My letter from Corinth

On Saturday I checked out of my stay and jumped in a taxi back to the airport. I wasn’t heading for a flight but rather to meet the driver who was picking up to take me to my rental car. I firstly got a taxi to the rental place but I was early and they weren’t open yet and then I saw on my paperwork that they expected to pick me up at the airport, so I went there and waited for them instead. I had tried to call but no one got back to me till I was at the airport anyway. I did have the taxi driver 1, offer to drive me around Greece on my holiday for 50 Euros a day and 2, for a kiss on the cheek. Both of which I politely declined and went and got my own car.

The car rental place guy was great, friendly, and didn’t try to solicit any physical interactions. I picked up my Hyandai i10, (which I am loving driving) and started to make my way to Loutraki in Corinthia. (About 8 minutes from Corinth) My accomodation was fantastic, parking near by and beach access right across the road. After checking in I did my usual thing of walking off to the town centre to check things out. It was about a 20 minute walk around the water and there was also a street gym that I stopped and used for a little bit. It’s mostly been resistance band workouts for me lately.

There are restaurants lined around the beach with shade spots where you can sit and order from and the main restaurants are up on the esplanade. I just went for a walk around checking out what there was and settled on a place that Happy Cow had mentioned. It was lovely sitting with ocean views for dinner.

I then wandered back to my room and chilled out for the night as the next day I had visiting Corinth and Ancient Corinth on my to do list. My first stop was the Pegasus fountain in Corinth and a bit of a wander around the town centre before heading to the ancient archaeological site. This was awesome! I’m just not getting tired of looking at ancient ruins. A big part of me wanting to come to Corinth was knowing that this was where Jason (from and the Argonauts/Golden Fleece fame) and Medea had fled to after being banished.

The first things I see at this site was the fountain that Jason’s second wife threw herself into after being poisoned by Medea. On this same site was also the remains of the Roman Forum where the apostle Paul was brought for judgement regarding illegal teachings. It’s mind boggling that standing in these spaces thousands of years between each other and me all these stories happened, and are still retold.

The museum on site is also filled with incredible objects with so much history! One of the most interesting things in there was these two Kouroi (male figure statues) that were confiscated in 2010 from antiquity smugglers. ( I didn’t even take a photo of them I was too amazed reading and looking at them.) These statues were dated to 530 – 520BC and through this illegal excavation this site was then discovered and unearthed by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Corinthia. During this they found missing pieces of the statues (they are pretty much fully put together in the museum) and a large cemetery. There is so much out there that there are people who are just going around digging up ancient artefacts.

The illegal trading in these items seems to be huge. There were a few more stories of stolen pieces in this museum.
Including the museum itself being robbed in 1990. It was the largest robbery of a Greek museum and almost 10 years later items were recovered in the United States working with Greek authorities and the FBI.

I went and had some lunch after finishing up at the museum and walking back out through the site one last time. There are a bunch of restaurants at the exit and I popped into one for some lunch. After lunch I decided to head out to check out the Acrocorinth. Unfortunately they were closing at 15:30 and it was 15:15 when I got there. I did get a few quick photos and confirmed that they were open at 8:30 the next day. From what I was seeing I just had to come back before heading off to Kalamata.

Before heading back to my hotel for my last night in Loutraki I thought I would go check out this site I found on Google maps. Well, I didn’t quite make it to check it out as I parked at the location but followed some different path and ended up on a really nice cliff lookout. I chilled out here for a bit and enjoyed the view and now it was getting close to 17:00 and I was about 30 minutes from my hotel I decided to head back. This was one of those times that if I had a partner in crime with me on the adventures I would of probably kept trying to find this cave thing. On my own though wandering down too many paths could just end badly. I was impressed with myself and the route I had somehow taken anyway. I figured I got the moment and the view I was meant to have.

After getting back to the hotel I put my bathers on and went for a dip in the Gulf of Corinth. I caught up on some work afterwards and chilled out as I was planning for an early get away in the morning so I could go back and check out Acrocorinth.