Ipocampus Hotel Ixia

Just before 6am I awoke to the first sounds of thunder. After a beautiful day yesterday, and a clear night, this was not what I wanted to hear. Having planned to head out from Olympia, we were stuck while shower after shower drenched everything around.

A quick run into town revealed a hostel that only cost 1 Euro more than the campground (major rip off). The debate of what to do to avoid the rain began ...

... is lit in Olympia and transported to wherever the games are being held. Supposedly we just missed the lighting of the torch for Vancouver’s games this winter.

And the stadium. The immense area carved out to hold the various events. It was fun to watch everyone strutting to the starting line to get their photo taken.

In the afternoon, we went to the archeological ...

... can’t continue like this. What’s the point if we can’t see what we want of these countries? Winter is settling in. No matter how mild it is in comparrison to Canada, it’s not meant for cycling and camping.

The areas of Turkey we want to see are no better for temperature and rain. I even looked to Australia and it’s full of thunderstorms this time of year ...

... may be an entry called ‘Brian’s grand I told you so’ soon…

To me, that makes for more interesting adventures. To Brian, that makes for frustration.

Surprisingly the bikes held it together long enough to make it to the next camping spot - right along the water’s edge. Crashing waves will sing us to sleep tonight. A beautiful beach ...

... to go to the beach; he went swimming straight away and seemed to be having great fun in the rolling and crashing waves - but the grey sky and matching sea were a bit too much like an English beach for me. It tool considerably bullying from Paul for me to venture in, but eventually I went and had to conceded that it was indeed rather splendid splashing about in the mighty waves, even if I did get eyes, ears and nose ...

... workshop on the Olympia site so it was the exact dimensions of the room in the temple where his Zeus statue would sit. In the following centuries, his workshop was turned into a Byzantine church. We left the Olympia site as the sun was setting, and dined together at a local taverna. That night, Sunshine and Indy went out to a disco club with the students, and rumor has it that Indy can really shake his suspenders to "Gangster's Paradise."

... last forever any more. We are happy to be impermanent, with our fast-changing styles and planned obsolescence. Hardly anything is, to borrow the idiom, etched in stone any more; most of our information is no longer even recorded on any material medium, but takes the ultimately ephemeral form of a stream of electrons. We don't build out of megaliths any more because we don't really want to.

... euro; 9, and we find more people at this site than at Delphi , probably due to the better weather, which is now dry, sunny and warm. These ruins are not spectacular, nevertheless it is a beautiful place to visit and unlike most archaeological sites in Greece which are exposed to the sun and surrounded by vegetation that barely reaches your ankles, Olympia is shaded by tall trees and walking through the ruins ...

... They reached their height of popularity in 576 BC. At the time, the festival was only open to Greek born men, but later, once the Romans came into town and took over things, they included participants from all over the Empire. Slaves and women were not even allowed to spectators, his was a mans world, the Olympics (they competed in the nude, I guess they didn't want anyone getting too excited!). Although there was a female version of the games in ...

... of how black and jucy they look, the taste bitter and unpleasant. My dreams of finding an abandoned olive grove where I could binge to my hearts content have been shattered. Then to Diros Caves, and a 2km journey under ground. I had lots of questions to ask about the geology, flow of the underground rivers, their discovery and exploration, modification made ...