Day 3: Of Corinth and Cobblestones and one Mighty big hill

The wakeup call at 5.30 certainly sounded early in theory, but unfortunately the body clock was still set to Sydney time and so I was actually awake when the alarm went off. Buffet breakfast Hotel Electra style was obscenely delicious… cereals juices fruits breads pastries, puddings and even spinach pie. Eeeeek I have never seen anything like it. Off on the bus at 7am. First stop the Corinth canal. This canal was actually started by Emperor Nero in the first century CE. Seems he was thinking that a canal that joined the Aegean Sea with the Adriatic Sea would be a great legacy. Unfortunately he only got 50 metres into the construction and surrendered. The finished product didn’t happen until the late 19^th century. It is 800 metres long but only 27 metres wide and has walls that tower 80 metres above sea level. It would be very squeezy to be on a big ship passing thru, but the canal officially separated Attica from the Peloponnese. 

After the canal stop it was off to Corinth, scene of former licentiousness and debauchery by those early Christians who Paul was trying to keep on the straight and narrow. It was here that we saw the temple to Apollo and the remains of Roman baths and the bema, or the public platform where the Proconsul Galleo acquitted Paul of preaching heresy in Acts 18. We learned that after being acquitted, Paul remained in Corinth for about a year and a half, pursuing his tent making and preaching the Way. He felt that there was much to be done because Corinth was such a problem. It was a port city with many sailors and prostitution was rife. I guess it helps to understand some of Paul's obsession in Corinthians with sexual morality.

Under the shade of some trees, surrounded by little clumps of poppies and in sight of the ruins of the temple of Apollo we celebrated Mass for today. It was a very special experience to be breaking bread just as the earliest Christians had. It caused me to think about some of the very beautiful passages of scripture that we reuse that come from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Love is patient, one body one spirit, and his Eucharist institution narrative to name a few.

After Mass we had the chance to wander through the museum where they have a fantastic array of statuary and domestic utensils, some dating back as far as the 5^th century BCE. We learned that the Roman statues were constructed headless. Kind of a form of 2000 year old airbrushing really. You construct the body that you like and then put the head on it… mix and match to suit the occasion, and if the person being honoured in the statue fell into disrepute then one could always replace the head with the  next good thing. Very economical one feels. The other thing that our guide Melina told us was about the destruction of many of the Greek temples and areas by the Romans when they invaded and then when Julius Caesar came along, he tried to undo the damage by restoring and replacing etc. On the way out of Corinth we stopped back at the canal for a quick sandwich before seeing the ancient port of Cenchrae. It is no more than a few piles of rocks on the coastline, but it is the port from where St Paul sailed in his journeys across the Aegean.,

Going back by the same route we returned to Athens and headed in the direction of the mighty big hill, the Acropolis. It towers over the whole of Athens, being the highest land mark in the city. Acropolis literally means fortified hill and on top of that mighty big hill is a series of 4 key buildings of the ancient Greek era started by Pericles in about 400 BCE. But first we had to walk up all the cobblestone and uneven marble bits. It was some hike. On the way up we saw a well preserved Greek theatre that is still used for production. The first building is the just before the entrance way. It is dedicated to the goddess Athena Nike. It is said to protect the Parthenon. Beyond that, up more stairs on the western side of the complex is the Propylea. This entrance gate was originally a roofed building with a magnificent marble roof, however at some stage in history it was used as a gunpowder storage facility and a lighting strike literally sent the remnants of the roof sky high. 

Further over to the back northern corner of the site is the Erechtheion. This temple which has some beautiful surviving statuary around the outside is supposed to have been dedicated to Erechtheus, the mythical King of Athens. And then finally the Parthenon. What an amazing structure. So complex in its design with corner columns that are larger than the intervening ones and apparently straight walls that are actually curved. They are working extensively to renovate the Parthenon at the moment and so the downside is that there is scaffolding everywhere. But that does not detract from the sheer overwhelming immensity of the construction. Awe inspiring. From the top we could also see the remnants of the Greek market that were largely destroyed by the Romans, but there in that space is the best surviving example of an almost complete temple in the ancient world. It was built to honour the god of ironmongering and it stands there among the ruins a bit like a mini Parthenon. We also saw the remains of the temple to Zeus, built in the Roman times. 

Hiking back down we came to the Areopagus, the rock on which St Paul first preached Christianity in Athens. It is a huge rocky outcrop in the shadow of the Acropolis and it is very difficult to climb and to wander over. We were certainly struggling in the footsteps of St Paul here! The juxtaposition of Paul, preaching about the unseen God, the God that could not be contained in temples or by statues was very powerful. He certainly had a great marketing strategy. 

The Acropolis closed early today because of it being Easter Saturday and so we went back into the Plaka area of Athens and our guide Melina wanted to take us and show us some of the sights near the hotel. What was going to be a brief walk ended up being almost 2 hours of fascinating walking around ruins and hearing stories, especially about the Ottoman occupation and its consequence. A couple of very significant building stood out for me in this walk. One, at the bathhouse of the four winds, where Andronicus built an octagonal shaped building, one side of which represented each of the 8 wind directions. On the top of the construction there was originally a copper wind vane, the first of its kind. In addition the building housed an internal and external hydraulic clock… all of this two centuries before the birth of Christ. The other building was a Byzantine church which was appropriated as a mosque during the Ottoman occupation.  A beautiful building.

And as a post script to this blog. Watch the space tomorrow because I am about to upload this before hopefully heading off to Greek orthodox Easter Midnight Mass in a little square not far from the hotel. The church bells are peeling, calling everyone to proclaim resurrection. Hopefully I have the stamina to go the distance!