Travel Journal

2002-11-05

Olympia

We were the only non-Greeks on the bus, which mainly served as a regional transportation system for local people. We stopped in a lot of small villages, dropping off newspapers and picking up new ones periodically along the route. Most people got on for a relatively short ride from one village to another, or from a village into a larger town. The scenery was breathtaking, as were some of the precipitous drop-offs right next to the road. We were glad we didn't rent a car and drive the route ourselves! Other highlights of the trip included the herd of sheep blocking the road, the horrible auto accident we encountered (a car was flipped completely over with the roof caved in, and there was at least one person inside), and the time the bus broke down and the driver fixed it...

Once we arrived at Olympia, our first stop was the Olympic Games Museum, which is primarily dedicated to the history of the modern Olympic Games. It was a great little museum, with lots of memorabilia. There were displays on all of the summer games, and some of the winter games; some of these looked like they had been contributed by the local olympic organizers. My favorite piece of Olympic memorabilia at the museum was an adorable stylized beaver from the Montreal games. The most interesting thing I learned was that the Olympic Stadium in Athens from the 1896 games is actually a reconstructed ancient stadium; they had before and after photos.

On the way back from the museum, we grabbed a yummy picnic lunch from a pastry shop and a walkup counter selling tyropita and similar delights.

Our next stop was the ancient site, which was primarily a religious center. The temple of Zeus is incredibly impressive, even though it's almost completely destroyed. The pillars were built in sections, each of which is about 5 feet in diameter and 2 feet thick. These enormous sections surround the temple, especially along one side where the sections comprising entire pillars are lying on the ground like dominoes.

The temple of Hera is the most complete, with 3 or 4 massive Doric columns standing, while the temple of Rea is in worse shape. A number of other buildings at the site are reasonably recognizable, including the priests' dwellings.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of visiting Olympia was standing in the original Olympic Stadium!

Our next stop was the archaeological museum, which was undergoing extensive renovation. However, the major sights were still visible: the pediments and metopes from the Temple of Zeus, the statue of Hermes, and the statue of Nike. Everything we saw there was great -- and it was nice to see greek originals for a change, instead of roman copies of greek originals! The statue of Hermes holding the baby Dionysius is justifiably famous, and reminded me in some ways of Michelangelo's David. I wonder which ancient statues Michelangelo would have had a chance to see before he sculpted the David?

The trip back was uneventful, except that the bus was 25 minutes late. We were too exhausted to get any dinner, so we just picked up potato chips and chocolate on the way back to the hotel before we collapsed."

Olympia