Olympia, Greece
We dock in Katakolon, Greece, for a short drive to Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games. We see ruins of temples, the stadium, the gymnasium, the wrestling school, and the altar containing the Olympic flame.
The Viking Sky docked early in Katakolon, a strip of a seaside town well-aligned with the arrivals of cruise ships and tourists looking for things to bring home. We would be heading instead to Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games 2,800 years ago. The drive would take us through the western side of the Peloponnese peninsula, a flat hand of land with a tiny wrist on the eastern side, near Corinth, that connects it to mainland Europe.
We passed vineyards, orchards, and many olive groves before arriving in Archaia Olympia, a small village that sits next to the ruins of ancient Olympia. The first Olympic Games were held here in 776 BC and continued every four years until 393 AD. That’s a total of 293 consecutive games held, without fail, over the course of 1,169 years!
Part athletic event, part religious festival, the ancient Olympic Games included running, boxing, wrestling, pankration (a bit like mixed martial arts), long jump, javelin, horseracing, and chariot racing. The “halftime show” on the middle day of the games featured the sacrifice of 100 oxen to Zeus, in whose honor the games were held.
The Olympic complex centered around the Altis (or “grove”) of Olympia, a sanctuary to Zeus comprised of several important buildings and a collection of olive, plane, and Judas trees. At its entrance is the Philippeion, plopped down brashly by Phillip II of Macedon after his victory over the combined forces of Athens, Corinth, and Thebes in 338 BC. Phillip planted a flag in this sacred space to declare a reign that would be expanded by his son, Alexander the Great, who assumed the throne just two years later.
Though it was beautiful — it featured 18 Ionic columns with an interior covered in limestone slabs painted to look like bricks — the Philippeion was out of place in more ways than one: It was the only circular structure in the Altis and the only monument in ancient Olympia that celebrates a human. Though the monument was dedicated to Zeus, it contained five statues of Phillip and his family, portrayed in ivory and gold, just inside the entrance.
We moved further into the sanctuary to see the Temple of Hera, built in about 590 BC but destroyed in an earthquake in the 4th century AD. It was originally dedicated to both Zeus and Hera — the king and queen of the gods — until the nearby Temple of Zeus was completed in 463 BC. The centerpiece of the Temple of Hera is its circular altar, where the Olympic flame is lit to this day.
Next we walked down to the stadium, which could accommodate 45,000 spectators — at the time, the largest venue of its kind in the world. For more than a millennia, many of the Olympic events were held on this field, an incredible concentration of athletic endeavor. That legacy continued during the Olympics’ return to Greece in 2004, when the stadium hosted 39 athletes from 26 countries competing in the shot put.
Back in the Altis, we reached the Temple of Zeus. Built over 26 years, this colossal monument of the Doric style was the centerpiece of the Altis and Olympia. It stood 68 feet high, 95 feet wide, and 230 feet long, with massive columns along all sides. It also contained one of the Seven Wonders of the World, a 43-foot-tall statue of Zeus made of gold and ivory. Even its rubble is impressive today.
Our clockwise tour of Olympia next stopped at the Palaestra, the wrestling school that also taught boxing and pankration — a Greek term meaning “all of power,” defining a sport that allowed kicking, punching, grappling, choke holds, and pretty much any other unarmed abuse.
Our final stop was the gymnasium, a 240-yard-long outdoor training area for track-and-field and the pentathlon, which at the time included running, wrestling, javelin, discus, and long-jump events.
Marianne and I shared a celebratory, post-tour bottle of Greek Alpha beer, then walked the main shopping street in Archaia Olympia before making our way back to the bus.
Back Aboard
That night, we enjoyed an outstanding sunset as the Viking Sky sailed through the Ionian Sea, bearing for the Aegean Sea and our final port near Athens.
