June 15

Woke up to the strawberry moon just cleaning up its desk and getting ready to head home for the day.  It was 6 a.m. and I wasn’t sure if it was a hazy sun or the moon.  Once I was up, I was up and we were sailing into Katakolon, a port on the western side of Greece for a short day.  There were lots of personal sailboats moored and it reminded me of my friend Tina M. who is second generation Greek (She may correct me on that.  She might even be first).  When Tina retired she learned to sail in SF Bay and I know she has been here sailing the Greek Isles.  Take me, Tina!

We didn’t stick around in the little town but introduced ourselves to a couple at port who looked a little disoriented.  Exactly who we were looking for!  Many people had scheduled tours but we just wanted to go Olympia and the taxi ride is about 45 minutes and expensive.  I asked if they were by chance going to Olympia.  They said they’d like to but weren’t sure how to do it.  Have I got a deal for you!  We split the cab ride then with Don and Lee from Rhode Island, thoroughly enjoyed their company and conversation as we walked around the archaeological site, had lunch, more on that later.  

The town of Olympia itself is a charming town from the little I saw driving through.  I could see spending time there but we went on to the main attraction, where we bought our tickets for the Museum and archaeological site.  As usual my expectations of what I would see and what I DID see were not even close.  I expected to see maybe an old arena, I knew the track field was there, maybe some stands. I dunno, like the Anasazi ruins in the Southwest US.   It was so much more than that.

This place was a rockin’ sanctuary starting in about 900 BC or thereabouts.  You know those archaeology types – they can’t fully agree on anything, but they all agree it was a sanctuary.  There were temples galore there to every god you can imagine, statues and ornamentation on all of them, some just for fun, some depicting scenes of the glory and drama of the gods.  Zeus and Hera were the stars of the show.  The tense here is past, and as with most of these kinds of places, it’s mostly now a pile of broken rocks and you have to put on your time travelling imagination glasses and try to imagine what it must have looked like.   People from all the city-states came here to build monuments, deposit goodies at the temples of the gods in thanksgiving for defeating the whatever city-state they were fighting at the moment.  The Olympics back then were all part of the show to honor the gods. 

The museum houses what has been found at the site thus far dating back to the prehistoric 8^th century BC through 5^th century AD. Lots of bronze – trinkets, votives, statuettes, helmets, shields, weapons, vases, tripod cauldrons, glass vases. Originally glass was made by casting and other methods that I don’t remember.  Blowing glass only came around later and that’s when glass became more accessible for us peons. Terra cotta everything – building decorations, pots, ewers. Most of the little trinkets were left by visitors/worshippers and are the size of those little green army men kids play with except they are brass.  Statue of Nike, (incomplete, no wings), lots of headless statues. I wanted to know why they don’t have heads and a quick Google search reveals one reason may be that some Roman emperor wanted all the statues and was going to replace the heads with his own.  What IS it with  these megalomaniacs????? I guess there’s a grand tradition.  He died anyway so they stayed there. I should note that a lot of damages are attributed to earthquakes over the centuries. 

What is NOT there is the 41 foot tall gold and ivory statue of Zeus seated on an ebony and bejeweled throne that was created by Pheidias, who earned his reputation working on the Acropolis. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is known that it existed because of its depiction on coins and descriptions of it, including ancient gift shop sized souvenirs of the statue that were found elsewhere, according to one scholar we listened to on a documentary before we left. There were tourists even then who wanted their memento!  Lots of theories as to what exactly happened to it after the pagan temples were destroyed but the present theory is that it was taken to Constantinople where it was destroyed by fire.

I just have to stop and say this.  Doesn’t this just sound like there was a superhighway of stuff going back and forth between countries and states? Art! Statues! Huge bronze/copper horses! Now we defeated you and we want it back. Wrap it up and let’s go, hurry up. How did they do this? I have a hard time lugging three bags of garden amendment from Lowe’s.  I mean I know there was a lot of slave labor and people in general, but how badly did they need to move a 41 foot tall gold and ivory statue on an ebony throne?  Sheesh.

As for Pheidias, they found his workshop and in there were molds and clay and what not used in the creation of the statue.  One of my favorite stories is that they found his “coffee mug” – and written on it was  ‘I  Belong to Pheidias’. Which is how they knew it was his workshop.  That just cracks me up.  Anyone who has ever worked in an office knows not to mess with other people’s coffee cups!  I guess he finally got tired of everyone absconding with it and just carved his name into it, like my ribbon on my sewing scissors – ‘touch these and you die (heart, heart, heart).’

The museum also has on display intact pieces of buildings – specifically pediments (that triangle part above a doorway) and the decorations that were added to them – paint and statues.  A marble bull that was in Zeus temple is displayed as well as pieces that had fallen off in a separate display case. 

Outside to the site itself we ventured.  First of all it is much larger than I expected, mostly because I didn’t know it was also going to be a sanctuary of the gods.  It was just so cool to be there where ancients walked.  Al commented that visiting places like this make you slow down and also not worry about the world so much.  Dust in the wind.

The Temple of Hera is the first ruin we encountered and it is notable and probably the most meaningful to me, as this is where a fire is built which lights the Olympic flame and the relay to carry it to the games begins.  No matter that the Olympics have become what they’ve become. With that kind of legacy, maybe there is hope for decency, honor, fairness, pride.  Or maybe we just need to start building pedestals for the cheaters?  Read on.

The stadium is just a big football field at this point and indeed it is kind of surreal to imagine that the arch you walk under to get there is the very same arch ancient Olympians walked up to get to the stadium.  Kids have fun running and winning the Olympics on the field but obviously I would have had to be airlifted home if I tried that, so you’ll have to add that to things you can only imagine. 

