A Day in Ancient Olympia

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Dale and I are Olympic fans. We attended a couple of events of the 1986 summer Olympics in LA and several events at the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. We went to Paso Robles and saw the torch being carried, and one of the torch bearers let us hold the torch briefly. So, it was only fitting that we wanted to go to Olympia, the place of the original Olympics.

Before leaving for Greece, I tried to figure out how to get to Olympia on our own for as a day trip. This was impossible. I’d read in Rick Steeves that he recommended Nikki of Olympia Tour so I contacted her. Yes, the train and then bus would take probably 5 hours each way and yes, neither Dale or I could rent a car due to age. Finally, we just signed up for a private day tour.

The driver met us next to our apartment at 8 am. We drove to Olympia with a stop at the Corinth Canal. The back story, as per our driver, is that before the canal was dug, ships had to go all the way around the area to get from one sea to another. Back in about 600 B.C. the very corrupt king built a sort of road. They would unload the ships on one side, pull the ship on some sort of wheeled thing to the other side, reload the ship and they’d be on their way, for a price of course. Now there is a canal but it is too small for the big ships we have today.

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/greece/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-corinth-canal/

We went on to Olympia and met Nikki who was to be our tour guide. We were concerned about the weather, as thunderstorms were in the forecast, but Nikki assured us that she’d sacrificed a goat to the God Zeus and was told that there would be no rain on us during our visit. And as predicted there was no rain. There was, however, thunder and lightning but no rain.

Olympia was chosen as a place to hold the Olympics in order to stop the fighting between the city-states. It is surprising how much has been excavated; gymnasiums, one for javelin and high jump and another for boxing. The high jump was a bit different then, the jumper had to hold a rock in each hand then as he jumped, he threw the rocks and this way jumped higher.

Zaya, Dale and Kim all ran a race on the original track, starting at the original start line. Zaya and Dale ran to the end of the track and Zaya won fair and square. Kim gave it her best shot. Zaya was crowned as the winner with a laurel head wreath as the athletes were so long ago. She didn’t however, have a sculpture made of me as her coach. Perhaps she is not so generous.

I did, for the record, walk the track from one end to the other. This was how the athletes’ raced, down to the end then back. I thought that maybe I was in a walking race against myself.

I could have stayed lots longer at the site but we had to hurry. We were having a private, home-made lunch, everything Greek, and the time was set for us to be there between 2:30-3 pm. We did go quickly thru the museum and saw a couple of important sculptures.

We went on to lunch at a fabulous house. The downstairs consisted of a living room with glass on 3 sides. One side opened up into a covered patio with the home above. There was an outdoor kitchen where the woman did the cooking for the lunch. She made gluten free versions of the dishes which was nice, except for the Orzo and Baklava. Alas. But I got some of the recipes which I will try when we get home.

The driver took us back home on the road to the North then headed East to Athens, so that we saw a different type of landscape.

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Photos

Zaya the winner
The rocks right behind her were an alter where the flame was. Now they light the modern flame here.

Here are the Olympians
This is the original starting line