In case you're new here, I'm Heather and this is Bill.
We've been exploring places in Greece that are off the beaten path. This week,
we find our way out of Messene and move on to Olympia, the origin of modern-day Olympic games.
This just feels wrong.
It's crazy! In the last video, we left off with us driving roads leaving the city that were
getting narrower and narrower, yet they somehow still claimed they were for two-way traffic.
What the hell, Google! At least once a trip, we get caught on what I call a "goat trail."
This is a goat trail, and I didn't do it! Thanks, Google. This is this trip's goat trail.
Kind of wishing I had a four-wheel drive about now. Oh my god.
We checked, and we're in the right place. We're where google thinks we should be...
between Messene and Olympia.
We've been on the goat trail for about 15 minutes, with lots of forks in the road.
It's been horrible. Each one we think, surely this is the paved road coming up.
However, we've *finally* reached the paved road. Here it is.
We're not going to die out in an olive grove [oh my god]...
with a stranded rental car, and no cell service. It was very touch and go. A lot
of washed out roads. We're probably dragging half an olive grove with us!
Good morning, from Olympia! We got a little bit of a slow start this morning.
The reality of travel is that things don't always go perfectly as planned. Sometimes you go down the
"goatiest" of goat trails, and sometimes you end up in a hotel with pretty thin walls, and a sick
toddler who screams until 2am in the room next to you. Cheers. That's why we have coffee. Come along
with us. We're really excited to see the Olympic ruins. It's our third major ruins of Greece for
this trip, so we're really curious to contrast and compare them to the two previous ones that we saw.
We're here on a Saturday. It is very quiet. You can see there's just a handful of other tourists,
but normally we understand there would be a long line out here for the tickets and tour buses and
everything else. This is really nice. COVID has some positive effects for the traveler right now.
We're going to visit a number of significant buildings in Olympia,
including the gymnasium, the palestra,
Temple of Hera, Temple of Zeus,
the Stadium,
and the hotel.
This was the edge of the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium was built to be the same size as
the stadium, where the athletes would actually do their competition.
The Olympians would arrive here a month early in order to acclimate themselves to the area,
in order to practice their skill before competing in the game.
It kind of sounds a little bit familiar to what happens with today's Olympic games!
This is the Palestra. This is another training building. Whereas the gymnasium was used for
running event training, this was used for sports that were a little bit more
personal - like boxing and wrestling, but also the long jumps. Because it was exposed to the sun,
the players would cover themselves in oil and then a little bit of sand - and what comes to
mind for me is that Friends episode where Ross gets his pants stuck and tries baby
powder and lotions and oils to try to get them unstuck. [They're still not coming on,
man, and the lotion and the powder have made a paste!] Here's the bathtub where Ross would have
cleaned off his legs so that his pants would become unstuck. This also is where the old Olympic
players, while they were training, would clean off their sand and their oil at the end of the day.
One of the things we've noticed is these bricks here;
they're 2,500 years old. They really don't look all that different from bricks
that are used to build things today. Even after 2,500 years, you can see that the construction of
the workmanship was amazing. As you look down the edge of this wall, everything is flat, straight.
Very well done, and to have held up all this time, more or less, is quite amazing.
You've got the Olympic games going on and you've got hundreds or even thousands of
athletes and dignitaries. They've got to stay someplace. Well, here's a giant hotel. 145 rooms
for the aristocrats and the better known athletes.
They had a pool that looks like a moat,
but it's a pool - just like modern hotels, right? It might be an early version of a lazy river!
We are just outside of the Temple of Zeus. The column that you can see behind me actually is
reconstructed for the 2004 Olympic games, which were held here in Athens. It's actually fantastic
they did this reconstruction because we're able to see just how gigantic these columns
were. So impressive! The Temple of Zeus was an enormous structure because it needed to be a
temple befitting of a god like Zeus, but Zeus did not always have his own temple. Before he had his
own temple, he shared a temple with Hera. Hera's temple actually came first. For about 200 years,
she had her own and she shared it. It kind of makes sense, because the two of them were husband
and wife, so why not have them share their own temple. But they were also brother and sister...
This is the tunnel that the athletes would enter the stadium through. They would
run through it to the roar of the crowd much like today's NFL teams.
Now there are a bunch of what looks like pock marks in the wall, but those are actually lockers
where the athletes could store things as they entered into the arena. What would they store,
I don't know, but apparently these athletes competed naked, so perhaps they
stuffed their toga and sandals into these lockers while they were entering their competition.
This is the stadium. You might recognize it if you watched the 2004 Olympic Games, which took
place here in Athens, because the shot put event actually took place here. For the first time in
hundreds of years, an Olympic victor was crowned from an event that took place here in Ancient
Olympia. Back in the day, women were not allowed to attend the games that took place here. Men were
allowed, boys were allowed, and young girls were allowed, but not women. With one exception, and
that was the priestess for one of the goddesses. She sat in the throne that's on one side of the
stadium. On the other side of the stadium the only other seats belonged to the judges
who underwent months of training just to be judges for a few days of the Olympic Games. Everyone else
who attended had to pull up some grass and I am guessing that they brought with them an ancient
form of a blanket for them and their family to sit on. The Stadium itself is estimated to have been
able to hold 45,000 people. I have to say while this stadium is impressive because of its history,
I do think that the one in Messini, that we visited just the other day, was a little bit more
impressive because of all the built-in seating that was on one end, that is still visible today.
