Greece - 28-29 March

I think that you will forgive me as I required a little break from the up keep of the blog and so I have combined two days of touring into this one blog entry.

Monday

We are now taking our land based tour of Greece. Traveling from Athens we made our way west, crossing the Corinthian channel into the region of Greece known as the Pelloponnese. The first archaeological sight on our tour is to a Beehive tomb followed closely by ancient Mycenea's acropolis (Sue's interpretation of the meaning of the word acropolis='city on the edge') which dated back a further 2000 years before the Athen's Acropolis. This sight is where they discovered the stunning gold masks that we had seen in the Athens Archaeological Museum, when we originally visited Athens, and was a seat of power for some famous king (for whom a number of archaeologists' believe the masks belong).

It is at this stage that I will apologise for my sketchy representation of the importance of this site in ancient Greek history. Having already spent four weeks sight seeing, I had not quite managed to do my homework on this leg of our journey. However, I hope to improve!

We were afforded a brief stop over at a habour town called Nafplio. Here Ron and I indulged in a plate of Greek Honey Puffs (the Greek name for the desert has escaped me). These we had tried at the Greek Food Festival in Townsville on several occassions and thought that we should give them a try in their country of origin. The desert is a teaspoon of batter quickly fried, then soaked in honey, nutmeg and walnut powder. They were delicious.

The Greek countryside is gorgeous with its spring wild flowers and kilometres of olive groves.

We ended our day settling into a hotel in Olympia.

Tuesday

The day dawns with a 'nip' in the air and cloud cover. Our first stop is the archaeological site of Olypia where for 800 years the extensive stadium and running track held competitive games in ancient Greece. The standium and track remain in situ today. Of course this is the inspiration for the modern Olympic Games. The extensive Olympia Temple complex also housed one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the 12 metre high ivory and gold statue of the Greek God Zeus. The statue has long gone and the temple that housed it has fallen into ruins due to an earth quake.

In its day Olympia was home to a population of priests and their families and by all accounts was considered a wealthy settlement due to the worship of the people of ancient Greece who would ensure that they made a pilgrimage to the site at least once in their lifetime to give offerings to the Greek father of all gods Zeus. The Roman's also got into the act ensuring they continued the importance of the site and built temples and features of worship such as fountains. For the athletes who competed in front of a crowd of 45, 000 every four years, there were training facilities (Gymnasium) and eventually the Roman's added a bath house.

There is an excellent museum on the site displying the best finds including the helmet of the General who lead the successful battle at Marathon against the Persians. He traveled to Olypia and dedicated his helmet and a helmet of a Persian soldier to Zeus. How do the archaeologist know that this was his helmet? Well he had his name engraved on it before he made the offering.

The site was benefiting from spring with a riot of wildflowers carpeting the ground.

Finishing our lunch we hopped back on the bus and traveled along the shores of the Aegean and Corinthian Seas. As we hugged the coast for tens of kilometres the landscape was breathtaking with snow capped mountains leading down to the deep blue sea. The bright yellow flowers of the mustard bush filled the gaps on the rocky hillsides.

Tonight we arrived at Delphi. This small village hugs the side of a spectacular gorge. The archaeological site of the Delphi Temple complex is located not far from the village. This is where we will stay the night and we are not dissapointe with the awesome view through the huge gorge and on to the coastal plains, from our room balcony. Just stunning.