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Published: September 18th 2013
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We start the day arriving in Katakolon, a port village on the west coast of the Peloponnese and drive to the ancient site of ancient Olympia.
Around 400 BC athletes from all over Greece would gather every four years to honor the gods and reveal their efforts to achieve the divine through training the body and the mind. It was not a competition in the modern sense but rather a religious rite. The complex is huge and divided into the secular and the religious. On one side are the gymnasium, dormitories, and practice venues. On the other, the religious, temples to the gods and goddesses of ancient Olympia. The main gods, of course were Zeus and Hera. The temple to Zeus originally enclosed a 40' statue of the god made of ivory, clad in gold and precious and semi-precious stones. It was removed and transported to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine to decorate his capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was destroyed by fire and all that remains are pieces of ivory from the site. Along with the temples were the "treasuries", small temples erected to the gods by the city states.
The
TEMPLE OF ZEUS
Column with plaster remaning buildings were constructed by local rock, a hard congregate formed the the Peloponnese was a vast ocean. This durable rock was not suitable for decoration so it was faced with a thick layer of plaster. Then marble was imported from other areas of Greece to decorate the buildings. It must have been magnificent.
No women were permitted at the games with one exception. A priestess of the goddess Dimitri watched the events from a small alcove above the field.
The winner of each of the events received an olive wreath to signify the he had reached near perfection and the honor of his fellow citizens down for three generations. He was regarded as close to divinity as a human could attain.
We have been blessed with perfect weather. The sun is shining but the valley is cool and our guide, Marika, finds spots of shade for her explanations.
Although there were many visitors, we could wander through the complex and imagine the excitement of the five days of the stadium. Four months were set aside for travel to the site, training of the athletes and the return to
their homes. It is easy to imagine the excitement when the five days of competition arrived. A group of tourists organized a foot race across the field. When the games were actually held it was high summer, oppressively hot and humid and the athletes ran naked and barefoot. The ground on the field was soft and it's still soft today.
From Olympia, we drove to the Mercouri Estate, home of a winery and olive oil press and bottler. The operations of the vineyard are modern but the equipment is housed in old buildings from the days of the founder in 1930. The founder was a businessman with interests in shipping, travel agency and agriculture but his passion was wine. The old buildings have been lovingly restored and house an extensive collection of implements related to wine and wine making, olive oil production but also dairy and agriculture and the necessary supports to these including carpentry. We could have spent hours looking at the collection of artifacts but, alas, the wine calls.
Tables had been set up in the garden overlooking the Ionian Sea. We were given two wines, a red and a
white, to sample, and a cruet of the olive oil, accommodated by salami, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese in olive oil, farm grown olives, a hard cheese and small pieces of bread. It was a small feast and the wines were excellent, especially the white, as was everything else served.
A short drive brought us back to port and I headed for the pool while Joe found a spot in the shade to read.
My nap was so deep that when Joe wakened me at 6:30 I though it was the next day. Neither of us was very hungry and the menus did not appeal so we went to the Ocean Bar for stingers and then ordered a triple decker club from room service. For tonight it was perfect.
Tomorrow, Santorini.
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