Korinthos: Mad Dogs & Englishmen

“No”, he said rather grumpily, “nothing till August 15th”.

This was the response at the first of the three car hire places in Korinthos, and a bit of a worry as our plans for this part of the trip realistically hinge on having a car. Google Maps then takes over in style, first getting us to trudge up multiple hills on the way to the next rental office – “open today 9am to 9pm” – which turns out to be a long deserted empty office by a main road, and then to option 3, where “you have arrived at your destination” brings us to a completely empty stretch of road where there is no evidence of even a demolished building, let alone an open office.

In desperation we take up our host Nikos’s offer of “if you need anything, just call me”, even though we don’t really like to do that. After initially telling us no joy, he comes back a few hours later having not only found us a car in a nearby town (evidently he’d spent serious time searching) but also saying he’ll pick us up on Sunday morning and take us to collect it. We are regularly blessed with meeting kind people on our travels, it seems!

Modern Korinthos is a reasonably attractive city, if a little on the functional side, with some lively pedestrianised areas, open spaces and a lengthy promenade. It’s all ok without ever being what we would describe as a spectacular city – we guess we would just say it’s ordinary. Afternoons here are a bit like old time Greece and good old fashioned siesta time: everything is closed apart from a handful of shops, and the locals seem to all go into hiding. Mind you, it gets extremely hot between about 3pm and 5.30pm so they are no doubt sensible, unlike the mad dogs and certain Englishmen.

Wander westwards from the harbour and you reach Kalamia Beach, a stony shore with a long run of beach bars, sun loungers and other obvious signs that this is something of a resort. There’s a lot more loungers than people at the minute though, which may be the COVID effect, but there’s still quite a few people who like us are enjoying the warm seas. And trying not to make contact with the pebbles which are searing hot in the afternoon sun. Pick a larger pebble here and you could cook a pizza on it.

A half hour bus ride out of Korinthos are the remains of the ancient city of Corinth, perched on the hillside in the village of Archaia, noteworthy for a number of reasons. As we pay our entry fee, we are advised by the ticket lady that the whole site will be closing from 1pm till 5pm today, simply because it’s going to be too hot to let people wander around the exposed site in the fierce afternoon sun. Closed due to sunshine – now there’s something we haven’t come across before!

Second thing – unlike virtually every other major ancient city we have visited, Corinth is extremely compact and compressed; the remnants of the major buildings are virtually on top of each other, making it even easier to close our eyes and imagine the bustle of the city in ancient times. Third thing – just after the exit there is a cluster of cafes and tavernas, but unlike the “foodcourt” type of experience you sometimes encounter at such places, these tavernas and shops have mingled into the Archaia village and are frequented by just as many locals (in human, dog and cat form) as they are tourists. It’s actually quite lovely.

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It’s not hard to see why Corinth became a city of great wealth and power. Situated on the narrow isthmus between Athens and the Peloponnese, Corinthians were able to construct harbours on each of the two gulfs on either side of the isthmus, facilitating substantial trade with different parts of the world. They resisted many looting attempts by Athens and invasions by Persians and others whilst at the same time colonising and spreading their influence throughout what is now Greece and the islands of the Aegean, in the process gaining wealth, power and the reputation for bravery and spirit which gave the English language the adjective “corinthian”.

After the Corinthian era was eventually brought to an end, the Romans renovated and enlarged Corinth and under Julius Caesar set about restoring its former power.

Even closer to the new Korinthos is the famous Corinth Canal, one of those sights like the Rialto Bridge and the Taj Mahal which remind us of childhood textbooks, such is their status as a world icon. We take a walk from the town to the northern end of the canal, where the so called “sinking bridge” carries a minor road across the water, then follow another ancient trail alongside the canal down to the footbridge around half way. 

Corinth Canal is closed to all shipping traffic these days due to multiple landslides along its entire length – these landslides are spectacular in their own right, the collapsed sections of cliff clearly visible beneath the clear waters. Closure of the canal doesn’t impact international shipping in the way that the recent Suez incident did: Corinth ceased to be used as a trade route some time ago, since when it’s really been the preserve of tour boats and cruise ships. Now though even those are gone and the canal lays silent and deep blue.

