After a lovely morning at sea when we had the opportunity to do our ‘photographic safari’ snapping photos of Sea Cloud, we arrived at the picturesque port of Katakolo on the west coast of the Peloponnese. Our buses drove us directly through a rich agricultural area to the site of Ancient Olympia, a beautiful and peaceful place surrounded by hundreds of olive and pine trees.
We started exploring the site and we had a chance to see ruins of the most important buildings that once decorated the sanctuary of Zeus. We strolled through the gymnasium (the nude men’s place!), the Paleastra, the Sacred Way, the Workshop of Pheidias, where one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was created: the seated gold and ivory statue of Zeus. We continued towards the sacred buildings where we saw the temple of Zeus, of Hera, and last but not least the ancient Olympic Stadium! Standing in the middle of the huge stadium (45,000 capacity!) you can’t stop yourself from flying centuries back and imagine what it meant to win the olive crown in an Olympic competition! We also saw the very spot where the Olympic flame is lit nowadays using a concave mirror that concentrates the sunrays. In this way as the flame begins its journey around the world from here, everybody is reminded of the birthplace of the Olympic Games which started as early as 776 BCE!
We continued to the archaeological museum, where we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of the original masterpieces preserved in the sanctuary: two complete marble pediments from the temple of Zeus, the Nike of Paionios, and the ultimate highlight being the statue of Hermes of Praxiteles. We also saw countless bronze pieces of armors, Roman statuary, and glassware. In the meantime, Zeus the ‘cloud-gatherer’ started making his appearance with a show of thunders and rain! We raced back to the buses through the invigorating rain, grateful to Zeus for at least letting us finish our visit relatively dry!
