ANCIENT CORINTH AND EPIDAUROS: Guest Post by Sara Kras

Ancient Corinth, Greece. Temple of Apollo at Sunset

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Sara Kras recently arrived in Greece to begin a year's study for her Master's Degree. Here she shares some of her first impressions of Greece. Sara loves to travel and has contributed numerous articles to The Intrepid Tourist in the past. Sara's most recent book, Baby Boomer Reboot, is a fascinating account of the challenges she faced going back to college in her fifties. 

Ancient Corinth is a small inland village about three miles from the seaport town of Corinth.  Summer months are the most difficult time to find lodging in Greece, especially by the sea.  Because we had to make a last minute booking, I thought somewhere away from the sea might be available and I was right.  I called Pegasus Rooms in Ancient Corinth.  I was told there were no rooms available for a week, but they had an off-site apartment called Acrocorinth Apartments. 

The owner told us the rate would be 60 euros per night including breakfast.  The apartment was surrounded by the owner’s vineyards and olive tree groves, supposedly a quiet farmer’s cottage.  Unfortunately, immediately to our right lived a very noisy Greek family.  The noise came and went in waves.  We knew we had to stick it out because we had nowhere else to go.  Not everyone felt the same way.  We saw an older couple on the other side of us leave early on a Sunday morning.  This was because the patriarch of the noisy Greek family decided to rev his motorcycle very loud for several hours.  We handled the noise by exploring the surrounding area, which took us to the ancient ruins of Corinth and to the very well-preserved amphitheater in Epidauros. 

Our apartment in Ancient Corinth.

Located on the Isthmus of Corinth, Ancient Corinth had the unique position of being literally the midway point between Athens and Sparta, two warring city-states.  Ancient Corinth was founded in 8^th century BC.  However, it reached its peak in the 7^th and 6^th centuries BC.  The Temple of Apollo dominates the town and still does today. 

Surrounding the ruins at Ancient Corinth is a cute village with restaurants, tourist shops, and traditional food markets.  Our favorite restaurant in Ancient Corinth was Marinos Restaurant.  We ate there every night for a week and the food was consistently delicious.

The ruins are not a large complex.  It takes about an hour or two to see it all.  Once you’ve walked through the entire ruin, you exit by the ancient marble walkway.  There’s a profound reverence this walkway inspires.  How many people walked on this marble walkway since the 8^th century BC?  You can just imagine each person carrying their concerns, worries, and joys as they trod upon the walkway leaving a miniscule imprint of their bare feet or soles of their shoes.

There’s also an interesting museum connected with the site, which is a common theme at most ancient ruins in Greece.  This museum featured carvings of the mythological battles of Gods and men against the centaurs and Amazon women.

Temple of Apollo during the day.

Marble walkway of Ancient Corinth.

Carving of soldier fighting an Amazon. 

(Notice her outfit of a dress with half her chest covered and the rest exposed.  This appeared to be the only outfit the Amazons wore into battle per the many carvings we viewed.)

After seeing the ruins in Ancient Corinth, we decided to take an hour road trip to Epidauros to see the Epidauros Theater, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  This magnificent marble theater was built around 330 to 320 BC.  It seats up to 14,000. Greek plays are still performed there today and a schedule of shows was posted at the site. The acoustics are still very spectacular. Tourists below sang or clapped so those above could hear them.

Just like Ancient Corinth, there was a small museum as part of the ruin complex.

Sara standing in front of the theater

The gorgeous view from one of the top seats!

There are so many ruins and places to see in Greece, it’s hard to choose.  But if you find yourself in Corinth or the Peloponnese, these two sights are worth the visit.

SPRINGTIME IN SICILY, Part 2: Erice, Selinunte and Segusta

Selinunte, Sicily. Acanthus flowers grow among the ruins of Temple C on the Acropolis of the ancient Greek city of Selinunte. Their leaves inspired the design of the tops of the Corinthian columns.

At the end of May Art and I took a two week trip to Sicily, staying in Palermo, Erice and Catania, and taking day trips to the ancient Greek ruins at Selinunte, Segesta and Agrigento and to the ancient Roman villa filled with mosaics at Piazza Armerina. The weather was warm, but not hot, and hillsides were covered with a host of wildflowers.  Here is the second of several reports of our trip.

Rooftops and cobbled street in Erice.

After three days in Palermo, our next five nights were spent in the tiny hilltop town of Erice, about an hour and a half drive from the Palermo airport. The narrow cobbled streets, Norman castle, and old churches make you feel as if you have been transported in time to the Middle Ages–when Erice was a thriving center on Sicily’s west coast.

Erice. The Norman castle known as the Castle of Venus, built on the site of a 7th C. BC temple, was later converted to the Temple of Venus by the ancient Romans. The castle was a stronghold in the Middle Ages. Now it is an archeological site.

Today Erice is largely a tourist destination and the coastal town of Trapani below is the larger population center. Erice is the home of the Ettore Majorana Foundation, which was sponsoring a scientific conference that my husband Art was attending and the reason for our trip to Sicily. While Art was at his meetings I joined the tourists and wandered the streets, exploring the castle and other historic buildings and browsing in the shops along the main street. (Erice is small–one can walk around the whole town in an hour.)

The trinacria, an image with a face in the center and three bent legs, is the ancient symbol of Sicily. Here is a terracotta version. Red glazed pottery is typical of the region.

The shops were full of local crafts–colorful rugs and pottery–and typical foods such as the curly busiati pasta, salt harvested from the shallow salt pans in Trapani and sweets for which Erice is famous.

