Exploring Olympia, Greece

10/13/2022

I couldn’t get to sleep early but once I did, I slept really well. Something about not having dogs and chickens and bells and a roommate (even though my roommate is awesome) is just great. Sigi and Anita took the motor-scooter downtown and bought food for breakfast and we had a great breakfast at “home”. I did a small batch of laundry, then we headed off to see Olympia.

Bob rode his bike, Sigi and Anita rode the scooter, and Tom and I walked. We visited the camp first, then walked downtown and looked in a few stores. Then down to the archaeological site for which the town is so famous.

We looked all around, and it’s really interesting to see the different ages of the ruins. Some are way over 2000 years old, some newer ones are built on top of older foundations. We ran into many other riders walking through. It was cool seeing the original Olympic Games site – you can still see the start and finish lines and the judging area, but it’s hard to imagine with 45,000 screaming fans. In fact it’s hard to imagine the whole place full of life with everything intact. Again, it really made me wish for a time machine.

We checked out one of the museums, then walked downtown, bought some beer and headed back home. Lunch was outdoors, looking over our really nice view, leftovers from breakfast, with beer. We relaxed in the afternoon, did another round of laundry, drank beer on the patio, tried to solve the world’s problems, etc.

We walked up the hill to the Garden Tavern, supposedly the nicest restaurant in Olympia, for our reservation at 7. It’s the nicest restaurant we’ve been to on the whole tour although not super expensive. Delicious food with lots of “on the house” dishes thrown in. Come here when you visit!

Headlamp-equipped, we made our way down the hill to our house, hoping the rain would be long and hard in the night and be all done by 9am tomorrow when we have to start another long stage to Tripoli. The forecast is quite bad again, but we’re also hoping it’s wrong as usual.