Corinth Canal

The Full Day Sparta tour starts with a 45-mile drive along the National highway. We will reach the well-known Corinthian canal or else Isthmus canal that connects the Saronic Sea and the Corinthian Sea. The canal, though executed in the late 19th century, has been a 2000-year-old dream. Before its construction, ships in the Aegean Sea that wanted to cross to the Adriatic or anchor in Corinth, a rich shipping city, had to circle the Peloponnese, which would prolong their journey an extra 185 nautical miles. It is believed that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth (602 BC), was the first to conceive of the idea of digging the Corinth Canal. As the project was too complicated given the limited technical capabilities of the times, Periander constructed the diolkós, a stone road which allowed ships to be transferred on wheeled platforms. On 67 AD that Emperor Nero attempted the construction of the canal with a group of 6,000 slaves. But he was murdered before the plans were finalized. Finally, the construction of the canal came to an end at the last decade of the 19th century.

Archaeological Museum of Sparta

Continuing with a 2-hour drive through the mountains, in central Peloponnese, arriving at Sparta, a prominent city-state in Ancient Greece, situated on the banks of Eurotas River in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese. Findings at this archaeological site were unearthed by the pioneer excavations of the British School of Archaeology starting in 1910. Excavations resumed in the early 1990’s, primarily in the areas of the ancient theatre and the merchant stalls. The most significant monuments of this archeological site include: The Temple of Athena Chalkioikos whose position has been defined by few surviving relics found at the northwest end of the Acropolis. The ancient theater of Sparta on the south side of the Acropolis is a product of the early Imperial Period. The orchestra, the retaining wall with engraved inscriptions of the rulers of Sparta in Roman times and the concave portion of the large theater has been preserved. The so-called Circular Building of Unknown Destination is a circular structure built of hewn blocks and smaller stones. The section that has been preserved, perhaps due to Roman repairs, seems to have been an important building in ancient Spartan life (the Skias). The remains of merchant stalls adjacent to the ancient theater discovered in recent excavations by the British School seem to be products of the Roman Imperial period. The relics of a grand Basilica of the mid Byzantine Era have been linked to the Basilica of Saint Nikon (10th century AD). Concluding the visit at the archaeological site of Sparta the traveler will continue with a visit at the archaeological museum of Sparta. The museum hosts thousands of findings from the province of Lacedaemon, along with those coming from other areas of the Laconian prefecture,which are not included in the archaeological collections of Gytheion and Neapolis Vion. The objects exhibited in its halls, cover the time period between the Neolithic and the Later Roman eras, while findings from the great sanctuaries of Sparta hold the most prominent position. The museum visitors will have the opportunity to admire retrieved material coming from the greater pre-historical sites of Laconia, sculptures dated from the Archaic to the Roman eras, found at various locations of the prefecture, along with artefacts from rescue excavations, the most important of which being the remains of Roman mosaic floors from Sparta. In addition, the museum exhibition includes a few but extremely valuable epigraphs,providing rare information on the history of the area.