As we inspect the extent of the damage, it’s hard to believe it could ever be restored. The Corinth Canal is, it seems, a modern day relic.

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Trudging back towards Korinthos, military helicopters pass overhead, carrying huge vats for collecting water, on their way to douse the forest fires raging in this heatwave. We’ve seen temperature gauges reach 39, but in that intense afternoon period we suspect that it’s topped 40 today. Heatwave warnings persist, people take cover, fires rage out of control, and, as we said above, sites close for the hottest part of the afternoon. Meanwhile, we walk the canal route, over 10 miles long. Mad dogs and Englishmen indeed…..

Thanks in no small part to the kind heart of Nikos, the first day of August sees us on our first road trip of this Greek adventure, heading southwards in the hire car down the Peloponnese peninsula to the wonderful ancient site of Epidavros. 

Originally built in the 6th century BC as a centre for healing from the waters of its many springs, Epidavros grew in both size and reputation to become a powerful and wealthy region. 

The famous theatre at Epidavros remains a magnificent sight, its sides towering above the site of its stage, whilst retaining an almost uncanny acoustic ability: drop a coin on the right spot here and it can be heard crystal clear way up in the highest seats. Luckily we have made Epdiavros early, lucky because once again the site is closing from 1pm to 5pm due to the intense heat.

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We take other detours on our road trip, but it’s now so hot that only short walks are possible, even for mad dogs and Englishmen. Palaia Epidavros is a gorgeous blue cove with attractive tavernas clustered around its pretty harbour, in fact the tavernas are so attractive that we fail to resist (in truth we don’t even try to resist!) and enjoy a great fish lunch. Our next stop is Nea Epidavros, less pretty but with a beach where we cool off from the mighty heat in the beautiful clear waters.

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Driving back towards Korinthos the temperature gauge on the dashboard creeps up to 43, that’s 109 fahrenheit, we’re pretty certain we’ve never driven in such temperatures before. Even the afternoon wind brings no respite, when it blows in our faces it’s a bit like opening an oven door.

On the way to collect the hire car this morning, Nikos had expressed his sadness at the demise of the Corinth canal, and at the many Greeks who’ve lost everything in the forest fires raging in numerous places in these extreme temperatures. He also tells me that there are forecasts that tomorrow (Monday), we may see the all time highest temperature record for Greece broken. Wow.

Heading up into the mountains again seems like a good idea and we therefore spend our final day in Korinthos on an exciting drive on spectacular roads, visiting a number of quiet mountain villages before ending up in Nemea. Nemea is a renowned vineyard region producing some of Greece’s best loved wines, in recognition of which its streets are rather tastefully lined with oak barrels recycled as flower boxes.

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The Nemea wine was one of two local specialities we wanted to sample whilst in this region, the other being the Black Corinth raisin. This is the small sweet raisin commonly found in the UK “mincemeat” or mixed fruit, sweet and juicy and often referred to as “currants” in UK recipes. In fact some etymologists believe that the word “currant” is indeed a derivative form of “Corinth”. We’ve done justice to both the raisins and the wine.

Driving from Nemea down to the coast for another cooling swim, the dashboard temperature gauge beats yesterday’s record and hits 44 degrees, but actually today’s wind is a cooling one instead of yesterday’s hair dryer, so whilst it’s still incredibly hot, it feels a little more comfortable.

We end our time here with an evening in Loutraki, just around the bay from Korinthos, and very different from all the places we’ve seen so far. Loutraki is so obviously a resort, packed with trendy seafront bars and bustling in the current weather. The music is reggae and lounge rather than balalaikas, the beach stays packed even as the sun goes down. A couple of beers and back to our rooftop for a bottle of Nemea wine and a few cold mezze: just the perfect way to end our time in Korinthos. 

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Next stop Piraeus.