Our alarm woke us with a jump at 7.30am. We were soon washed and dressed and heading for the buffet for breakfast. It was total mayhem and although I am certain all the usual components for breakfast were there it was too crowded to actually see. A couple of tiny croissants, a bowl of Greek yogurt and a banana sufficed. We were in the theatre by 9.25 awaiting the start of our excursion… a trip to Olympia. We had docked at Katakolon on a Greek headland jutting out into the Ionia Sea. This is where the first ever Olympic Games took place in 776BC. There were 5 events – running, jumping, wrestling, javelin and discus.
We were soon on our coach for the 45 minute journey to Olympia. Our guide spoke in about 6 different languages and we were thankful that one was English. We were told that the area is world famous for its olives and it’s fine virgin olive oil because evidently it has close to zero acidity. The area is very fertile and produces wine, watermelons and honey… everything was very green.
Arriving at the Olympia UNESCO site we were divided into language groups.. so our group was a total of about 12, it was made up of Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and another couple of Brits, who nearly pushed me down the ships steps in order to get to the bus first… typical Brits!!!! Ther was my favourite mode of transport, horse and cart waiting to take people to the ruins….. but alas our guide was all for walking…
We first saw the remains of the gymnasium. Our English speaking guide gave good information, although for someone with the attention span of a fly I soon switched off…. But I did learn that they used to run 192 metres and the men all ran naked… this surprised me as from the history of athletics which I had briefly studied in my degree years I seem to remember ancient pictures depicting them running in loin cloths… but who am I to question…. When someone asked about the ladies our guide made a derogatory comment but did later say that when they were allowed to compete they only ran 100m and wore white tunics.
When the statue Zeus, which was 14 metres high and over saw all the area, was removed to Istanbul the town of Olympia became abandoned. I think he said this was in about 400AD. The only resident of the original old town today is the cat!!!!
Earthquakes were and still are common place but a big one around 600AD lead to the collapse of the buildings. Having been abandoned the town lay covered in mud until exploration by archaeologists in 1876.
We wandered around looking at the various ruins before going through the arch to the actual Grass Olympic arena/ stadium…. This was fairly unspectacular as a flat ground for the running, standing long jump and Javlin neither of which needs todays run up as they were all performed from a standing position. There can still be seen some starting stone blocks and the space where the water flowed around the outside of the field so that the spectators, who viewed from the mound had drinking water.
Walking back to the coach we passed the place where the Olympic torch is still lite to this present day. ( it is at present in Paris for this years Olympics) The area is next to the oldest ruin…. I think our guide explained that a mirror or a piece of glass was positioned under the Olympic torch so that when the sun was in the correct position it’s rays would hit the mirror and set light to the torch. To this day that is how the torch is lite.
We wandered back to the coach park stopping at the Olive shop to purchase a very small, very expensive tin of premium virgin olive oil… a gift for my son who likes the finer things in life, a T-shirt for John and a pen for Johns Granddaughter. We decided that was enough shopping and so we sat and waited our time out having a Pepsi Max in the shade of an olive tree overlooking the ruins of Olympia.
We returned to the ship and had a light salad in the buffet for lunch before returning to our cabin for a siesta.
We showered ( you need to be a contortionist in our shower) and washed hair and put on some suitable glad rags in time for a rather nice mock-tail, called a Magic Island, before supper. Once again we got a wake view table and Saleem served us very well yet again.
After Supper we wandered down to the theatre for the evenings 10.00pm show. … more about that tomorrow… Goodnight from us both!
