Katakolon, Greece

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Day 9 - Katakolon, Greece

(Geoff) Sue has organised for us to take a later tour today - Yay!!!. Our tour today is off to Olympia but thankfully doesn't start till midday. A chance to sleep in a bit and have a quiet start to the day.

Olympia is about 40 minutes out of the village of Katakolon. We head to the bus at 11:45 and head straight out there. The itinerary is to visit the museum first and then tour the archaeological site. We see some amazing statuary that has been saved at the site, some of which has been pieced together painstakingly. We are talking about remnants of the 7th to the 5th century BC here!! We are impressed with the museum though our guide is a real talker and while the information he imparts is very valuable, there sure is a lot of it! I reckon he is paid by the word or maybe even the syllable!!

After the museum, we head to the dig site. There are remains of columns and walls everywhere. In some instances,, examples of the structures have been rebuilt to show the scale of the buildings around us. One pillar from Zeus' temple stands 11 metres tall! Must have been a phenomenal effort to build it in the first place. This site is not just renowned for the lighting of the modern day Olympic Games torch (I have a photo of the rather non-descript site that this occurs if anyone is interested) but also is the site where the ancient Greeks held their original Games. The stadium still exists - an grassy-banked arena that could hold 43,000 spectators and officials and and a central packed-earth area where the competitions were held. There are marble start/finish and turning lines at each end and the distance between them is nearly 200 metres.

After a bit of free time, we head back to the ship, say goodbye to our garrulous guide and set sail for Corfu at 4:45 p.m.

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Comments

[Chris]

Greekiness!
Hi guys, how are you finding Greece? The weather here has taken a sharp turn towards summer, but who knows if it will last. Doing ok here, wish I was on holiday too though!