Olympia was such a special place for us! Such a relaxing town. Walking through the ruins was like being in a cemetery. Quiet and deserted.
John played it down, but I just know he was pretty much in awe seeing the site of the Ancient Olympic Games. All his life he has loved running and passed his love of it to his son and grandson.
Next to our hotel was a beautiful Greek Orthodox church. Sunday morning the music and singing could be heard from the street. It pulled me in. I took this shot from outside with my telephoto.
The streets of Olympia looked like this most of the time. Touristy, but not a tourist trap.
We took a walk along the little creek by the Ancient Olympic Ruins.
When we checked into our hotel, the owners son circled all the local sites on a map for us. As he circled one place, a hotel, he said, "if you want to swim, you can go here, my uncle owns it, If anyone asks who you are, just show them your room key" We thought it was a joke, but thought why would he say it if not true. Sure enough it was true! It was a Best Western at the top of the hill by the town. A long hike up, but we spend an awesome relaxing afternoon there. Most of the time we were alone in the pool area! Nobody even asked who we were. We enjoyed it there so much, we stayed for dinner.
Here is the view of the valley from where we had our dinner that day at the 'uncle's hotel'. A great location in a garden where they actually grew their own food right by the trees that surrounded the tables.
Our hotel was family owned and operated. On the wall in the breakfast room were these torches, Beside them were photos. It turns out that two of the torches were carried by the owner who was an athlete in the Olympics and the last one was carried by his son!
The train system in Greece was shut down a few years back during the financial crisis. All over the country you could see the remains of train stations and tracks. This shot was taken of the sunrise the morning we were waiting for the bus to take us up to Kalambaka.
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