Castles and Fortresses..Where's the Prince?

I have to say that Corinth and Olympia have been my favorite part of Greece thus far. Though it is beautiful everywhere we go, these particular spots held special significance to me.

Our first stop in the adventure was at the Corinthian Canal. On the east side is the Aegean Sea part and on the west is the Ionian Sea. The water was a beautiful blue and the drop was amazingly far down. My friend Sara is going back to bungee jump the canal in April-- luckily it is too cold for it to be opened now or I might have been talked into doing something incredibly spontaneous and stupid. (I tend to live spontaneously here for some reason; I climb mountains and shove entire pieces of cake in my mouth-- it was a double dog dare-- I can't resist those.)

Next, we stopped at the ruins of an old Corinthian theater, the theater of Erastus. The huge boulders everywhere were impressive and we saw green grass for the first time in a while, but I think the most impressive thing at this site was a long, flat stone with Erastus' name carved in it. Historians believe this is the same Erastus that is mentioned in Romans 16:23, Acts 19:22, and 2 Timothy 4:20-- the treasurer who used his own money to pay for the pavement of this area. Another historical feature is a stone with Sostanes' name carved in it-- many believe this could be the Sostanes mentioned in Acts 18:17-- the synagogue ruler. Our tour guide told us that they also used this area as a gladiator arena. They turned the orchestra pit (which we saw) into a body of water and would act out naval battles. Seeing this theater/arena was neat because I just pictured movies like "Gladiator" and other movies that depict this type of recreation. (I guess those "boy" movies do come in handy..haha).

We then made our way to the museum. The first thing that we looked at before we went in was an ancient fountain. One of my favorite plays from World Literature class last year was "Medea," the story of a woman driven mad by romantic love (and you wonder why it's my favorite..) In the story, Medea's husband Jason leaves her for another princess. Medea gives his new bride a poison-robe wedding present. The princess puts it on-- and dies-- but legend has it that she burst into flames and jumped in this particular fountain. It was neat to see my favorite literature intertwined with what I was looking at.

I am very grateful that most of the statues in the museum were from the Roman period. Why? Because the Romans knew to put clothes on them. With the exception of a few, most had togas on. Most of them were headless, unfortunately, because of all statues-- the ones with clothes on should be the least ashamed to have a face to their figures-- right? Catharina told us that torsos were mass produced and then people paid to have a portrait face made-- makes sense. We also saw a statue of Octavian (who defeated Cleopatra and Marc Antony) and head busts of Nero and Julius Caesar. These were my favorites because I am familar with their stories.
Other neat museum features: There was a small, strange-looking statue of the god named Pan. Pan liked to cause trouble or "panic." This is just one of many things that we say that branches from this country's history. I have found that our language would be next to nothing without Greek language backing us up. On a completely random note, we also saw ancient tweezers (apparently Greek women liked to pluck now and then) and we saw fossilized fish scales.

The part I looked forward to the most was going to the Corinthian agora, where they have a spot where they know without a shadow of a doubt that Paul was there. It's called the Bema-- which was the central place where public speeches were heard. Paul was brought before Galliel (the procounsel of Achaia) here in Acts 18:12. We stood there as a group and sang-- and then Mr. Griffith prayed. I wish we could have stayed here longer, but our tour guide kept talking and walking. It was still a really moving experience.

Probably my favorite part of this day was climbing up the Acrocorinth. Like with the acropolis here, it is the highest point of the city. It is where everyone would go in time of war. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Though it's quite a hike, the view from the top is worth the journey. Being quite the little princess, of course I would love a place with castles and fortresses! While walking up I would picture the romantic nature of the view. Boys behind me were like, "I wonder how many people died right here. I bet a ton of people were slaughtered where we are right now." Boys! I wanted to run with my arms open wide through the wildflowers singing a Disney princess number while they just wanted to picture a man in armor getting impaled with spears. We had a picnic lunch on the top and it was just perfect. I did, however, get a little bit of the taste of the time. Whitney and I decided to take a "short cut," but soon found ourselves surrounded by a huge fort. We had to scale the walls and occasionally a few stones would fall down. I ruined a bit of world history. I admit it.

One of the other highlights of this tour was going to the famous theater of Epidaurus ( in honor of Dionysus the god of wine). This place is known for its perfect acoustics. Though it seats thousands, the people on the top row can hear just as well as those in the third row. Catharina stood in the middle of the orchestra and spoke with her soft little voice-- and we still heard her instructions. Being the singing group that we are, we had to try out this for ourselves. We sang a few songs, but we ended with my personal favorite, "The Greatest Command." It was so powerful-- some tourists from another group (who didn't even speak our language) clapped for us and some even took pictures. I bet they thought we were famous. I did sing a mad soprano part that day. Haha-- just kidding. They perform plays there in the summer and I would love to see one performed. Maybe I'll get to return someday.

The first night we stayed at a hotel that overlooked the ocean. It was just a quick walk and you were already at the water. The water, even in the night sky, was as blue as I've ever seen-- and the snow-capped mountains in the distance had a mesmorizing presence. The moon was full and reflected off the water. I felt like I was in a romantic movie, minus the boy-- except that for some reason it didn't bother me that I was alone. Occasionally, I would just wander off by myself, soaking it up. Later, Ben and I collected rocks from off the beach. Purple ones, blue ones-- every color you can imagine! One word for this place: magical. Wait til you see the pictures. I forgot to add: There is a small island in the water and there is just one house on it. I thought that would be the neatest place to live-- it's definately a good spot for a dad with many daughters. A guy would literally have to get in a boat to pick them up for prom. Our hotel rooms were nice-- but I have figured out that Greeks not only like their bread hard, but their beds as well.

If exploring dungeons and bastions (castle-like buildings) is for you-- if you like to see holes in the roof where they poured hot tar on their enemies-- then there is a place in Corinth for you. On the second day, we went into the Palamidi castle and saw the bastions of different saints-- one even named for the king from "300." There were no real safety features to this site so you felt like you were actually an "explorer." You could also fall to your death too. I absolutely loved this place and felt like I could use some more time there. We went into pitch-dark cisterns and dungeons. You could literally not see your hand in front of your face and your eyes were so adjusted to darkness that when you got to a less-dark part (that on the way in you couldn't see anything) on the way back out you could see because it wasn't as dark as the pit of the cistern. Before we left, we walked down 800 steps to get to the bottom. You could choose to do that or take the bus, but I chose to live the spontaneous life and go down the stairs. My legs were shaking when I got to the bottom, but it was so worth it. The view on the way down took your mind off the walking and instead of exhaustion-- I felt inspired and uplifted.

We'll call this part I. I'll briefly wrap up the Mycenae portion of our trip in the next entry.