greece (day 2) - ancient corinth
after sleeping for what my garmin called a “long nap,” i emerged from my weird small hotel. breakfast was at joshua tree (not that one) which was conveniently one block from my hotel and across the street from the afore-mentioned late-night pizza restaurant. joshua tree was marketed as a vegetarian café with açai bowls, fancy smoothies, and avocado toast, which made me feel right at home :)
for my first breakfast in greece, i tried to order an açai bowl, but fortunately, it wasn’t available so i ordered kagianas (greek egg and tomato) which came with cheese, olives, and toast.
after getting #fueledup, i took a taxi driven by the most quintessentially greek man ever to the neighboring port town of piraeus to pick up my rental car. my original plan for the day was to drive three hours to mystras where i’m spending the night, but decided to see where the wind took me. the wind took me first to the bread factory, a bakery along the highway, where i picked up greek spanikopita, olive bread, and two pieces of baklava.
i didn’t want to do the whole three hour drive in one go so i decided to make a stop on the isthmus of corinth to see the temple of apollo and town ruins. corinth was one of the most important cities in ancient greece, but was demolished by romans in 146 bce, who then built a new city in 44 bce and later made it the roman provincial capital of greece.
i knew that corinth had an acropolis but i didn’t consider visiting the top until i saw it towering behind the archaeological site in the main town. i was able to drive to the lower main-gate, but the rest was on foot. the slopes of acrocorinth were covered with blossoming yellow wildflowers and pink cherry blossoms.
the sprawling castle was too big to see everything, but i did make it to the very top of the prominent frankish tower.
i departed corinth and arrived in mystras by about 2; too late (and too tired) to see the nearby byzantine ruins. i got some souvlaki, tzatziki (on the menu it was called cheese salad), and local wine at the sidewalk restaurant connected to the inn.
there are orange trees everywhere:
after an early dinner, i passed out hard and woke up at midnight with all of my clothes on and the lights still on.