Greece - Day 6 - The Acrocorinth

Ok, I'll just put this out there: most impressive fortress ever? Acrocorinth. If I were invading Greece at the head of an ancient army, and I saw the Acrocorinth in my path, I'd give up, turn around and go home. Actually, I'd probably settle down for an awfully long seige, but... there you are.

The thing is amazing. It's a huge flat-topped stone overlooking the Isthmus, fortified with a few walls, just in case the general badassitude of the natural hill wasn't getting the message across. Ancient Corinth sat in the shadow of this behemoth. We spotted it on the car ride up pretty early, and it just kept rearing higher and higher. Incredible!

Ancient Corinth was interesting - a romanised city, with a decent collection of statuary in the museum. Was interesting to wander around the excavations and try to picture it as it must have been. We got to watch some archaeology in progress, which consisted of sitting in the shade with running water and scraping dirt off blocks, but was somehow cool to see anyway. Got a few pictures of temples and water and the omnipresent Acrocorinth, avoided the strange east Asian Christian group who had a singing prayer session half way through their tour, and then went on our merry way.

Our merry way included a drive up a winding road to the gates of... you guessed it, the Acrocorinth. Have I mentioned that it was impressive? The view was amazing. We got to watch a thunderstorm roll it's way slowly across the plain towards us - Dave got a couple of decent photos of it, all dark brooding clouds and photography 101.

We made our way towards Athens, having decided against really pressing and trying to get down to Epidaurus, which is apparently impressive, though... well, you know, Athens! We dropped off the car, after a few utterly mad trips around the airport motorway system, missing turns, finding gas stations, missing turns, missing turns, and finally getting rid of the car, which had definitely been through it's paces, and was starting to make the occasional odd noise.

We braved the train/underground system and eventually found our hotel, which was in a pretty scummy area, but had a pretty decent view of the acropolis from it's rooftop terrace. We weren't too far from the bar/nightlife area, so we went out and got a few beers, and some food (though they seemed pretty unhappy about the idea that they might have to sell us food. Sometimes I wonder how some people stay in business...) After dinner, we switched venues to the one next door, having left no tip (if you're a dickhead, I really don't care about your country's tipping culture), and had a much more pleasant time, whiling away the evening in an exhausted and tipsy haze.