Day 19 – Katakolon Greece (Olympia)

 

Well, given what we saw today… the Greeks don’t take as good care of their ruins as the Italians do (Editor's note - OTOH, Rome wasn't buried by centuries of alluvial and tsunami deposits).  We rode a bus to Olympia and after spending nearly 3 weeks in Italy where everything is written in a Latin-based language… this was very different.  It really WAS all Greek to me – LOL!  The Greeks don’t use the same alphabet… so you can’t really muddle through and piece together what you can recognize.  Some signs are translated into English, but most are not.  It adds a new dimension to our adventures.

The archaeological site is free for students, so we buy the other tickets and head in to look around.  There’s honestly not a lot there.  Some broken columns, some broken walls… some labeled signs with diagrams (etc)… but it’s hardly a HUGE historic site. 

We have only about 2 hours (or less) so we meander through the paths, and finally make our way to where the actual Olympics started.  The kids have a quick review lesson and run a race… sort of.  We find where the Zanes (plural for Zeus) stood.  We hadn’t known about those, but apparently if somebody was caught cheating, they were taxed and the money was used to fund a base & statue of a Zeus… labeled with the offender’s name and what they did.  There were 16 of these statues!  Some things never change.

It’s a short excursion.  It seems we were back on the bus and back at the ship early… lunch and a nice relaxing evening.  Tomorrow is going to be a BIG day.  We get to Athens… Mars Hill… the Parthenon (not the Pantheon – LOL)… very exciting.  Off to bed early tonight (no, I’m not going to the show).