We're just wrapping up here at the archaeological site. We really enjoyed it.
It's not quite as impressive as Messene, so Messene - much of it is much better preserved,
but certainly Olympia is more impressive, in terms of its cultural significance both
for the ancient Greeks, but also the modern version of the Olympics. It took us about two
and a half hours to go through Olympia - Ancient Olympia. It takes us a little bit longer than
others to go through things, because we're doing some recording for our friends over at
YouTube. ;-) Since we've been mentioning shoes for everywhere so far, I thought I'd note that
I wore my hiking sandals for this outing, and had no problem. Sandals are a go for this trip! Also,
your ticket includes entry to two museums that are nearby, so we're going to check those out
after this and let you guys know whether it's worth it, but for now off to lunch.
Look at all these cute cafes going out on the street.
This is what you do on a hot day in Greece. You have a smoothie and some ice cream,
and then you get a happy spouse.
That's very different. It's delicious. What flavor is it?
Baklava. Baklava flavored ice cream. Did not know that existed. It tastes like honey and walnuts.
We just finished having a snack in the modern town of Olympia, and as we were walking back from the
ruins, we kind of hit a couple of shops. We had a little bit of gift buying to do, and we couldn't
help but notice how empty everything is. The shop owners told us that normally at this time of the
year, everything is full, but the tourist buses for whatever reason aren't coming into town the
way they normally do. They're just going to the ruins. Best guess is that it's a COVID thing.
Yeah. We're here on a Saturday in late June, at about two in the afternoon. This should just be
teeming with people, and unfortunately it just isn't. It's really tough on the restaurant owners.
The shopkeepers, they need tourist dollars, and unfortunately it's being kept away from them.
If you come, bring a little bit extra spending money and buy some gifts for your loved ones
back home. That's our recommendation - spend a little bit of time and money when you're downtown.
You guys, we just had the craziest thing happen. We thought that it was just a line, but it wasn't.
It happened so fast we didn't record any of it. We snapped a quick photo, but this guy was standing
outside a shop, and he was a shop owner. He was trying to get some business, and we figured that's
what it was - some scheme to get people in the door. He was like, where are you guys from? - like
hollering across the road to everybody who passed. We said where we were going and kept walking,
just assuming that it was just a way to get you into the shop, and that was sort of that.
The guy's sister, she proceeded to tell us that if you live in Olympia and you're a runner,
there's a fair chance that if you're well known as a runner, you'll be carrying the
Olympic torch - or running with the person who's carrying it, not actually carrying it yourself?
Hold the phone, stop the bus, stop the presses, stop everything.
We were so excited about the experience that we had, that we recorded right away.
We did not agree on what happened when we were in the store. So here's what we
believe we actually heard, after discussing a little bit afterwards. We decided I was right.
It happens from time to time, not very often. That was his one time
of the trip. Here's what actually happened. {what actually happened?}
Oh my god. So here's what actually happened. The guy, that we saw the picture of,
didn't lead with the torch - but he carried it. Apparently this is something that is an honor
that is bestowed upon Olympian citizens that also are runners. He carried it not only once,
but twice. We were able to hold the torch that he ran with from the 1980 Olympics that ended up in
Moscow. He and his sister were the shop owners. We initially passed them by, but they called out to
us again. Bill ended up talking to the sister, and that's how we ended up inside their shop,
and holding the torch. We - it - happened so fast that we only took one photo. It was amazing. We
are going to put the name of their shop down below, so if you are in Olympia yourself, we
highly recommend going to the shop, hearing about their story. If you want buy a little trinket,
you have no obligation to actually buy anything, but the experience itself is worth stopping by and
saying hi. And maybe you won't argue with your spouse about what you hear them tell you for
the version of events that took place. I wasn't arguing, I was just telling you why you're wrong.
And we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, from Tales From Our Pockets.
We just finished both museums. and I think that they're both worth a quick walk through.
Neither of them really takes very long. If you happen to come in the summer, the air
conditioning is stronger in the architectural museum than in the one about the Olympic Games.
I think overall my impression of Olympia maybe is a little bit biased this year,
because we happen to be here the year that the Olympic Games are taking place in Japan.
Now, it should have been 2020, but COVID, but since they are delayed and happening in 2021,
I feel like it makes going to the museums and coming to these ruins
that much more interesting to us. It's really cool to see how many of the current traditions relate
back to Ancient Olympian times. It's just crazy how many things have carried forward,
and to see how other things have evolved, like women being able to participate, and women being
able to watch. That's a new thing. We're wrapping up here in Olympia, and we're off to Delphi next.
Thanks for joining us, and join us on our next adventure. We'll see you then.