PapaMarshall

Day 12 – 1/23/2020 – Olympia

Sunrise view from the breakfast room at our hotel.

We photo’d the sunrise, finished breakfast and set out – on foot because Olympia is so small – to the original Olympic village.

We were watched over by the Head Village Dog.
And accompanied by a representative of the Village Dog Committee

Michaela told us a bunch of stories today, some Greek myth and some Olympic history. She described this as the location for the original Olympics because of the Fertility of the valley, the abundant presence of water, and a hill nearby that was (reportedly) the home of Apollo.

We spent the bulk of the morning touring the Greek and Roman ruins at the site including:

No…he is neither Greek, Roman, nor a ruin
The temple of Hera, with an alter in front.
Since the 1936 Olympics this is the place where the Olympic torch begins its journey.
The temple of Zeus
Note how the column drums (felled by earthquakes) are so much more massive than in other temples we’ve seen.
The lone standing column was erected for the 2004 games in Athens.
Being the gathering place of a bunch of very rich people there was , of course, a luxury hotel on site.
with a swimming pool
There was an athletic training facility
that included an indoor track
In the 3rd Century an earthquake destroyed the sculpture workshop and it was rebuilt as a Christian Church
Finally, because no visit to the site of the original Olympics would be complete without it (and because they do such a good job of maintaining the facility)…
We had a race in the original stadium.
Even some older folk participated

Others of us took photos.

Josh Andersen from Vale won. Kaya Evans from Pocatello came in second. Cameron Coyl from Boise came in third.

Following the review of the site itself we retired to the on-site museum. By the way, we have visited a number of excellent small museums on this trip. Associated with specific sites each is well (and consistently) curated and each does a good job of highlighting significant history and archaeological finds associated with their site.

Sculptures from the west pediment of the temple of Zeus.
In spite of what it looks like this is actually a smoker for bees.
Votive offerings in the shape of animals for the temple of Zeus
Seven nude women in a round dance; 8th c BC
Cauldron with anthropomorphic rim ornament; 7th c BC
Cauldron rim ornament in the shape of a griffin; 7th c BC
Helmets left as offering to the god
Hermès saving the infant god Dionysus; ~330 BC
Red figure Eleian Krater (bowl for mixing water and wine); mid 4th c BC
Emperor Hadrian; 117-138 AD. Note the relief of Romulus and Remus suckling the wolf on his cuirass.
Romans developed the process for blowing glass. This new technology is reflected in the votive offerings during the Roman period.

Then it was time for lunch. Michaela had arranged for a friend of hers to open his restaurant for us. The menu was limited but the food was good. And the baklava for desert was, well, baklava is always a high point.

After lunch we were on our own. Ron and Cheri joined us in visiting a small museum dedicated to the inventions of Archimedes. Oh My Goodness, this was Outstanding! We closed the place down, sadly, at 3:30 but what we saw while there was kind-of mind blowing. Cheryl was particularly impressed by the automated puppet-type show (ancient Netflix). I was taken by the process for communicating messages over great distances. Other displays showed water clocks, an Archimedes screw, a model of an ancient cruise ship, a robotic wine pourer and such. Sadly it was a “no photos” museum so the best I can do is send you to their website: https://archimedesmuseum.gr/en/home

Then it was back to the hotel for a nap and reading – you guess who did which. After my nap Cheryl kicked me out to retreat to the hotel lounge (where they have passable WiFi coverage) to work on this entry. After dinner tonight it’s time to pack.

Tomorrow we leave for Delphi.

till then, TTFN,

R

5 Comments

  1. Kim, sorry, I keep forgetting to take photos of food. I’ll try to be better. For now, the hits are various kinds of Greek salads, Chicken and Swordfish Suvlaki, Gyros (similar to, but quite different from what we know in the US), and pasta dishes.

  2. Please don’t neglect to photograph anything you eat that is on fire 😉

    Also- bummed you couldn’t get photos of the Archimedes museum, sound’s super cool.

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