Almost ethereal

Friday September 30, 2011

I am sitting on a mountainside in Greece looking down on the lights of a sea port on the Gulf of Corinth. The stars are beginning to peek out and the sliver of moon is hiding for a moment behind a cloud but I must say this is heaven! I can smell the olive groves , the air is still and warm and I just heard the faint neighing of a goat. We awoke this morning to the crowing of a rooster in another mountain side setting almost as perfect as this. Our morning was not quite so early so we had time to relax a little. We have been traveling through rural Greece where most towns are small with a combination of beauty and quaintness. The people are mostly friendly and hoping you will spend your money in their establishments.

Our first explore this morning was Ancient Olympia, home of the first Olympic games. Our guide Dora really brings everything to life and as she explained what every building had been for and described exactly what the experience of participating would have entailed for the athletes. We just felt like we were getting a glimpse back to 300 BC. I had no idea there would have been so many different buildings and how sacrificing animals before the games was such a big thing. They had training centres for pre-olympic practicing and hotels for the important guests. The area was huge. I felt a thrill as we walked through the arched walkway that lead to the stadium where the starting blocks of stone still sit imbedded in the ground. I ran the length of the stadium and could hear the crowds cheering. There were not benches like the stadium in Athens but grassy knolls surrounding the field where spectators would crowd in to watch the competitions. The walk back in time was then sweetened with a view of replicas and in some cases, originals, of many of the artifacts and statues that were apart of the site and were housed in the museum. The art work was stunning.

We enjoyed lunch in Olympia where I just had to have stuffed tomatoes again and shall make that something I master when we get home. Dad had Olympia's version of gyro. Which meant instead of the meat being wrapped in a pita it is served with toasted pita quarters on the side- also a delicious lunch.

The drive along the west coast of Greece was like reading the description of some exotic place in a romance novel. Each little town had its own beauty. We crossed the bridge that was opened in 2004 to connect the Peloponnese to mainland Greece. It is a thing of beauty and I thought of Colin and wished he was here to comment on its structure. We took lots of picture. There were plaques showing the project had won several engineering awards. It is called the Rion-Antirion Bridge and at a distance looks like a row of elegant sailing ships.

We took a rest stop in the town of Nafpaktos. As so many of the towns, it has a fortress on its acropolis and a high stone wall surrounding the ancient part of the city. The fortress came right down to the waterfront where we stopped for our break. Battered, yet colourful, fishing boats sat in the harbour with their waiting nets piled on the old wooden wharf, children ran through the sand on the beach as watching parents sat under umbrellas sipping cool drinks. A couple of young locals were fishing and along came an old man carrying a bucket. He had soon set two fishing lines and sat down to wait. As we walked through the streets to get a picture of the wall I watched an older lady in a dark dress pull plastic bottles from a bag and fill several of them from the water-fountain by the square. It is a tap coming out of a stone sculpted basin that is constantly running a stream of water and is there for drinking water. The whole place was calling come explore. It was a place I could easily spend a few days.

We stopped quickly for a photo op of another very beautiful port town- Galaxidi and then we wound our way past the sea of olive trees to Delphi, 574 meters above sea level. Our last picture-op was at the sanctuary of Athena. The setting sun brought out the beauty of the marble pillars and added to the mystique of the almost ethereal spot.

Our hotel has large spacious meeting room with a wall of windows showing off their greatest asset- the amazing view. Tomorrow we visit Delphi, the place everyone in Greece came for wisdom.