Loutraki

Lying at the foothills of the mountain Gerania and wetting its feet at the Corinthian Gulf, Loutraki has always been a cosmopolitan city. The proximity from Athens, the known from the antiquity thermal spas and the establishment of the first Casino in the country, made the city a magnet for people wanted to have a quality time. With its mild weather conditions and the modern athletic facilities, Loutraki now starring also as a athletic preparatory place, as the number of teams and athletes choosing the city for their winter training draws increasing. We 're patiently going to climb to meet the two monasteries that overlook the city -Prophet Elias and Osios Patapios and afterwards we ll let ourselves go, descend to the Blue Lake and the ruins of the Temple of Hera.

Following the tracks of Theseus, today we' ll ride the sites where the mythical king of Athens accomplished three of his six labors. At the Isthmian entrance he captured and killed Sinis, a known terrorist by his own method,at the village of Agioi Theodoroi anc.Crommyon he slew an enormous pig, the Crommyonian Sow and finally at the Bad Passage he kicked Sciron off the cliff where he was eaten by a sae monster. After a while we ll meet the city of Megara, hometown of comedy, where restless settlers, squeezed from the dominance of Athens and Corinth left their city founding major colonies including Byzantium later known as Instabul. Saving the best for last,the enchanting north-east lacy coastline of Corinthian Gulf and the famous Pissia climb is waiting for us to challenge our endurance.

When climbing the slopes of Cithaeron, the sacred to Dionysus mountain, you won’t only hear laughters and songs or encounter enchanting brides and vivid bacchants. A lot of drama unfolded here. After killιng his father, the envious and greedy Cithaeron mythical king of Platea, tried to eliminate his easygoing and gentle brother Helikon by throwing him of a cliff, killing himself also during the fight. It was Gods decision to transform the two brothers to mountains, one named Helikon home of the Muses, the other Cithaeron lair for the Erinyes the female chthonic deities of vengeance. It is on the side of that same mountain that Oedipus, as a baby, was abandoned to die in Sophocles titular tragedy and scene of the decisive battle of Platea during the 2nd Persian war.