This morning’s winding mountain drive took us to Olympia, the site of the world’s first Olympic Games. We were told that we were fortunate to arrive the day after the lighting of this year’s Olympic Torch, because the crowd numbered more than 30,000.

The original Olympics were contests held every four years to  honor Zeus, the king of the gods. We met our local guide, Niki, who, like our previous guides, knew her subject very well. You might think that by now, we would be tired of seeing artifacts, but that is not so. We continued to be fascinated by the many works of art and imagining what they were like in their heyday.

In themuseum we saw bronze cauldrons on tripods that were given to victorious  athletes; griffins, half eagle and half lion, a symbol of power; a helmet work by a Greek soldier during the Battle of Marathon, in which the Greeks defeated the Persians;  and a statue of Hermes carrying baby Dionysius, who it is thought, was reaching to get grapes from a vine. There is also a model of the site as it would have originally appeared. Then we walked through the remains of the site itself.

The gymnasium was its largest building. Athletics were part of every boy’s education, because the Greeks believed in training both the mind and the body. Next to the gymnasium was a small building in which boys learned wrestling and boxing. There is an olive tree to honor the original olive tree that was there. We were told that olive oil was mixed with sand as a sort of sun screen.

We walked to the entrance of the stadium. Next to us, there were the bases that once held statues along this “Walk  of Shame.” Names of cheaters were inscribed on the base of each statue, and the public would spit on them as they walked by. Then we entered the stadium through the Tunnel of Krypti. Visitors are allowed to go to the starting line and run across the field just as the original athletes had done, although the original athletes were barefoot. No one in our group wanted to do the run.

Then we went to town for lunch. We shared a “special pizza” that was topped with peppers and meats but no tomatoes or tomato sauce, and a salad of lettuce topped with grilled chicken.  After that,  Nick enjoyed taking photos from his window seat  on the bus as it took us to a seaside village on the Mani Peninsula.

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