There are other areas outside the stadium where a gym stood as practice buildings for wrestlers, pentathletes, boxers, runners and jumpers. There is also a row of pedestals that used to hold statues of Zeus, dedicated to the cheaters whose fines paid for the statues and had their names memorialized and what they had done to deserve the fine. Kind of a reverse “medal”. Other than that, it was “temple here, temple there, temples everywhere”.  The temple of Zeus has a pretty big footprint and the stairs leading up to it are still there.  Columns are strewn about everywhere, most of them knocked over like tree trunks and in pieces where they lay.

Stuck kind of off the beaten track is a villa that was not open to the public at this time but you can see walls are largely intact, and the sign says there are mosaics and the baths are in pretty good shape.  Nero built it and hung around there for awhile.  

It was hot, but we walked slowly and there were lots of trees with wonderful shade where we could cool off and the breeze would function as it is supposed to.  When we first walked into the grounds I felt like I was going into a zoo.  Flowering bushes, olive trees and large shade trees greeted us and welcomed us even into the areas of ruins. It was so friendly compared to most ruins where you feel like you are in an oven.  

 We finished up at the the little café and had pork gyros and frozen lemonade.  Best “fast food” I ever tasted.  Then it was time to meet our driver for our return trip.  Ship sailed a few hours later, and I went to the ship pool area to hop in the hot spa.  It wasn’t very hot, and the jets were so-so.  My neglected thoracic spine (remember all that therapy I recently did? Bad patient). Our cabin has a little bathtub so I came back and hopped in there and it was hotter anyway.  After that I suddenly felt generally weak.  Fell asleep for probably three hours.  We’ve been going non-stop for quite some time now – it’s been 2.5 weeks.  I guess it caught up with me. 

Bopped down to dinner about 8 p.m.   A word about cruise life.  Every cruise company is a little bit different and excels in some ways and lacking in others.  Holland America has GREAT food.  The old stereotype of buffet 24/7 is non-existent on all ships now and has been for some time.  Most ships do have food of some sort available but the “midnight buffet” is a thing of the past.  The portions are reasonable (they’ve gotten more “reasonable” lately it seems) which is fine with me.  You can order a whole second plate if you want.  The bread on every ship I’ve been on is my Achille’s Heel (see what I did there?)   and I try to stay away from it.  It’s always a goal to not come home with an extra fifteen pounds and it’s been easier to do the older I get.  Holland America makes it even easier by having set times when you can access food.  The other thing Holland America does that I LOVE is that every morning when you step on the elevator, the rug tells you what day it is. This is more helpful than you might think! And yes, I’ve been taking the elevator. 10K steps is easy to get on a trip like this and 20K is often the norm.

Entertainment on ships is also generally more professional and more entertaining than SNL has led us to believe. Last night we saw a thoroughly fabulous dance show with a troupe of 5 dancers.  The dancing was across the board – a little ballet-ish, modern, latin. The “set” was dynamic graphics that immersed you in the surroundings – whether it be outer space (outer space? How old AM I?) or a computer game.  Feeling kind of bad for the awesome band in the dance club and the Lincoln Center Stage which presents classical music.  It’s always better to perform for a crowd but the crowds on cruises ships are very appreciative and last night we made as much noise as we could for the phenomenal dancers who gave 100% even though the theater was nowhere near full.  The musicians, dancers, comedians really care about what they are doing and it shows.  

Not just on this ship but on every ship we’ve been on. I’m not sure about the booze cruises but I bet the Caribbean companies who are competing with Disney aren’t hiring the likes of me to sing and play piano.

The ship is supposedly 60% full and that’s a LOT of people missing.  We really notice the lack of lines at guest services, the emptiness of the dining rooms, the ability to get a deck chair at the pool.  I truly wonder what will happen going forward for cruise lines.  It is a wonderful way to see the world, but I have a feeling the megaships may go the way of the dinosaur.  Venice just this year banned cruise ships from entering the Grand Canal and I think that’s wonderful.  It was a bit of a hassle for us as the trip had originally included Venice so we had that transfer situation, but now that I’ve been there I can’t even imagine one of these monsters in the canal.  Talk about a buzz kill – you’re floating a long in a gondola with some guy singing O Sole Mio and “BLAAAAT”.   We shall see. 

Another thing to note is that the ships even before Covid were taking the lead on cleaning up their act in terms of taking care of the venue that has made them what they are.  Plastic straws had already been jettisoned before Covid on another cruise line and now on this one.  I have not seen ANY plastic anything – forks, spoons, plastic trash can liners. Water conservation is encouraged. As noted above, food waste is alleviated by smaller portions and less food available at ungodly hours.   

I’m sure it can be argued that cruising has other sins to its name,  but sailing the seas has been around forever and I am hoping that the cruise lines can continue to make changes that will allow people to still travel this way.  Fifteen years ago on our 25^th anniversary we took our first cruise.  I thought I would hate it.  I didn’t and I don’t.  It has allowed me to see places I would never have seen otherwise.  You don’t have to dress up anymore although some folks really get in to “formal” night.  The first cruise I think I had five outfits. Now? I have a nice skirt I can wear if I want to get dressed up!

Well, full, FULL day tomorrow in Athens.  I have my trekking poles with me and between actually doing my exercises, one Advil and one Tylenol and the poles I think I may have  the secret formula for pain free stomping around day. 

Maybe I’ll change hats sometime but this is a nice one…