Athens Sightseeing tour with Acropolis and Ancient Corinth (8 hours)
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PARTICIPANTS
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UP TO 2
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UP TO 16
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UP TO 40
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PRICE PER GROUP
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680.00
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770.00
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820.00
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The above prices are in Euro and Include A/C bus - A/C Mini bus - A/C car and professional English speaking guide
Extra charges:
A. Entrance fee to Acropolis € 12 per person
B. Lunch in Plaka (Greek Menu) € 20 per person.
C. Entrance fee to Ancient Corinth € 6 per person
For the final cost please calculate price + (participants X 38) = TOTAL COST
Departure from the port of Piraeus for the guided tour to Ancient Corinth and the famous Canal.
Corinth Canal - Diolkos
When traveling from Athens to Corinth - a distance of about 80 kilometers - you leave Attica to enter the Peloponnese while crossing an Isthmus, a narrow and fairly low-lying, 6 kilometers wide, tongue of land which
The Diolkos
How to get your ship from the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf and vice versa? The question plagued the seafaring Greeks since very early times. It was first solved towards the end of the 7th century BCE, or at the beginning of the 6th century, by a daring decision which led to the greatest of technical construction works in early Greece : the building of the Diolkos or Slipway.
Between 1956 and 1962, the Greek Archaeological Society carried out excavations designed to trace the course of the Diolkos. The greater part of the Slipway, which in fact ran all the way from the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf, was brought to light.
The Diolkos was a roadway with a width of 10 meters at the starting point on the Gulf of Corinth. The stone-paving began at the very edge of the sea. Ships were taken to this starting point and there dragged onto the Diolkos. These ships rested initially on wooden cylinders and were then transferred to a special wheeled vehicle.
To reduce the weight of the ship as far as possible, it was unloaded before being hoisted onto the Diolkos and the unloaded commodities were taken by ordinary road to the other end of the Isthmus. Narrowing to between 3.50 and 6 meters after its starting point the Slipway was paved with porous stone throughout its length. Two deep parallel grooves, which ran at a distance of 1.50 meters from each other, marked the Diolkos.
Thus, the ship was dragged all across the Isthmus. On reaching the Slipway's terminus on the Saronic Gulf, it was lowered into the sea, the cargo was loaded again, and the ship continued with its journey. This arrangement did not merely speed up traffic. It also enabled ships moving between the Central and Eastern Mediterranean to avoid the rough seas almost unavoidable in a voyage round the Peloponnese.
The Diolkos was repeatedly repaired in ensuing centuries and remained in use until the days of Augustus, though the appearance of ever-larger ships curtailed its usefulness. There is hardly any mention of its use in later centuries, and then only in connection with warlike activities.
Cutting through the Isthmus
The use of the Diolkos was difficult and expensive at all times and proved impossible with larger ships. Hence, in ancient days already, people envisaged cutting a canal across the Isthmus, so as to link the two Gulfs permanently and make it possible for all ships at all times to avoid the dangerous journey past Cape Maleas, off South Peloponnese.
Yet, technical means then available made it in fact impossible to carry through such an ambitious scheme in those early days. It was Emperor Nero who first attempted to cut a canal through the Isthmus. Feasibility studies were completed,
the necessary work force was gathered, and Nero in person started the digging with a little golden pickaxe. Three months later, however, Nero died, and the project was abandoned. Immediately after the liberation of Greece in the first half of the 19th century, the canal project was revived under Kapodistrias. Its execution hung fire until 1882, when a French firm took the work in hand. It was a Greek firm which completed it in 1893. The Corinth Canal is 6,343 meters long. Its width amounts to 25 meters, its depth 8 meters and the earth cliffs flanking it reach a maximum height of 63 meters. Two large bridges - one for railway, and one for the National Road, both of them rebuilt after World War Two - now link Central Greece with the Peloponnese, while below them fairly large ships are piloted directly from one sea to the other. In 1975 a second road bridge was built to ease the increased volume of traffic.
After a sort stop for lunch in Corinth Canal drive to Athens for guided tour around Athens.
Our professional guide will take you to the top of the “Holly rock” Acropolis to visit Propylea, Temple of Athena Nike, Erechteion and Parthenon, which was built 2.500 years ago.
Furthermore, you will have free time to visit the Acropolis Museum on your own or admire the magnificent view of Athens, “lying at your own feet".
Listed below are all the major sites of Athens that you will see with us:
-The Panathenian Stadium
-National Picture Gallery
-The glass Runner
-Megaron Concert Hall
-National Archaeological Museum
-National Theatre
-Omonia Square
-Open Market
-Athens City Museum
-National Historical Museum (Old Parliament)
-Syntagma Square
-Plaka Area
-Downtown shopping center
-Flea market
-St. Nikodimos Russian Orthodox
-St. Paul’s Anglican
-National Park (ex Royal Gardens)
-House of Parliament (ex Royal Palace)
-Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Evzones)
-Iliou Melathron Numismatic Museum (H. Schliemann’s House)
-St. Denis Roman Catholic Cathedral
-Neoclassical Building of Central Bank of Greece
-Academy of Arts & Letters
-University
-National Library
-Presidential Residents (ex Royal Palace)
-Change of the Honor Guards
-Zappeion Congress
-Temple of Olympic Zeus
-Hadrian’s Gate
-Dionysus Theatre
-Asclepieum Medical Center
-Herod Atticus Odeon
-Areopagous (St. Paul Acts XVII on Mars Hill)
more photos
