Day 7 - June 23 - Olympia

We bid Demtri and family adieu and head west to Olympia, the place of the original Olympic games. Just when I thought that the roads could not get any more challenging, the number of really tight hairpin turns and the heights climbed along this small two lane paved road impresses and thrills me at the same time. I loved this drive but it exhausted me. The drive to Olympia takes a very long time, mostly because the mountain pass takes hours to maneuver. By this time we have driven close to 1000 kilometers (a little more then 600 miles) over the weekend, and all of our nerves are starting to become frayed. When we reach Olympia, about six hours later, we notice a serious lack of visitors. While Ann and I wait in the car, Nick goes up to the ticket booth to ask what’s up. He returns with the news that the workers have gone on strike! Yes, we just bust a gut and spent six hours of difficult driving to find out Olympia is closed! Remember National Lampoon’s Vacation? (“Sorry, the moose at the gate should have told you, Wally World is closed today”). That is exactly how we felt. It did not help the frayed tempers any, and while no one went crazy and hijacked a roller coaster or anything, we were pretty annoyed. So, we found a shady spot to sit, had some lunch and got the added enjoyment of witnessing an argument between the leader of the strike and management. Since parts of Olympia are visible from the road we walked along the road peering past the fence into the site. It was here that I was glad I had bought that 300mm lens for my camera. I managed to get a few decent shots.

A bit of history: Olympic Games in ancient times were comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad (i.e. every four years- come on I bet you always wondered where the word Olympiad originated from), with the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC. In 394 emperor Theodosius I abolished them because they were reminiscent of paganism (boy would he freak over the opening ceremonies of today’s modern games or what?). From our roadside vantage point only the remains of the stadium and the Temple of Zeus are easily identifiable. The temple was the place where the Olympic flame was kept and is said the rival the Parthenon in size. Olympia is also known for the gigantic ivory and gold statue of Zeus, which was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which we did not get to see because of the strike– bastards! Uh…I mean solidarity brothers!

Visitors to the games would enter Olympia first moving through the sanctuary area of the temples and alters. To access the stadium, visitors would exit the sanctuary area through an arched tunnel, part of which still stands. What is visible of the stadium is approximately 200 meters of track, with the start and finish lines still recognizable, along with the judges thrones in the middle. Strangely enough, the stadium was unearthed during WWII by German excavators allegedly under the orders of Hitler. We then piled back into the car, and started the long drive back (almost all the way across the country) east to Athens where we would stay at Nick’s folks house in the city for the rest of the week. By this time I was very tired of driving, having not only done it for the entire trip so far, but covering about 1500 kilometers (a little more then 900 miles) just this weekend alone, so I gave the helm over to Ann and I crawled into the back seat and slept for bit. I take over the driving again as we get closer to Athens, because Ann is not wanting to deal with the crazies driving in the city (I, on the other hand, love it!).