Month: August 2024

There were no cruise ships in town today (tourist sites otherwise clogged to the hilt), so Jan, Kate, Trip and I hopped on the train to Olympia, home of the original Olympic Games.

Olympia is pretty isolated in the Pelopenese, but it is considered one of the most important religious and athletic centers of the Ancient Greek world. It was here that some of the greatest monuments to the gods were interspersed with the home of the Olympic Games. The original Zeus sanctuary has existed since 10th century BC, and the games were established in 786 BC.

Though the entire site is in ruins from a combination of neglect and massive earthquakes, it’s still easy to see the compound that once existed. Particularly amazing is to watch the archeological work still underway. (Fun fact, Jan, who worked on an archeological project as part of his PhD, explained that archeology is supposed to be conducted in phases so that the next generation has a chance to explore and uncover, which is important as our understanding of history evolves.).

As you walk through the site, you explore the temples to the gods (Hera and Zeus being the most notable buildings) as well as the buildings where the components of the temples were created. You also get to see the primary and secondary buildings needed to support the Olympic Games, such as baths, gymnasiums, apartments, etc. A free app for mobile devices is available to help learn about the individual sites, complete with augmented reality in the form of digitized renderings of the buildings that once stood there. You point your phone at the specific site and you can “see” what it used to look like.

As the heat of the day built, we retreated to the museum where remnants are now stored to prevent further deterioration. Cauldrons, pottery, armor, and other parts of every day life are on display, along with the statues once housed in the temples.

Feeling completely overwhelmed by everything we took in, we rode back to town on the train again. After resting a bit on the boat and waiting for the heat to come down, we went back into town to check out a weekend festival.

We stopped at a local fast food joint for hot dogs and beers, then walked over to another spot for a drink, and wound up at a concert at the festival. It wasn’t the best band we had heard, but it was still entertaining and a good way to spend a Friday night.

Katakolon gets a bad rap as just a convenient place to anchor to visit Olympia. Though the town is marketed toward the cruise ship crowds, we still enjoyed it (particularly when a cruise ship is not in!).

Plus, we finally got to catch up with Jan and Kate! Jan teaches mechanical and electrical classes related to boats on BoatHowTo, and Trip had taken one of his online classes last winter. We had met Jan briefly in Two Rock Bay when he swam over to compliment the boat as we were leaving (though we didn’t know who he was at the time), but now we were finally getting to meet in person.

We also had the chance to visit the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology. Unfortunately no photos are allowed, so I only have the one shot that I was permitted to take of a siphon at work. The museum desperately needs more space and money to do it justice, but it was wonderful to pour over all the ancient inventions that we still use today. My favorite summary was the image of a car, with multiple components highlighted that came from Ancient Greek inventors (the Philon theatre turned into pulleys and belts, robot servants turned into hydraulic valves, Ktesibios force pump turned into pistons and cylinders). The list goes on.

In the meantime, Trip had set up the sailing rig on the dinghy, and Jan and Kate popped over to test it out. Jan was giving Kate some additional sailing lessons, as she’d never sailed a small boat before (and there’s nothing like learning on an unforgiving dinghy). She did great!

Even though we had already seen the loggerhead sea turtles up close in Argostoli, I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to see more down in Keri. Although the location was beautiful, the visit was disappointing. There are too many ‘zoom zoom’ boats chartered by misbehaving tourists, going too fast, leaving trash behind, and giving the island a bad rap. I feel for the turtles here.

Turtle Island is beautiful, and we got up early to go visit before the tour boats arrived.

We were able to circumnavigate the entire island, and even had the chance to go through some caves so low you could only manage in a dinghy our size. Unfortunately, we came across a huge bag of trash partially submerged on our way back, and spent a lot of time securing it and then towing it to shore for proper disposal.

I’m happy to report that our time on Keri ended well, as we saw an OCC flag on our way back to the boat and stopped to chat with Phil and Norma on s/v Minnie B. It’s always good to catch up with fellow cruisers and meet new ones!

The island of Zakinthos was our next stop after Kefallonia, as we made our way south. We were not going to have the time to do the famous Shipwreck Beach, and the west side in general, though reportedly beautiful, was going to have to wait for another visit as the anchorages are all exposed to the forecasted winds. We dropped anchor in the southeastern town by the same name as the island, and had a fun little visit.

The town is cute, but the Byzantine Museum in the main square is a small masterpiece. Home to all the religious iconography that was salvaged from island churches after the earthquake of 1953, it’s a treasure trove of both NeoHellenic and Post Byzantine artwork.

My favorite piece was a painting of the Mother and Child done directly on a wooden platform, which was later covered with hammered silver. When art historians were restoring the piece and the silver was removed, smaller pieces of silver fell out, which had been offerings made over the centuries.

The ‘weird’ ending to the day, was my first taste of Madagascar grey vanilla ice cream. Seriously grey. Good, but not as good as others. Still worth a try.

Assos had been recommended to us, but only in calm winds, so we gave it a pass by boat and instead did it by bus from Argostoli. What a gem of a village.

The somewhat hair raising drive over gave us views of both Myrtios Beach and a view of Assos descending from the hills.

The village was Venetian, and is overlooked by an imposing Venetian palace atop the high point at the end of the peninsula. Considering the long, uphill walk and the heat of the day, we opted to give the palace a pass. Aside from that, there’s really not much to do besides eat and drink and wander to enjoy the beautiful view, so that’s exactly what we did.

Oh, the turtles! Caretta caretta, the loggerhead sea turtle, lives in the waters of Argostoli. There is a lagoon that boats can’t get into which gives them privacy, but they also swim in the anchorage of the main port. Though they are not aggressive, they can be if startled, so we opted not to swim while in town. It was fun to watch them popping up near the boat, and they would almost swarm the walls of town when the fishermen returned with their catch.

Argostoli is a fun little town, and we stayed longer than expected. Aside from needing to do laundry and provision, there was a procession of visitors. Pookie and Heath popped through again on their way to Sicily. Karin and Holger came in with the family. And George, who we met last year in Albania and later cruised with in Montenegro, finally caught up with us.

I even celebrated my birthday in town. The past two years we spent swimming in or climbing volcanos. Though we weren’t near a volcano this year, we did walk out to the sinkholes of Argostoli. The split in the karst rock created sinkholes which allow sea water to flow in at a rate of up to 3 meters/second. (A water wheel for sea mills is still in place which took advantage of this natural phenomena to power a power plant and ice station before WWII.) The water crosses the entire width of the island, mixing with fresh water that drains from the mountains, to form brackish water that emerges 15 kilometers down stream in the town of Sami. Tests were done and pigment was dropped in the sinkholes, emerging in Sami 15 days later.

Overall, a nice relaxing stay.