Colorful cotton rag rugs are a typical craft of Erice.

While most visitors to Erice are day trippers, either riding the cable car from Trapani or driving up the windy road to park outside the Erice town gate, there are a few hotels. We stayed in rooms provided by the conference center.

Queen Anne's Lace growing above the castle walls.

By evening the streets are mostly empty and on several nights that we were there the mist moved in from the sea creating a ghostly feel as the cool, moist air slid through the narrow streets. 

Selinunte, Temple E. This temple was reconstructed in the 1950s and is one of the few of the Greek ruins in Sicily that you can walk around and experience from the inside.

The last day of Art’s conference was an organized bus trip from Erice to the ancient Greek ruins at Selinunte and Segesta. Selinunte, about an hour’s drive from Erice on Sicily's south coast, was once a thriving Greek city covering 250 acres. Originally established in 638 B.C. by the Greeks, then taken over by the Carthaginians, it was abandoned after the Romans took over Sicily around 200 B.C. Today Selinunte is an archeological park, with piles of pieces from collapsed buildings, and one reconstructed temple where you can walk around the interior (unlike temples at other sites in Sicily) and imagine what it might have been like to live in ancient times.

The modern seaside town of Selinunte, viewed from the archeological site.

Following paths lined with spring wild flowers, we explored the ruins, then went into town for a delicious lunch of risotto, pasta, seafood and fresh fruit at a restaurant overlooking the beach.

Ancient Greek temple at Segesta.

After lunch, we got back on the bus to drive to Segesta to see another Greek temple, this one perched high on a hill overlooking a gorge, and to see an amphitheater at the top of an adjacent hill. The temple was never finished (the columns are unfluted) and one view by historians is that it was built to impress a visiting delegation from Athens and then abandoned after they left.

Ancient Greek theater at Segesta. It is known for its excellent acoustics.

An alternative to the long walk up the hill to the site of amphitheater is a small shuttle bus, which we took. We walked back down, enjoying the late afternoon sun that highlighted the temple and the roadside flowers.

Several varieties of thistle are common in Sicily.

On our way back to Erice for our last night on Sicily's west coast, we enjoyed the views of rolling farmland and of the seaside below as the bus wound its way up to the top of the hill.

Sicilian countryside. View from Erice.

The following morning we headed back to Palermo and caught a train to Catania for five days on Sicily's east coast.

ROME’S ANCIENT COLOSSEUM, Guest Post by Tom Scheaffer

Outer wall of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy

My brother Tom loves to travel and Italy is one of his (and my) favorite places. In December 2015 and January 2016 he went to Italy, visiting Milan, Rome, and Sicily. (See his posts of 1/25/16 and 2/1/16 for his reports on Sicily.) In Rome he visited a variety of ancient sites, including perhaps the most famous–the Colosseum (also spelled "Coliseum".) Here are some of his photos and a few facts about the Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheater, gleaned from his tour.

People in the center of the photo emphasize the enormity of the structure. Part of the main floor has been reconstructed. Underneath are the ruins of the many chambers or rooms where animals and slaves were kept.

After many trips to Italy I finally visited Rome and the first place I wanted to see was the Colosseum. It is the largest of over two hundred amphitheaters built by the Romans. It took ten years to build. Its construction was ordered by the Emperor Vespasian in 70 AD and it was completed under the rule of his son, Titus, in 80 AD.

Entrance to main arena of the Colosseum

The Colosseum had a capacity of over 50,000 and spectators could watch gladiators fighting each other, executions, and demonstrations of animal hunting. It is estimated that over 400,000 people lost their lives in the Colosseum.

Top of Corinthian column

The Colosseum was built from cement and covered with marble. There was a devastating earthquake in 1349, destroying many parts of the building.  Most of the valuable materials were stripped away over the centuries to be used in other buildings in Rome. What remains today is only a fraction of the original building. Nevertheless, the Colosseum is still an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome and is one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions.

Approach to the Colosseum

EPHESUS, TURKEY: Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Turkey. 

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, visited Turkey earlier this year when she was on her way to Ethiopia.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her visit to Ephesus, the ancient city in southeastern Turkey known for its Greco-Roman ruins. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Lalibela, Ethiopia, at her 2/17/14 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. 

Ephesus is organized along the Curetes Way, the grand marble-paved main street of the town.

The site of Ephesus has been occupied for at least 6000 years, with Mycenaean, Hittite, Lydean, Greek, Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and Byzantine citizens, up to 250,000 when the city was the capital of Roman Asia Minor. By the 6th century AD the harbor had silted up, however, so Ephesus was no longer a lively trading port. Earthquakes also damaged the city. Gradually people moved away and the site was abandoned.

Amphitheater

Today Ephesus is a national monument displaying artifacts unearthed by Turkish and European archeologists--but 80% of the ancient city remains buried. Like many Roman cities, Ephesus has a huge amphitheater.

Nike, goddess of victory.

While some walls and structures are standing, a more common sight while walking through Ephesus is a jumble of fragments, some of them beautifully carved. Most of the artifacts are simply displayed rather than reconstructed into actual buildings.

Library of Celsus, looking up

The highlight of the city is the Library of Celsus, built in the 2nd century AD. At one time it contained more than 12,000 scrolls!

Ephesus is full of stray cats, many of them existing on handouts from happy tourists (and field mice, too).

 What a fascinating place! I'd love to have the chance to see more of Turkey.

(For more about the amazing ruins of Ephesus, check out the Intrepid Tourist posts for June 10, 2013 and  August 27, 2012. )