Interlude 7. Epidavros–Isthmus–Athens–Piraeus–Rhodes: September 30–October 1
We planned our 2024 trip through Greece with breaks throughout, during which we could stay in apartments and live semi-normal lives for a few days between multi-day hikes. Trekking Hellas hikes are extremely well-organized and the hotels are always comfortable and hospitable, but it is tiring to move from place to place every night, and keeping up with laundry can be a challenge.
So every week or two, we’d stop someplace, live in a house, and catch our breaths. We picked our break locations for geographic convenience, historical interest, and nostalgia. These interludes were just as much a part of the trip as the hikes.
September 30 was our last day on mainland Greece. We had to return our beloved Skoda and take ship for the far reaches of the Aegean.
We cleared out of our swanky apartment in Nafplio and headed across the peninsula to Epidauros.
Driving north from Epidavros, we hugged the coastline of the Saronic Gulf. This basically retraced the journey Theseus took to Athens, crossing the Isthmus of Corinth (with fire damage in evidence) and passing Eleusis and Megara (and also Salamis).
We crossed over the canal that cuts through the Isthmus. This canal was an ancient dream, the ancient equivalent to the Panama Canal, providing much easier access on the east-west sailing rough across the northern Aegean. Various Romans tried to dig a canal, and failed. It was finally completed in the 19th Century, and promptly became obsolete as ships got too big to use it. So it is a picturesque curiosity now, of no economic significance except to tavernas like the one we stopped at.
We’re not the first people to think of Theseus on this route. Several of the A1 exits are named after characters in the Theseus story, including Sinis the pine-bender.
There’s not much to say about the afternoon. We returned the rental car to the Athens airport, which involved all the stress and confusion you can imagine. We took a taxi to Piraeus, which was expensive and trafficky, but the driver was a nice guy. He told us about the island of Symi, right next to Rhodes, and his family’s pilgrimage weekend there. He highly recommended the tiny Symi shrimp, which we were to discover the next week in Rhodos.
The beauty of overnight ferries is that you can board them three hours before departure. (Well, you can if they originate where you are; obviously that’s not the case if the ferry is just stopping in, as happened on our return from Rhodes to Piraeus.) Being able to stash bags or lie down in the middle of the afternoon makes life so much better. The Blue Star ferry customer service is exemplary, especially for passengers staying in cabins. Check-in is as nice as in any fine hotel, with uniformed porters escorting us to the cabin door. Wifi on these ships is marginal; the cabins are steel Farraday cages, so signal can’t get through. But the cabins are comfortable and the ships have plenty of amenities, including a (small) white-tablecloth restaurant.
The ferry from Piraeus to Rhodes travels through the Dodecanese, stopping multiple times throughout the night. Our ferry stopped in Lipsi, Kalymnos, Kos, Nisyros, and Tilos while we slept. We mostly didn’t notice the nocturnal halts. When we woke up, we were right next to Turkey!
We were a good hour behind schedule, but we still had to stop in Symi. Symi is quite popular with tourists; the candy-colored main town is a draw, as is the famous monastery of Archangel Michael Panormitis. Day trips to Symi are a mainstay of the Rhodian tourist industry.
An hour later, we disembarked in Rhodes!