Wednesday 13th April 2022 – Schinos, Greece

Just a few metres into the park was a folklore museum and we had seen on our walk yesterday that it was open from 09:00 this morning. There was someone there although they obviously weren’t expecting any visitors. They took us up to the 3^rd floor of the large building where the museum rooms were located and unlocked the doors. It was a fun museum that compared ancient domestic activities. There was no charge and we thanked the custodian as she conducted a school party round the exhibits.
We drove the short distance to the museum and parked a little distance away as it was surrounded by major roadworks relaying the roads. When we got to the museum, the door with the plaque announcing that it was the museum, was firmly closed. We suspected that this might be the case, given the extensive roadworks but I decided to walk around the building just to check. On the other side of the building was another door that was open and lead us to another excellent, modern and well-presented museum. Close to the museum were the remains of the 4^th century Temple of Athena Alea and, although we had seen it through the fence, we wanted to take a closer look. I asked the custodian and she confirmed that we could go in for an extra charge of 3€. We had been the only visitors in the museum and, unsurprisingly, we were the only visitors in the site. Many pieces of column are scattered around the site and they are massive. They supported the temple which was 13 metres high and housed a cult statue of Athena Alea.
We had picked a campsite in Corinth from the ACSI book that was open and was a good stopping point on our journey north. We arrived to find that, despite what it said in the book, it was not going to be open for another two days. We checked for other campsites and found one on the eastern end of the Gulf of Corinth. This meant crossing the Corinth canal and heading north. After passing through the busy spa resort of Loutraki we started to climb, giving wonderful views over the Gulf. Windy roads and pine forest took us across a peninsular to Agia Sotira and along narrow roads to the Alkioni Beach campsite. The site is almost all semi-permanent pitches with caravans that have obviously been in place for many years, mostly with additions to provide shady outdoor space. The site is on a steep hillside with lots of mature trees and wonderful views over the Gulf of Corinth. We had the only touring pitch next to the sea and were the only people on the campsite! The showers were hot and the block was clean and we walked down to the beach to see the flat-calm blue sea.
We saw our first substantial solar farms yesterday but on today’s journey we saw many more, especially on the plains. Given the extensive areas of poor agricultural land and lots of strong sunlight, it would seem sensible for Greece to have lots of solar farms.

Photos: Our wild camping pitch with the theatre (and church) in the background; There are very few rivers on the plain around Megalopolis and Tripolis and the farmers rely on irrigation water from wells – we saw many of these endless bucket systems that were used to raise the water; The beautifully carved 2^nd century BC head of Asclepios, stolen from the Tegea museum in 1992 but recovered 6 years later; The rather boring spring next to the Temple of Athena Alea but this is the Spring of Auge where Herakles met Auge, daughter of Aleos and a priestess of Athena Alea – the result was the birth of Telephos, who, obviously, invented the telephone; The view from near our pitch at Alkioni Beach.