Olympia (6/3)

Right before I found out about this trip I started thinking how cool it would be to go to Greece. I don't know if it was watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series or Mamma Mia, but I decided it would be part of my dream vacation and then I got to go there! Wishes do come true! Isn't it beautiful? Our first stop was Olympia, birthplace of the Olympus.
The olive trees were very pretty. Apparently they have some of the best olive oil in the world.
All up and down the road you would see these little boxes. They were put there as remembrances for people who had dies in accidents. Inside the boxed might be trinkets that remind the living of the dead and candles to light. I thought that was kind of a cool thing. It was a little bit depressing to realize just how many of them there were. They ranged in size, shape, color, material. You could tell when the accident victim came from money just looking at that.
Even the clouds look a little more pretty.
Outside the museum.
Part of the decorations from the Temple of Zeus.
And this would be the other side.
Pretty impressive, isn't it?

The following is the Hermes by Praxiteles. I realize our tour guide was a bit biased but she kept telling us that even though there is a similarity to David, this one is actually better because it's better proportioned. You can judge for yourself. (I thought the museum person was going to throw some of our group out since they couldn't seem to figure out how to turn the flash off their cameras.)

The Nike by Paionios. She was absolutely beautiful.
I keep trying to imagine what she would have looked like with her wings. It had to have been absolutely incredible.
I wonder how many pictures of this Jen and Will ended up having. Will really liked it. I thought it was very cool. I also thought it was kind of funny - it's a battering ram with a ram's head on it.
An idea of what the temple of Zeus, with Zeus on his throne might have looked like. I can't believe how big that would have been. And how on earth did they get it from the workshop to his actual temple.
So ornate. Terracotta architectural members from the roof of Pheidias' workshop (he made the statue of Zeus).
Statue of the emperor Titus.
The museum from across the courtyard. It did start raining on, but it still didn't get too cold.
The Palaestra. This is where the athletes would practice wrestling, boxing, and jumping.
Their bathtubs. They would actually do everything in the nude. It was only men allowed to participate in games. They would oil themselves up and then do their thing, whatever that may be. Needless to say they would be quite dirty. So they would first have to use scrapers to clean the mud off of themselves before they could even get into the baths - but at least they were bathing.
Our guide told us how much one of these things would weigh, but I can't remember. I am sure it was in the tons. The Temple of Zeus. How great is that to see.
The Temple of Hera. Where the Olympic flame is actually lit whenever the Olympics occur.
The winners were immortalized.
Donald was crowned our champion. Doesn't he look regal? If this had been back in the day, he would have been excluded from having to pay taxes and have many other perks.
Alan, on the other hand, chose to pose on the opposite side of the road. They would not only post winners, they would also build statues of the cheaters, complete with names and a little bit of genealogy so there was absolutely no doubt who you were.
Entrance into the Olympic stadium.
And the track. When the decided to allow women to participate, the length of their race was shorter than the men. I think it's just because we are smart enough to realize there isn't a point in the running, but in reality at the time it's because the men wanted to make sure everyone knew women were inferior to men (that goes to show what they know).

We had our own Olympic race between Mark and Jeffrey (the little boy in our group). So, there may have been a little bit of help in his victory as Ty held onto Mike's shirt, but that's beside the point. I don't know that Ty would have ended up on cheater's row since he wasn't technically in the race.

Raising the victor.
I loved the red flowers - they probably just thought they were weeds. This was its own miracle - I handed my camera to Mom and she took the picture!
Now you can see inside one of the memory boxes. After my first day in Greece - okay so technically I only had two of them - I can now say I walked the original Olympic track. It was amazing.
The orange trees were just right on the side of the row. It would have been so cool to just reach out and pick on, but it couldn't happen on the bus.