Day 7 - Olympia and on to Nafplion

 

Wednesday we traveled to the site of ancient Olympia where we met our Local Specialist, Zoe. 

The story of Olympia is fascinating to say the least. It is the place where the Olympic games were held every 4 years starting in 776 BC, that is nearly 3000 years ago.  The games were the one time every four years when a 'Sacred Truce' was observed and free people from all walks of life competed on equal footing. Winners were treated like gods, if you came in second you were just a loser.  Only men were allowed to compete or watch, if a woman came, it is said she would be thrown off a cliff. Zoe's description of the environment, the events and the meaning of these games really gave us a perspective we never appreciated when learning about the games in school. The games continued every 4 years through the end of the  4th century AD when Christianity arrived and stopped all pagan festivals. The huge complex used for the games was destroyed by the Christians and earthquakes. It was later covered with silt from the two rivers. The birth place of the modern day Olympics remained undiscovered by modern times until the 18th century. First excavations took place in the early 1800s, what they uncovered is so impressive that you will have to go see it to believe it. 

The site houses temples for Zeus and Hera (Zeus's wife). 

The Temple of Hera, or Heraion is the oldest (590 BC) and is where the Olympic flame is lit every two years (every 4 years in ancient times) at the start of the Olympics. 

The Temple of Zeus was built in 5th century BC and contained a massive Statue of Zeus, which had been ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  Unfortunately, it was removed by the Christians and later destroyed in a fire. 

The area is huge and you can wander around and sit on the stones from buildings of a few thousand years ago. 

There is much to see but we eventually made our way to the Stadium where the games started, at least the most important game, the foot race. It was not elaborate, just a simple bowl with earth seats and a marble strip for the start and end. The distance was a variation of one stadium length, which is roughly 600 human feet. To enter the Stadium athletes and their trainers passed through a tunnel to emerge into a stadium with about 45,000 spectators, all men. The athletes were naked, thus no markings of their class in life were visible, they were all on equal ground. 

When in Rome....Olympia, do what they did 3000 years ago, race. Yes, Harry won by a good margin and it doesn't matter who was second, the rest are all losers. I will say one Stadium is about 2 football fields, it has been some time since any of us sprinted that far. 

After our race we wandered the grounds some to cool down  and as we exited we could see that the excavation of this site continues. Zoe said, it will be interesting to see what they find, but we may not be alive, it is a slow process. For example part of the games were the Chariot races but they have yet to find the chariot track, it may have been washed away by the rivers. 

We exited the ruins and met Zoe at the gate to go to the museum.

The museum has several good models of what Olympia looked like, it was impressive. You can see The Temple of Zeus in the middle and the stadium in the upper right. 

The museum contains the sculptures recovered from The Temple of Zeus's Pediments (the triangle over each end of the temple). They are in amazing condition and each tells a story, of course Zoe tells it best. 

a

The statues are believed to have influenced much of what you see from the renaissance period in Italy. The statue 'The Hermes of Praxiteles' reminded me of the Statue of David we saw in Italy.  

The museum articles are in amazing condition for being thousands of years old. Once again without someone like Zoe to help with the interpretation it would be challenging to comprehend its significance. 

After the museum we attempted a walk in the town of Olympia but had to do a fast retreat due to rain. 

We boarded the bus and traveled a short distance for lunch at a restaurant called 'Touris Club'. It was a great meal especially the Gyros. 

The Gyro tasted even better than it looked. 

After lunch we set off for Nafplion, about a 3 hour drive, once again the Greek countryside is beautiful. 

We arrived in the beautiful port city of Nafplion around 16:00. It historically was a very important port for the area and from 1827 to 1834 it was the Capitol of the Kingdom of Greece. 

The city is overlooked by the Nafplion Palamidi Fortress, it was built in the early 19th century. We were told by Nadine that there are 999 steps to get up to the fort from the town, we decided to take Nadine's word for it. 

In the center of the harbor is the Bourtzi Castle. It was built in the 1400s by the Venetians to protect the city from pirates and invaders from the sea.  The fort was used as a residence for excutioners during the early 1900s.  Nadine said this is the Greek equivalent of Alcatraz. 

The town of Nafplion is very quaint and we enjoyed walking the streets and the water front. This is a picture of the center square of town. Many of the streets are marble. 

Trafalgar treated the group to ice-cream at one of the local shops, it was awesome. 

The town is very picturesque, we could spend a day or two here. 

We walked for an hour or so before boarding the bus for the short ride to The Hotel Amalia. 

We had dinner at the hotel and after dinner everyone in our group gathered in the lounge where the hotel had an entertainer playing the piano. We found out earlier in the week that Nadine has many talents, one of them is singing. With some encouragement (begging) we convinced her to sing us a few songs. It was a very nice treat and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Not every Tour Director sings to their group, that is going above and beyond!

Thursday will be the last day of our tour, and we will travel to Mycenae and Corinth before making our way back to Athens for our farewell dinner. 

\