Yet another early start, I had wanted to get us to Olympia before the crowds got there and it became too hot as there is little shade coverage at the ruins. Again, I have done this before but Dan had been interested and I really enjoy showing him things I’ve seen before and seeing them through his eyes. Our accommodation was literally minutes walk from the ancient ruins site and the museum, so it was just a little after 8am when we arrived.
I wasn’t entirely sure where the ticket office was and as we approached the main entrance (after patting a friendly kitty, of course), I noticed a sign on the door saying “April 18: Nation Monument Day: Entrance is free.” I had a vague recollection that I had seen this for the Acropolis and lamenting that we were not in Athens on that day, but it never occurred to me that the offer would extend country-wide.
We walked inside and up to the ticket counter, where we were handed our free tickets. Score! A saving of €20. I have been inside the Ancient Olympia museum before, but it was on the Contiki tour and while we were given a tour around the museum, we didn’t have a lot of time to peruse on our own. Dan and I were often the only people in many rooms (or just leaving as a group would walk in), and so it felt like it was our own private museum. We took many photos, and again, as far as museums go, it’s fascinating to think that all of these relics and objects and statues were found just a few hundred metres away - many dating back to older than 500BC. Incredible.
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| Charlie bit me! |
After the museum, it was time for the archeological site. We of course met a lovely vocal kitty on the way who didn’t want us to stop patting him. We continued to the gates of the site and made our way in - quite a few people already inside. I suggested we head straight for the running track before it became too busy, which turned out to be excellent advice! We walked past a few very large tour groups who were circumnavigating the site in the opposite direction.
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| Dan running onto the track to the cheering crowd |
There were a few people on the track when we arrived, not too many though. I forced Dan to enter the field like he was an athlete of long ago, arms up, running into the imagined cheers of 45000 people. Unlike today’s running fields, the track is straight, and at either end are marble starting and ending blocks which the althetes would have wedged their toes into. Very uncomfortable starting position!
First things first: a race. We put our stuff out of the way and set ourselves up on the starting block. I attempted to take a video of this, and it is definitely one fine piece of video footage… 3, 2, 1 and off we went! I seriously legged it, and I was surprised how well I kept up with Dan. We were neck and neck, until about 20m from the end he pulled away and managed to get into the lead. Well done! We really, really pushed ourselves.
To the point where Dan sustained an injury. To his elbow. Yes my friends, he hurt his elbow running. My attempts at sympathy were overshadowed by my increasing need to laugh at him.
As we huffed and puffed our way back to the starting line, the field filled up with “children” (as I like to call big obnoxious groups of teenagers) and we praised ourselves on our perfect timing.
I gave Dan the “Sasha Tour of Olympia”, which mostly consisted of me saying “take a photo of that, it’s important. I don’t remember what it is.” and looking at the placards. I felt a bit sorry for Dan as I couldn’t point out things very well, unlike when I had been there and we had a guide who helped recreate the story for us. However, it’s really good to do the museum first because then you can imagine what it would have looked like better, and where the various statues would have stood.
At this time of year, the site was covered in beautiful bright purple blossom, which was so lovely and striking between the grey overgrown ruins and the bright green trees. The gardeners had decided today was the day to do some weedwhackjng, and they were going very hard at it, plowing through the overgrown grass and flowers. There were also these odd looking pure pitch black bees which took a distinct liking to me and continued to dive bomb me. As you know, I don’t like bees, so I didn’t particular enjoy this all that much. Dan thinks it was because I was wearing a bright orange top and they thought I was a giant flower.
We spent a few hours here, and then it was time to leave. I had researched a few cheap eats (of course) and found one only a few minutes walk away. To be fair, everything was only a few minutes walk away - Olympia isn’t very big! On the way, we passed the Archamedes museum which was free (it’s always free) - we thought we might be able to see the original screw here - but all the inventions were recreations. It was a lot of reading, and our bellies were grumbling, so we didn’t stay too long - but god that guy invented a lot of stuff! This is something for me to research later.
The little place we ate lunch at was called Symposio and it was set back just off the Main Street, which was very touristy. It was quite early so we were the first customers, and the little man let us sit outside under the boganvilia. It was really cute. When the menu was presented, a lot of things didn’t have prices and I asked if that’s because they weren’t available. They cook fresh and seasonally, so there were a few things not there, but as I was hoping to have moussaka I was very happy to learn this was on the menu today! Dan had a giant souvlaki, and we topped it off with wine and garlic bread. The meal was actually delicious, and while we sat there a number of other people joined. The tables around us. We received complimentary dessert - greek yoghurt with honey and cinnamon and soon it was time to get the bus back to Athens.
It was only a fleeting visit, and maybe a long way to go for some ruins, but it was lovely and a lot of fun. I really do enjoy the small cities and towns over the big ones - I can relax and soak it up without having to stress so much!
We collected our belongings from our hotel and waited at the bus stop. We were quite early, but we weren’t entirely sure where the bus stop was (even though it said in big letters BUS STOP). After about half an hour, a bus pulled up with PYRGOS on the sign, we threw our belongings on and off we went, stopping periodically on the way to let people off. I was pretty busting by this time, and was noticing that the time between this bus arriving and our bus to Athens leaving was getting closer by the minute.
I left Dan with our bags when we got off and raced to the toilet - totally forgetting that we didn’t actually have seats on the next bus, and Dan had needed to go get us seats. Oops. I returned and he raced off, and I hadn’t realised what he was doing until he got back. Silly me! All good though - the bus wasn’t full and we had seats up the front for the 4 hour journey.
At our toilet break on the way back, I waited outside the bus while Dan also relived himself. As I stood there, I thought to myself, “Gosh, it would be amazing if Dan came back with chocolate,” but knowing it wouldn’t happen as we are pinching pennies, I started searching through my bag as I was sure there was one small Ritter left. He came up to me while I was head in my bag, and thrust a magnum ice-cream towards me. I almost died of happiness.
Nothing much else happened on the bus journey, and when we got back to the KTEL we had to collect our things, get back on the bus to Athens, then catch the metro to Piraeus - exactly as we had done that morning. We definitely got our moneys worth out of the 24 hour ticket! We went straight to our hotel, Hotel Delfini (do not stay here - but I will get to that later) and checked in. There were two lifts and they were both tiny - we couldn’t both fit inside them so we had to take it one at a time.
Once in our room, we realised there was no wifi. Oh well. The room was pretty dingy but we were pretty sure we had had worse, so we quickly researched dinner and set out. The place I had looked up must have moved or changed hands because we couldn’t find it, and just settled for a place around the corner. We ordered the Philadelphia gyros (?), where the yoghurt sauce was actually inside the meatball, and it was quite tasty.
To prepare ourselves for the morning, we walked across to the port to see where we would have to go and the sky was a lovely green colour. It was getting cold, so we returned to our hotel and got ready for our early start the next morning. So many damn early starts!
Til next time,
xx
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