We all had a really good nights sleep after the long day of travelling yesterday. The restaurant has a great view of the Acropolis and we got a table in the corner for breakfast. Its going to be a really hot day today with temperatures expected to get to 38 degrees and we could already feel it over breakfast. Our guide and car picked us up at 10 and we headed out towards the island of Peloponnese. On the way we stopped at the Corinth Canal which is a famous engineering feat accomplished in the late 19th century. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth separating the Peloponnese peninsula from the Greek mainland and was a vital economic waterway which greatly reduced the time and effort required to get to Athens from the west. It is 6kms long and about 25 mts wide and is at a height of 52 mts. Its hard to imagine how many people would have been needed to manually cut through the rock to create this channel. We were lucky to be over the bridge as a small boat went through and it is primarily used for private boats rather than cruise ships now.

From here we headed to the Theatre of Epidaurus which was constructed in 300 BC. It was originally built to host about 8,000 spectators and then expanded in the mid 2nd century to a capacity of almost 14,000. It was damaged when the Romans invaded and then subsequent earthquakes buried the entire complex. It was finally discovered in the late 19th century and ironically the hick blanket of earth protected it and it remains in pretty pristine condition. The original wooden stage is mostly gone but the auditorium is completely intact. There is a spot marked by stone in the middle of the stage where if you stand and clap or talk you can be heard across the entire auditorium – which in itself is quite an acoustic and engineering marvel.  The theatre wasn’t just built for entertainment, but also part of the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the God of Medicine. The adjoining museum included tablets written on by Hippocrates with his observations on medications and diagnosis.

We then visited the Mouria restaurant for lunch which is perched right on the Bay of Agios Vlasios in the Aegean Sea and allowed us to jump in for a little swim and cool down. Lunch included Ceviche and the most amazing Prawn Spaghetti we have ever had. We were talking about the flavour of the sauce and the texture of the spaghetti for hours afterwards. The tomatoes for the sauce were locally grown by the restaurant and tasted incredible. After lunch we headed towards the town of Nafplio, the kids took the opportunity to nap and re-energise for the afternoon.

We arrived at the Palamidi Fortress which is perched high on the hills overlooking the town. It was built by the Venetians in the mid 18th century and was built in only 3 years, which was an incredible feat for that era. Unfortunately breached by the Ottomans only a couple of weeks after it was completed mainly due to a traitor amongst the ranks. Thomas got the chance to enter the pits where prisoners were kept  right up to the 1920s.

We drove back into Athens for dinner at a restaurant which had a view of the Acropolis from a different angle to where we had breakfast. It had been a pretty long day and we have another long and hot day planned in Athens tomorrow.