marred by tourists deciding to stand in the centre of the stage and sing .... an oldish British man showing off his amateurish opera skills wasn't quite as bad as the American woman who decided to sing the entire US national anthem right (multiple verses) - why is it always Americans? It then started to rain, making the rest of the site a bit miserable to view.

Our final sightseeing visit for the day was to Mycenae, a large archaeological palace and fort from 1300BC, which had gates that could secure it, one was the Lion Gate with large carved lions is still in place.

We spent the night at Napflio near the coast which is quite close to Mycenae and had its own huge fort that was lit up all night and which we could clearly see from our hotel room.