Corinth Canal and Diolkos

The opening of the Corinth Canal.

The Corinth Canal links the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Sea. The canal is absolutely straight for its entire length of 6,937 yards (nearly four miles). It is 25 yards wide at the bottom and 26 feet deep. The cutting has a maximum depth of 260 feet.
The excavation started in 1882 by the ¨ International Society of Marine Canal of Corinth ¨ and completed due to lack of funds in 1893 from the company of Andreas Syngros. Plans of the incision made by the Hungarian engineer Béla Gerster.

The tyrant of Corinth, Periander, was the first who envisioned the Corinth Canal in 602BC, but the conditions of that era made his idea impossible to carry out. Instead, he developed the ¨Diolkos¨. The ¨Diolkos¨ was an engineering feat.
Along the ¨Diolkos¨ ran the ¨Olko¨, which was a wheeled vehicle onto which ships were actually lifted onto, and taken over land from one side to the other.
It worked for 1500 years and spent thousands of merchant ships with this way, paying quite expensive tolls for the route.

• SPAP = Railways Piraeus - Athens -- Peloponnese
• Music: Vangelis