11th June 1984 - Cross country to Olympia

Monday, a Bank Holiday in Greece  Got down to the village of Fichti in good time for the train at 9.41, so I caught the bus to Argos, 12 km away. On the hill behind Argos are the ruins if a medieval castle, which was built on a Mycenaean citadel.

   In Argos, I caught the bus to Tripolis. There’s a lot of bougainvillea abloom in these towns. Before we got there, we passed a lot of cherry sellers, selling cherries in bunches like grapes. Some seemed to have only one or two bunches while others had a very small stall selling something else as well. But the road from Argos to Tripolis climbs up, windingly and spectacularly (how else in Greece) in the mountains, blue-shadowed and treeless. There are shrubs, though, some bearing yellow flowers. Views of steep valleys, groves of olive green olive trees, red-roofed villages.

    Tripolis is in a sort of bowl, at the edge. We arrived about 11.00, so I had an hour to wait for the bus to Olympia. This bus was one of those antiquities that you see in films from the fifties; uncomfortable and bumpy. I expected the journey to be 2-2½ hours but it was 3½. The road is not the best in Greece, but the scenery is magnificent. There are mountains covered in pine forest, very alpine. And thousands and thousands of beehives. There is a sort of borderline of barren, shaley hills (like mounds of fine gravel, with new growth grass in some spots) between the alpine and the area of mountains with deep valleys covered by deciduous trees and caves and villages stuck on to the hillsides. There are many roadside shrines which are crossed boxes with small icons, candles and bottles of wine, ouzo and such inside. The long eye-lashed priest crossed himself when we passed these and churches (if he was awake and saw them).

   Down we went to the Ladonas River, along it, over the Erimanthes River. These rivers are fairly small but have a wide bed of stones, so they must flood in season. They join the bigger Alfios River which flows to the sea.

   Pines and green leafy deciduous. We eventually arrived in Olympia, seeing the stadium first, below the road. I got out in the main street of the town, went to the railway station to check out the timetables, and put my pack into the Youth Hostel. Then I went down to the site of Olympia. Much of it is overgrown with weeds and is roped off, but it’s still great. The fact that a lot of it is not marble but shelly limestone makes a difference to its attractions. The Palaestra, the workshop of Phideas, the Leonidaion, the Temple of Zeus, the Stadium, the Bouleuterion, the Heraeum, the Prytoneum – these ruins all here and haven’t been moved to Athens or the British Museum. Talking of museums, I went over to the new museum, across the road and behind the car park. The main hall has the two famous friezes along its walls – terrific, and daylight through the skylights.

Ticket to the Olympian Museum

Ticket to the Olympian Ruins

   There are two models of the original site in the anteroom. A room of headless statues, a statueless head room, and what’s very interesting is all the old bronze stuff. Shields, cauldrons, tripods, helmets and swords.

   I walked back to the hostel by way of a path over the “river” and had some dinner. I bought a book of Tales of Greece and Troy and some food, and wrote at the hostel as the moon rose between the trees.