Two Weeks in Greece, Part 3: Ancient Olympia

The straightforward drive across the Isthmus—the original isthmus—through Corinth to Nafplio (described in Part 2) didn't prepare us for the next leg of our journey, an amazing, twisty-turny drive over the mountains of the Peloponnese.

Behind us, on the right, the road winds up a mountain in the Peloponnese.
The big peninsula, which gave its name to the legendary (but also historical) fifth century BC Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, is streaked with rows of magnificent mountains crossed by narrow though well-paved roads and speckled with red-roofed villages for which the word "picturesque" was invented.

Don't you want to learn to speak Greek and move to this village?
Under a beautiful, bright sun we stopped in a small, completely un-touristed town called Bitina for a delicious lunch at a quiet—actually, entirely unpopulated—restaurant. The meal involved lamb; most meals we had in Greece involved lamb and/or fresh fish.

But our goal that day was Ancient Olympia, where we arrived late in the day. We checked into the very nice Hotel Pelops, which, among other amenities, offers a computer with Internet access, so you can email home and tell your family you haven't been killed in an Athens riot. We had time to visit one of the small museums, but we saved the site itself for the following day.

The modern town, curiously named Ancient Olympia, seems to exist only to service the tourists coming to the site. And the site itself doesn't disappoint. Excavations over more than a century (there's a separate museum just about the excavations themselves!) have uncovered a huge spread of ruins: not only athletic facilities but temples, treasuries, and every other kind of edifice the Greeks and Romans built in their respective heydays. The torch for every modern Olympic Games is first lit here, not far from the ancient track (pictured below) where the races were held back in, you know, the day.

Article Author: Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Co-Executive Editor of Blogcritics. As a writer he contributes most often to the Culture section, where he often reviews NYC theater; he also writes a semi-regular review round-up of independent music releases. …

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