Olympia – the sports of the gods

Our next day on the Viking cruise had us landing on the west coast of Greece and catching a coach to the original site of the Olympic games – Olympia. Legend has it that the first games were held there in 776 BC and a stadium around the running track was remodeled around 500 BC. This was the golden age of the site and maybe 70 temples were built over the next centuries including the Temple to Zeus. The games continued for the next 800 years or so, and in the Roman period were opened to citizens of the whole Roman empire at the time. The final games were held in 393AD after which the Christian Roman emperor banned the games as being a pagan festival and eventually the Temple of Zeus was destroyed in 426AD. Then after two earthquakes and flooding, the site was eventually abandoned and covered with up to 8m deep.

Until 1776 the site remained unknown and was discovered in that year by an English Antiquarian, Richard Chandler, but the first excavations didn’t start until 1829 and they seem to have continued, on and off, through to the present day.

The site itself is large and full of ruins that have been removed from the mud and soil. We had a guide giving up a tour of the site, and then could wander around. However, from a photographer’s point of view it is relatively restricted in subjects. Of course, to an expert, each of these ruins is distinct and unique, but they do tend to flow into each other!

The running track itself has been cleared and you can see the stands on the sloping sides of the field where the spectators would have watched the action. The original entrance is above, and then you see the field itself:

You can imagine the scale of the place from the size of the stone blocks that litter the ground where they fell, presumably after the earthquakes:

I must admit that I had seen enough ruins when we had finished the tour, and I amused myself at the end trying to take a photo of a dragon fly landing on the black metal tips of the fence surrounding the site as we were waiting for our coach. Still a very interesting and educational day!

And then we were off to sea again to the island of Corfu. If you like reading these stories, please sign up to my mailing list so that you will the first to know of new articles!