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| Maño-father would say that Olimpia is a scattered bunch of old stones. |
September, Monday the 2nd:
The Katakolon port is an hour away from Olimpia by bus, so they’ve told all the tourist to gather together at the Safari Lounge (Safari, Golden, Diamond, Galaxy, what a bunch of weird names for bars) at 7:30 a.m. There is a mini-bathroom in our cabin, so we have had to wake up at 5:45 to have plenty of time for breakfast.
During the bus ride, our guide (I can’t remember her name, Alexandra?) tells us about the History of Olimpia and the Olimpic Games.
It’s still cool when we arrive. Ten points for Olimpia!
In summary, I don’t want you to get bored, you have to exercise you imagination beyond its limits to get a rough idea of how the city was in ancient times because a huge earthquake destroyed all the buildings and now all that you can see- as my maño-father would say- is a bunch of “old stones” scattered all around you. However, our smart guide has got a nice little book in which you can see the pictures of the ruins overlapped with ilustrations of what they were supossed to be long, long ago.
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| Corridor that leads to the Stadium. |
In the corridor of the Stadium there are big Marble stones (the statues are not there anymore) with the inscriptions of the winners of the Games (name, home town and achievements) to the right and the cheaters to the left. You wouldn’t want to be on the cheaters’ side because it was not only them the ones to fall from grace but their family, as well as their entire home town. Same as politicians nowadays…Sometimes I think that it would be a good idea to glue the bad politicians’ feet to a marble stone and let them be there for the rest of their lives (oh, oh, bad karma!)
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| Beware cheaters! |
Anyway, we reach the Stadium and Little Romulan and Mrs. Soft Kitty begin to run like mad. Well, now I can say that I have two olympic children (proud mother look, here).
Our guide tells us that only freeborn Greek men were allowed to participate. There were a sort of “Women Games” but they were less important than the masculine ones. You see, ladies? This issue comes from far, far away in time!
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| Little dot = olympic Little Romulan |
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| Little dot = olympic Mrs. Soft Kitty |
A brief visit to the Archaeological Museum of Olimpia. We are absolutely mesmerised by the Hermes statue by Praxíteles. As we walk around the statue we can see how his facial expression changes from neutral (front), to a soft and tender look (left) and serious (right). Besides he’s got a girly bum (here, loads of children muffled laughs).
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| Ha, ha, no back view of the statue! |
We want to see all the collections in detail but now is shopping time! They take us to the souvenirs and artisan products shops (no yarns, sniff!). Little Romulan buys a little replica in bronce of a corinthian helmet for himself and I spot the magic little book of our guide and buy one for the family library.
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| Corinthian helmet |
Back to the ship. Oh! I haven’t told you about this: when you do the first check-in, they take a picture of you, your data and your credit card details and they give you a card that you use for almost everything- identify yourself, open the cabin’s door, pay for drinks, pay in the ship’s shops, etc.-. It’s also your in and out of the ship pass and every time you come back you have to endure a very loooong queue, show your card and scan all your belongings. It’s getting very wearying…
After having lunch with the hordes, our full belly and empty brain are desperately calling for a siesta. We’re worth it after today’s marathon.
No sound or movement for four hours. What a nice and looong siesta!
Tonight, our first gala dinner. I take the last shower turn so that I can crochet a little bit.
We are in our way to meet the beloved-Grandpas and they’re going to take a picture of the six beauties with the Great Captain of our ship, but when we reach the meeting point Grandpas are not there. We wait, and wait, and wait, and finally decide to be the four of us the ones shaking hands with the Great Captain and smiling to the camera- it must be hard for him to meet thousands of strangers, be thousands of times pleased to meet them all and let them have a picture with him and his frozen smile.
At last we find the beloved-Grandpas at the theatre. We have made a mistake and taken a picture with the tourists of the first dinner turn so after the show we have another picture with the Great Captain.
On our way, we make a bet that he would recognise us. Obviously I win: he has not recognised us and has been very pleased to meet us…twice!! (hahaha!).
Tomorrow’s marathon: Ephesus.
- Hour of excursion: 5.
- Hours of siesta: 4.
- Hours of crocheting: 0.333
- Sickness pills: 4 (now I’m beginning to get dizzy when we get back to solid ground).
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