Olympia, Greece

As you can tell from the name of this city, Oylmpia is the site of the first Olympic games 2,000 years ago. The games began with a simple footrace and a few wrestling matches but graduallly expanded into a five-day extravaganza. The winners were crowned with wreaths of olives and were given assurance of immortality (pretty good reasons to participate!!).

We had to use our imagination to picture those first games. We could sometimes see an outline of stones where a full structure had once been. It all covered a very large area. An interesting twist to those games of long ago--the athletes ran naked! I guess they didn't want any kind of drag as they were charging toward their goal.

After the Olympic Park, we had lunch in a nearby restuarant. Greek dancers seranaded us as we ate our olives, tomatoes, cheese, bread, olive oil, etc. (wine too, but we don't drink). As we toured thoughout the cities and villages of Greece, we saw numerous orchards of olive trees. Olives are a major industry in their economy.

This was our last stop in Greece. Tomorrow, it's on to Italy.