Today was a day for tourism. We visited an engineering marvel, another ancient Greek site, and participated in one of our favorite activities in Europe-wine tasting.
The first stop of the day was the Corinth Canal. It is a project that has been envisioned by rulers of Greece back to the 7th century BC. The canal would save a 400 mile sea journey around the Peloponnesus peninsula. The canal is only 4 miles long. It was started several times in antiquity but always abandoned as too costly. It was finally completed in 1893, but at 80 feet wide it is too narrow for modern ships. It was built at sea level and has no locks unlike other modern canals. It is currently closed due to a land slide in 2020 and is not expected to be reopened until later in the summer. As you are driving you have to watch for it as the bridge across it is very short and if you are not paying attention you are across before you realize it. It does make for a cool picture though.
Our next stop was ancient Nemea. Nemea was a town that was on what was considered neutral ground between all of the city states of ancient Greece. Because of this it was the site of a stadium that pre-dates the site at Olympus as a place to hold the games that turned into the Olympics. The site we visited today was a spa that serviced the athletes of the games and the other visitors, it also had a hotel for attendees of the games. It was in effect a resort town for the ancient Greeks. It doesn’t hurt that the area around Nemea is also one of the finest wine producing areas in Greece which always attracts tourists even in ancient times!
Our last stop for the day was an excellent winery. There are many wineries in the area, but it is Sunday so the vast majority were closed. Ton was on line during our drive to Nemea and came up with a couple that looked like they were open on Sunday. The first one we went to which was quite large was closed. It is probably open on Sundays during peak season, but not now. Fortunately the second one on our list was open and we enjoyed a nice tasting. Our guide for the tasting was quirky as she spent a lot of time telling us about and highly recommending wine from other wineries in Greece. When she got around to serving us the wines from the winery she worked at they were excellent and we ended up with a couple of bottles.
We ended up having a fun and relaxing day of just being tourists.