Olympia
Although it was a long drive we drove from Naphli to the town of Olympia. We saw one funny thing when we were driving..... There was a butcher show with rows of pigs hanging in the window..... I was the only one who saw it and I made Robert turn around so I could take a picture.... I was embarassed to see a man inside... I indicated that I wanted a photo and he laughed and nodded OK.... It is such a neat shot!
We drove to Olympia & stayed the night in the town....We got money at the ATM and got kind of a horrible little meal at a little deli. The next morning we went to the Olympics site. It would have been interesting to be in the site of the original Olympics when the new 2004 games were occurring.
.... I have several exciting shots of me racing around the stadium ... The only two problems I had was I was laughing because I looked like a fool and it was raining so I was really getting soaked.
When the original Olympics were going on: only free Greeks could compete & they had to be men....Women were not allowed to watch the Olympics. The athletes trained for ten months in their home town. The candidates next went to a training ground in Olympia for one month to make sure they were competitive enough. After they proved themselves at the training ground, they went to the Olympics games. The prize for winning was not money: it was prestige. They were given an olive wreath from the Zeus holy tree and they were allowed to have a statue in their honor… Nero was supposed to have competed and they let him win.
The museum was really good. The actual Olympics had a museum and there were two others nearby..... David loved the statue of Hermes and Dionysus... Hermes was feeding grapes to baby Dionysus... The grounds had a second museum that showed the history of the Olympics. We thought it would be boring but it was really fascinating. It was a really big cultural event every four years. Any wars were stopped two weeks before and after the olympics to allow the athletes safe passage .... (I like that it was not political then.....)
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