Olympia & Nauplia

After we arrived at our hotel in Olympia and had dinner, we were treated to some Ouzo. I only took a little sip to be polite as I had tried it before and knew it had a strong licorice taste to it. I don’t like licorice. Our Tour Director noticed and I was soon treated with a glass of Metaxa instead. It was like an orange flavored cognac. Very tasty.

Our hotel at Olympia was easy walking distance to the ruins of ancient Olympia which once consisted of over 70 temples plus monuments, treasuries, altars and statues. It was also about the only place on this trip where no mountains needed to be climbed to get to it. It is said that the site had been occupied as early as 1500 BC with evidence that an earlier version of the Temple of Zeus existed by 1000 BC.

The Temple of Zeus once contained a ginormous statue of Zeus made out of gold and ivory, said to be 43 feet high. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Good ole Theodosius II had the temple destroyed in 426 AD (several years after he had the Temple of Apollo at Delphi destroyed). Nobody seems to know what happened to the statue of Zeus. Not much was left of the temple except for its base.

Olympia suffered numerous earthquakes and floods after that until it had pretty much been buried under alluvial deposits of mud. In 1766, the ancient site was pinpointed, but it wasn’t until some French men decided to go digging around there in about 1826, that the remains of the Temple of Zeus were discovered.

Our group walked on over after breakfast. I felt excited to be able to see where the ancient Olympic Games had taken place from the 8^th century BC (776 BC) to the 4^th century AD. There were numerous sporting events held around Greece in other places, such as the Pythian Games and Panhellenic Games to name just a couple. But the Olympics ended up being the greatest because of their worldwide revival in the late 19^th century.

Upon arriving at the archeological site, we first encountered the gymnasium. This was a training facility for sports. The word “gymnasium” was taken from “gymnos” which meant “naked”. Only adult males were allowed in the facility. Athletic competitions back then were in the nude. Again, only adult males were allowed to participate or attend.

The Palaestra was a portion of the gymnasium where athletes practiced wrestling, boxing and jumping. In Olympia, one of the areas of the building appears to have been a bowling alley. This is based on it being quite similar to a place in Pompeii that still had the heavy balls used there.

Then we came across the remains of the Temple of Zeus, which come from a version of the temple that was built in the 5^th century BC (and was the version with the colossal statue of Zeus).

One of my favorites was the Temple of Hera. It was built in the 6^th century BC and was the oldest temple at Olympia. It also has three very beautiful columns standing that caught the light quite nicely when I was photographing it. Whenever the Olympic Games are being held, the Olympic flame is ignited using a parabolic mirror to focus the rays of the sun in front of the location of the altar in the Temple of Hera at Olympia.

The Nymphaeum was kind of like an ancient water park. Traditionally, this was where the nymphs dwelled. It was an area (often a grotto) full of pools and fountains. The one at Olympia isn’t that much to look at now, but I included a photo of it anyway. One can imagine the cascades and spouts of water.

This was next to the Philippeion, which was the only temple dedicated to a human at Olympia. The human was Philip of Macedon – Alexander the Great’s father. He had statues of himself and his family (including Alexander) erected inside of the circular building. They, like the statue of Zeus, were made from gold and ivory.

An outdoor corridor led to an archway. On the other side of the archway was the original Olympic stadium. Once I went through the arch, I was amazed to find that the stadium consisted of a dirt track area with gently sloping grass on each side for the spectators to gather and watch. I have to admit to being disappointed. But that was the way this stadium always was – just dirt and grass.

In the museum were several statues and friezes. A couple of the statues were fairly famous. One was the Nike of Paionios. She was found near the Temple of Zeus. Another was Hermes and the Infant Dionysos. They had been inside of the Temple of Hera. we could take as many photos as we wanted, so I snapped several.

After lunch we left for Nauplia, passing the walls of the town where the Cyclops was said to have been from. At Nauplia, we checked into the hotel then walked down to the waterfront to take a boat out to a small fortress on an island. The island fortress of Bourtzi looked like a submarine, which was interesting since submarines didn’t exist at the time it was built or for several hundreds of years after.

We were the only people at the fort at the time and we explored it all the way to the flag on top. It had a lot of interesting corners and some beautiful bougainvillea climbing the walls. We took the boat back and had dinner at an outdoor restaurant from which we could see the crusader fortress on the mountain above. We had stuffed tomatoes, Greek salad, lamb and potatoes, and some ice cream with some very sweet cake. We also each had a carafe of wine to ourselves. Mine was a very tasty rosé.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel the long way through town. Not sure if our tour director led us that way so we could see more of the town, or so we would sober up a bit before we reached the hotel.

Next time – Mycenae, home of Agamemnon.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•