With this half-day tour (5-6 hours) to Ancient Corinth, you have the chance to visit one of the most important cities of ancient Greece and explore both its ancient and Christian past. Driving along the coastline, we’ll see the island of Salamis, where the naval battle between the Greeks and the Persians took place at 480 B.C., and our first shortstop will be a few kms before Corinth to see the impressive Corinth Canal, which connects the Aegean and the Ionian Sea.
Corinth, one of the biggest rivals of Athens, was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC until Julius Caesar refounded the city as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis (‘colony of Corinth in honor of Julius’) in 44 BC, shortly before his assassination and made it the provincial capital of Greece. Under the Romans, Corinth was a major city with a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews. The apostle Paul first visited the city in AD 49 or 50 and stayed here for eighteen months preaching Christianity. Visiting the site, you will see the Bema ( (a stone platform) before the Roman proconsul, where Paul had to defend himself when accused of breaking the religious laws by members of the Jewish synagogue, the ruins of the Agora, the Pirrini fountain, the Lechaion Road and what is left from the numerous public buildings.
The nearby Temple of Apollo was one of the few buildings that the Romans left intact and is one of the earliest Doric temples in the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland, built around 560 B.C. Above Corinth, you will see Acrocorinth, the fortified acropolis for the ancient and medieval city. The fascinating Archaeological Museum contains an extensive collection of artifacts originally found in Ancient Corinth and the surrounding areas.