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April 2000

Elia

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 20:44:38

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After lunch in Mycenae we left for the province of Elia on the western side of the Peloponnese. Along the way we drove through the province of Arcadia which is very mountainous and sparsely populated. We spent some time there exploring the area of the Lousious Gorge which has several monasteries clinging to its cliffs. We also visited Dimitsana and Stemnitsa, a couple of very well preserved, remote medieval towns. The temperatures at that altitude had droppped to nearly freezing. Had we had more time we probably would've stayed in one of those two towns for the night as there were trails to many of the monasteries and the views were spectacular.

We arrived in Olympia (1) just as dusk was falling. It was a Friday during Orthodox Lent and the church services were being broadcast across the city. Modern Olympia is just a kilometer or so from the ancient site and it's a relatively small town that caters to the tourists who come to see the ruins. Despite that it has a pleasant atmosphere. We found another shockingly affordable hotel overlooking the main square and wandered through the town that evening. We found some exceedingly friendly shop owners and spent much of the evening talking to them about soccer and philosophy which are of course the two main subjects of Greek conversation. An election rally was also in progress blocking much of the main street. We ate nearby where we could hear the speeches (and fail to understand most of it). Melanie sampled briam for dinner which is a multi-layered vegetable sort of dish. We also had feta here which was roasted with peppers, onions and marinara sauce. Yum. Realistically we had feta as an appetizer at pretty much every meal but this won the award for best feta experience. This was also the night we decided we were really quite sick of Greek wines.

Olympia is of course famous as the site of the original Olympic games. Naturally the most visited site is the stadium. It looks ...

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