Olympia, July 18th

18th July, Sunday 1815hrs, Temple of Zeus, Olympia. Site of World Wonder.

The ruined temple of Zeus where I am sitting, was the site of a wonder of the world. Pheidias’ chryselephantine statue of Zeus, made of ivory and gold, was large enough to hold a human figure in its hand. The pillars must have been enormous – on one side of the temple, the sections of pillars lie as if someone had only just pushed them over, and this temple dates from 460BC. They are really wide, too. One pillar section, resting on its side, was wider than I am tall – over 6’2”. Fragments of mosaic remain, grass grows where worshippers would once have supplanted themselves in front of the wondrous spectacle of the Lord of the Gods of the Greek world.

2210 – Hostel, Olympia

The not-so-hot drawing opposite is of the Stadium, where the races were run. Walking down the course, everything seems to focus you on the track. When Gemma had sat down, I went back to the marble starting line, removed my shoes and socks and took off across the baked clay in just my shorts (as close to the Hellenic dress as I could legally go). Running there felt right – not like the courses at school that called out be lain on, or where it just seemed like too much effort. The entire focus is on the track, and the track is your focus when you run. Despite the stones and not-quite feet friendly surface, it felt fantastic. I started at a typical ‘lumbering along’ type pace, and that felt wrong – this track pulls you to your fastest. I swear I was getting quicker and quicker the whole time I was running - from the start to the finish and back. I ran on my own, so I had no way of judging my speed (not being particularly athletic) but I felt like the wind.

Yesterday after we said goodbye to Marian and Alexandra we caught the train to Pyrgos, where during our hour-long crossover, we met Angela, Judith and Baika from Holland, and stuck with them on the train to Olympia. We got a room, the five of us here in the hostel (1700 drachmae). When we were coming into Olympia, we could see a wall of dark cloud, but nothing prepared us for the absolute deluge and earth-shaking thunder that greeted us off the train. We ran into the station until it relented, the entire complement of passengers from the train, so it was a touch crowded, wincing with every explosion of sound. Helpfully, a sheltering taxi-driver told us the story of how three months ago a 25-year-old man got struck and killed by a lightning. He also thought that the government knew everything that was said on mobile phones, and-he leaned closer for this bit – that’s why this guy was killed...hmmm. He must have picked up my misgivings, so he explained; everyone else under the tree was fine, but he had a mobile phone, so the lightning went for him. On the orders of the government, apparently. Seems logical...

After the rain, Gemma slept (we were both exhausted from the ferry) but I was enjoying the Dutch girls’ company (ahem) and so we went for a walk round the souvenir shops and pottery shops, jewellers...I must admit the old ‘shopping with women’ weariness came over me, but learning a few halting words in Dutch (very halting the pronunciation is horrendously difficult-like Australian/Scots/German – I spent 5 minutes on the first syllable of ‘jeugdherberg’ – youth hostel!) and doing a bit of window shopping myself made it easier.

In the evening we ate at the Taverna Apollon which was great – I had Moussaka, Greek Salad and melon. We got given a free bottle of retsina on the house! It was a good meal, and cheap at 1550 drachmae. From there we went on to try and find a bar and ended up having a free rum and coke in a club before discovering the bar prices and promptly leaving! We enjoyed a can of Amstel in the town square ‘til 1am.