Trip to Greece

Olympia, Saturday, April 10

We figured it would take us about three hours to get to Olympia from our villa, so we knew we needed a relatively early start. We always find it hard to get out before about 10:00 in the morning when we're in Europe, no matter when we go to bed or what we want to do the next day. I'm not sure why this is: there seems to be some sort of law of nature involved, though! I was hoping to leave the villa by 9:30 or so in the morning, but it turned out to be a futile hope: it was almost 10:30 when we pulled out of the driveway.

I had studied the map the night before and plotted out what looked to be the most direct route from Nafplio to Olympia. As it turned out, while it may have been the shortest route, it also seems to be the *longest* route. If I had known how twisty and hilly the "direct" route out of Nafplio to Tripoli (yes, there's a Tripoli in Greece !), we almost certainly would have gone back through Argos and on the main expressway instead. As it was, a 50km trip that I thought would take about a half an hour wound up taking more than an hour, and Tripoli isn't even close to halfway to Olympia! Given that it was already past noon when we got out of Tripoli, I was a little worried that we'd never make it to Olympia in time. (Greece's Tripoli is not an attractive town, by the way. Certainly, it's not a place I'd recommend going to sightsee.)

The road from Tripoli to Olympia, which cuts right though the center of the Peloponese turned out to be even windier and hillier than the one between Tripoli and Nafplio. With our rented minivan's gutless engine and less than snappy handling, it was slow-going most of the way. The pay-off was the fact that the countryside was gorgeous. It was during this drive that I really began to appreciate just how mountainous and chopped up Greece is. It is very easy to understand why the Greeks were a bunch of loosely affiliated city-states tied together mainly by a common language for so long--the geography is just not at all conducive to the formation of a larger nation-state.

Unfortunately, I didn't get nearly as many photos along the way as I would have liked, particularly of the many towns we passed through or by that hang on hillsides like spiders on their webs. One little town in particular, called Langadia, was particularly picturesque and we'd have loved to stop to poke around a bit and have a snack there, but it was already almost 2:00 and we were still quite far from Olympia at the time, so we knew we couldn't afford the delay. As it was, there was some talk about whether we should give the expedition up as lost since there seemed to be little chance of making it to Olympia by 3:00.

It had been rather overcast and cool in Nafplio, but it was downright hot in Olympia. The archaeological site sits in a lovely valley (or perhaps it's more a plateau), which was absolutely covered in green grass and wildflowers and studded with blooming trees my mother thinks are the same red buds she grew up with in Kansas City, Missouri. It was primarily a sanctuary dedicated to Zeus, but it is of course most famous for being the place where the Olympic Games originated in about 775 BC. It is a gorgeous and simply enormous archaeological site. I'll let the photos do most of the talking, though!

Another thing that I learned during my visit is that, if an Olympic competitor was caught cheating, he had to erect a monument to Zeus and that the inscription had to bear an explanation of how he had cheated. Perhaps ironically, the ancients probably would think modern-day doping to perfectly acceptable and probably even wise! Winning really was everything!

The final photos are of the pool area, a largely intact Roman or perhaps Byzantine bathhouse, the ruins of a Byzantine church built on top of Pheidias' workshop (where the gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was made), and the gymnasium. The kids thought the gymnasium was best: it was great for playing hide-and-seek!

One major mistake we made on leaving was that we decided not to stop in Olympia to get something to eat. There were lots of cute places in town that were open, busy, and convenient, but we wanted to make some time on our long trip back to Tolo. This turned out to be a bad move because there weren't many towns on the route we took home and, on top of that, all of the restaurants started closing up around 7pm. It wound up being a very long,very hungry trip! We did manage to find a convenience shop that was open and got some crackers and sodas to tide us over, but the kids were pretty unhappy. Bad mommy!

After several hours on the road, we got back to Tripoli and drove into town in hopes of finding someplace (any place!) to get something to eat. We knew we'd be able to get a real dinner back in Tolo after midnight (it's traditional in Greece to have a big meal of roasted lamb and lemon-lentil-lamb soup after midnight on Easter), but it was past 9pm already and with not much in our stomachs, waiting until after midnight just wasn't an option!

As it turned out, we pulled into the driveway of our villa at nearly the stroke of midnight. All along the drive from Tripoli to Tolo, we saw families walking down the main road to their local churches, including very young children, all dressed in their Sunday best and carrying candles. Just as we got into our villa and onto the balcony, the church bells began to ring and fireworks started going off. We stood and watched for some time before going up to change our clothes and head out for our late, traditional Greek Easter dinner. Unfortunately, we missed the parade through town because we were so late getting back, but I doubt we'd have had the stamina for it!

One thing that really struck me about the Greek experience of Easter is that it is such a mixture of emotions. It begins on Good Friday with a real period of mourning over the crucifixion and death of Jesus. People actually cry upon seeing the symbolic sepulchre in church and during the Good Friday march through town carrying the sepulchre. But then, almost at the stroke of midnight, the emotion turns to joy at the Resurrection. It's a very interesting dichotomy that I've never really seen here.

We found a place right on the beach to eat dinner. The meal on Easter Sunday is a set menu, so we told them we wanted whatever they were serving. They brought out the lamb-lentil-lemon soup first, which was delicious. They also brought out Easter eggs, colored dark, dark red and dark, dark green. I've never seen Easter eggs so deeply dyed in the States (the colors here are always very pastel and bright rather than deep and rich) and can't help wondering what sort of dye they use to make them so dark.

Finally, the roasted lamb came out, and I have to say, it was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. The lamb is marinated in lemon. It's accompanied by roasted potatoes which have also apparently been marinated in lemon. Oh my, was it wonderful! I've already located a recipe on the Internet and plan to try it for Easter dinne went back to our villa for the night and fell into our beds at about 3am, feeling we'd had a pretty full experience of Greek Easter!

Easter Sunday, April 11