July 17, 2012: Athens and Corinth

July 17, 2012: We boarded the bus for a full day of sightseeing. We started touring Athens. The name "Athens", not surprisingly, comes from the goddess Athena who gave olive trees to the Greeks. Some of these trees are over 1000 years old. Athens consists of seven hills and the Acropolis was built on the highest of these hills. The population of Athens has increased and decreased over time. There were 200,000 people when the Acropolis was built. Then, in 1821, Greece became independent and in 1833, Athens was made the capital of Greece. The population at that time was less than 3,000 people but it has grown since then to now be a city of 4.5 million (of a population of 11 million for the entire country).

Our first stop was to see the first Olympic stadium which holds 50,000 people. The Olympics first began long ago but were suspended by the Christians in 393 A.D. because they were originally performed in honor of the Greek gods. Then they were restarted in 1896 and have been held ever since then. The 2004 Olympic archery competition was held in this stadium.

original Olympic stadium

original Olympic stadium

original Olympic stadium

After the original Olympic stadium, we went to the Acropolis. The first temple we encountered on our way to the top was the Temple to Nike:

Nike Temple

 The following are more pictures of the Acropolis. I realize I've already shown several pictures of the Acropolis before, but who can resist taking more?

view from the Acropolis

View from the Acropolis

Erechtheon

Parthenon

Parthenon

After Athens, we went to Corinth on the Peloponnesus Peninsula. Corinth was one of the three largest cities in ancient times (along with Athens and Sparta). Athens was known for its educated people; Sparta for its warriors, and Corinth for its traders. In 146 B.C., the Romans and Greeks worked together to rebuild Corinth. In Corinth they built the first and oldest temple to Apollo. This temple has monolithic columns (as opposed to the columns of the Parthenon which consist of several pieces of stone mounted on each other):

Apollo Temple (note monolithic columns)

One of the first sites in the compound we visited was the Fountain of Glauky. Glauky was the girlfriend of Jason. Medea did not like Glauky and so she gave her a poisonous cloak to wear. When Glauky wore it, her body burned and so she jumped into a fountain to cool down, the Fountain of Glauky. Here are pictures of the ruins of Corinth:

Fountain of Glauky in foreground

mosaic

mosaic

view of area where Paul wrote Corinthians for the Bible

drain spout

mosaic

After visiting the ruins for Corinth, we went to see the Corinth Canal. Details of this engineering feat can be seen below:

Details of the Corinth Canal

What is amazing to me is how such an engineering feat can be achieved without using backhoes or other mechanical equipment. Before this canal was built, boats would have to sail around the entire Peloponnes Peninsula. To save time, some chose to disassemble their boats and roll them in parts on wheels across the 6343 meters to the other shore and then reassemble the boats to go on their way. After the canal was built, the boats could travel from one end of peninsula to the other. Here are pictures of the Corinth Canal:

Corinth Canal looking west

Corinth Canal looking east

After the Corinth Canal, we returned to Athens to explore the Plaka. Here are some pictures of that area:

bar in the Plaka

After exploring the Plaka, the choir went to a Greek restaurant where there was a show of Greek dancing, singing, and lots of fun. Below are pictures and videos of this dinner:

traditional bazouki player on right

Again I apologize for displaying some of the videos sideways because blogspot cannot rotate videos. The dancing was quite good with men "fighting" each other, dancing with women, and the dancing appeared to be of several different types of Greek tribes (at least I gathered this based on the different costumes they wore). In one dance, the Greek male dancer danced on top of a glass on our table -- you have to look closely at this video to see the glass that he's dancing on top of (last video below).

And so was the last night that the choir enjoyed together before most of them headed back to the US. However, Ruth and I would travel alone up north for ten more days before returning. Tomorrow Bosnia Herzegovina...