Thanksgiving Cruise to the Holy Land-Part Two

First stop...Katakolon, Greece!
 
Our huge group met in the lobby as the ship was docking and about the first ones off.  We hustled over to the rental car place and the men wrangled a couple of little compact cars which we loaded up and drove off to ancient Olympia.  It was about a half an hour drive through the countryside of Greece.

We arrived at the site and bought our tickets which included the museum and the area of ruins just across the street.  

 We chose to do the museum first.  It was full of some incredibly old artifacts. I honestly had such a hard time trying to comprehend something could be so old.  Some things were over 5,000 years old!

After touring the museum for about an hour, we got some snacks...baklava and the biggest fresh pear I've ever seen!  Then we walked down into the ruins of Ancient Olympia.  It was pretty impressive.  I've always loved the Olympics.  My parents always watched it from opening ceremonies to closing ceremonies.  Mike and I both worked for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and loved being a part of it.  I have always wanted to see the actual place where they ignite the torch and it begins it's journey over land and sea to the lucky host city.

  Just a little history of Olympia...It was the 'Mecca" of ancient Greek religion. People didn't live here, they worshiped here.  The nearest city was thirty miles away.  The ancient Greeks came here every four years, during a religious festival that featured the Games. This went on for over a thousand years (776 B.C.-393 A.D.).  It was home to both temples and sports facilities.

 The stadium was built in the 6th century B.C.  The marble starting blocks that Travis and Dallin are lined up on are the original ones used by the athletes.

This is the altar of Hera and the site where beginning in 1936 the athletes have lit the ceremonial torch.  They use a curved, cauldron shaped mirror to focus the suns rays which then ignites the torch.  I always thought there was an eternal flame here, but I thought wrong.

We had a short port time here...only from 1-5, so we had to hurry and drive back to Katakolon and hop back on the ship.  We started hearing of some little stomach bug going around in some of the families and sure enough, I started feeling a little wonky.  I didn't eat much dinner and went right to bed.  Travis stumbled in around midnight and almost immediately started tossing his cookies.  He had a rough night!   We both decided to just hang out in the cabin all day the next day.  Luckily it was a sea day, so we only missed out on a nice little church service that our group had in the Amadeus Lounge.  

I did get up and go to dinner.  You know me...I wouldn't miss a meal!   I did eat really light though.  I was wanting to keep my strength up for the next two days in Israel!!

I will end this part of the blog here, so I can put both Israel days in one entry.  Tune in again tomorrow for more of our great adventure!

love and miss you all,
-corri