ACCORINTHE

Fill up with water as the site is steep. Count at least one hour from the entrance to the fortress enclosure, or much more if you decide to climb up to the viewpoints: the view is impressive on the plain, the surrounding ruins and the gulf.

The Acrocorinth is one of the most beautiful fortresses in Greece. The ramparts still visible bear witness to the waves of occupation of Corinth from the 10th century AD onwards, but the foundations on which they were built date from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Each of the occupants left their mark on the ramparts: the Franks, then the Byzantines, the Turks in 1458, the Venetians in 1687, the Turks again in 1715 and, finally, the Greeks in 1823. Entering the fortress, you first pass over a ditch once filled with water, dug by the Venetians. The first door, known as the outer door, which we pass through, is from the Frankish period (13th century). The second door, called the middle door, is partly Byzantine. The third door, the so-called inner door, is Byzantine. Note that each of these doors is connected to the others by inclined planes or ramps.

You can also see the gun holes added by the Franks. Inside the fortress, walls of Byzantine houses and churches coexist with ruins of Venetian towers and Turkish mosques. The remains of antiquity, on the other hand, have not survived successive occupations. The Acrocorinth was then dedicated to the cult of Aphrodite in arms, to which a thousand sacred slaves offered their services. The path that climbs to the left, after the third gate, leads to a small chapel and, after a 10-minute walk, to a beautiful partially preserved Turkish mosque. Going down on the other side, you can see the minaret in front of which a cistern (protected by a gate) was dug in Byzantine times. By taking a path that goes up in the opposite direction to the gates, you come to the crossing of three paths. The one on the left leads to a Frankish castle, the one on the right to a dungeon from where the view of the Argolide is impressive, the one in the middle goes down to the famous high Pirene fountain. The latter is the shortest; it allows access to the cistern after going down a small staircase. The fountain's cistern is pierced with a circular eye-shaped hole. According to the legend, this hole would come from the hoof blow given by Pegasus to make the spring gush out. It is at this same place that Bellerophon captured Pegasus while drinking at the source.