Today was another wonderful day, although the warmest by far that we've experienced. In fact, once our day at Olympia was finished and we returned to the ship's pool to cool off, a crew member joked about it being 50 C and we wondered if he might have been serious. And another thing, it's really inconvenient doing all of the mental conversions traveling abroad. We should have either mandated the American measurement system when we had some collateral after WWII or converted to metric ourselves. Sarah just told me that the previous statements sounded like the grumblings of a crabby old man, so I'll try to clean it up for you.

We began today with an 8:30 am bus ride to Olympia from the port in Katakolon. We were starting to wonder about our tour guide when 15 minutes on the bus had passed and all we had heard about was the vegetation of the western Peloponnesus. However, when we got to Olympia, the site of the first EVER Olympic Games in 776 BC, he really brought his A-game. We passed by the gymnasium (actually means "naked" activity center) used for running, then the wrestling practice area, then temples to Hera and Zeus, and finally went to the stadium. Although the site is mostly in ruins, it is put together enough to visualize how the games that took place there for over 1000 years might have looked. Our guide told us that there were only 5 days of competition and women were not allowed to watch (which might have drove Sarah crazy if she'd lived back then). The only competitions were running, jumping, wrestling, javelin, and discus (no ice skating, sorry again Sarah). Following our visit to the site, we went to an archaeological museum that featured statues, tools from the sculptors, and other artifacts unearthed at the site. My favorite find was that of two helmets supposed to have been dedicated to Zeus at his temple following the Athenian victory at the Persian War battle of Marathon. One of the helmets was Athenian and the other Persian. Each was inscribed in the Ancient Greek with their dedication to Zeus.

After a small bit of shopping in Olympia, we rode a steamy bus back to the port (about 35 minutes). We walked the city streets of Katakolon back to our ship, stopping only for drinks by the sea under the shade of umbrellas and in the breeze. It was nice.

As usual, the day wrapped up with us at the pool (wondering exactly how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit). Tomorrow is a day at sea, and we should arrive back in Venice early on Saturday morning. We'll hopefully update with more photos and posts as soon as we get to some solid wifi.

See you all soon!