Europe 2011 day 12: Ancient Olympia, Greece

Our next stop on day 12 (Sept. 24) was the last one of the cruise - Ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympics!

We actually docked in a small town of Katakolon, Greece. We didn't really spend much time in the town and went straight to Olympia, about 30 minutes away. Rick Steves (of course) had a really good tour in his book of the area. It was all very interesting and really neat to think about the first Olympics taking place there.

there were lots of olive trees in the area

 
  

My favorite part was the original Olympic track and we of course posed at the starting line.

The entrance to the track had an arch where the player would walk through with the crowd looking on.  Kinda like football games.

Every year the Olympic touch is lit here

Hanging out in the athletes locker room

And an ancient "lazy river," minus the water but that's really what it was

At the museum they had a model of what Olympia used to look like.  The track is on the far right.

This was actually the last stop on our cruise!  We spent the next day at sea, it was really nice having a relaxing day on the ship.  We had be going non-stop for the past few days and it was great to relax by the pool and just rest.

After our day at sea, it was time to return to Venice!