Tuesday, 21st May 2013, Katakolon and Olympia
Of Gods and Games

We finally made it - a year late, but worth it. We sailed the 43nm from Kefalonia to Katakolon on the mainland yesterday, meeting up with Free Spirit who were doing the 35nm from Zakinthos to get here. The harbourmaster embraced us and greeted us like long-lost relatives. He claimed to remember us from last year. I suspect Viv and Alan were responsible - they had arrived 1/2 hour before us and had told him we had said he was a very nice chap! Which he is. There is a little train that goes directly from about 50 yards from the boat to Olympia. The timetable though is uncertain - and dependent upon cruise ships. Well, two were due to arrive today, so at least we knew the train would run. And so it did at 08:40. Perfect. However it would return at 11:20 - that is not enough time for Olympia. But another might return at 13:20 or 15:45, if there are enough passengers. So together with Viv and Alan we went and decided not to worry how to get back.

Very different from Delphi, but spectacular in its own right - I was expecting a small area with a pile of rubble to give a basic outline. Well there is rubble, but on a grand scale as well as a few standing structures. And the setting is lovely, green with trees, watered from the nearby Alfeios and Kladeos rivers. Sadly Alfeios river was responsible for flooding the site back in AD 600 covering it completely in silt. That was after it had been pretty much destroyed in AD 551 by an earthquake.

But excavations started in the 19th C and the Olympic flame is still lit there - we marked the place by Hera's temple. The site has been inhabited since 3000 BC and the Mycenean (2nd C BC) pottery, art and bronzework recovered and now housed in the museum is astonishing in its quality, quantity and detail. But it is mostly known as the religious and athletic centre. The sacred grove took shape in the 10th c BC and was aimed mainly at Zeus. The games themselves started in 776 BC. There was Zeus's temple, vast structure with very little still standing, but the enormous friezes from either end have mostly been recovered. There were workshops and the Palaestra, the training centre for wrestlers, boxers and long-jumpers, treasuries to house offerings and gifts, water gardens, baths and accommodation for guests and athletes, the council house for the Olympic Senate, Temple of Hera (7th century BC and one of the oldest temples in Greece), other shrines and last but not least the archway still standing leading into the Stadium itself. Lots more, about 25 sites or structures in all.

Then to the museum, beautifully done with displays from the tiny (pots, amulets, handles, gryphons, earrings, bronze plaques, etc) to the enormous (huge statues, notably Hermes by the sculptor Praxiteles in the 4th c BC) One whole room is given over to the workshop and its principle creation, the massive ivory and gold statue of Zeus (with clay moulds for the drapery and all the tools). And so much more, but would be boring to go through it all - just go and see it for yourself!!

We wandered back to town to enquire about trains. Station closed, no-one knew. A kind cafe owner got out her phone and said she would ring someone to find out, when a little train rolled in. The driver got out and said he would be going back to Katakolon at 15:45. Hooray, and time for a late lunch. Back to the boats after a sunny, perfect day steeped in the ancient. Shame we didn't do it in London's Olympic year, but we got there in the end. It's been there a while already and I suspect will be for some time to come.

Heading off into unknown territory tomorrow, south first to Kiparissia and then on down the western Peloponnese. Let's hope we have pleased the various gods!