Day+9-Becoming+Olympians

Day 9

We started off day nine by walking across the street to the site of Olympia! When we first walked in we passed the gymnasium where athletes would warm up before competing in the games. Next we passed the Temple of Hera as we made our way down to the stadium.

To enter the stadium athletes had to first pass through a tunnel. Only a small bit of the roof was left, but it was pretty cool to walk through the entrance that the athletes did at one point. Once in side the stadium its all grassy hills along the sides, where seating use to be. It’s also interesting that the stadium was used recently in, I believe, during the Olympic Games in Athens. As we did with all the other stadiums, we all took our spot up at the starting line. Someone shouted go, and it was quite the display of athleticism as we all gracefully sprinted in the early morning heat. We all did finished with smiles on our faces, posed for a few more group photos and moved on….as Olympians!

Next we arrived at the Temple of Zeus. Only one lone, reconstructed, column stood. Along the perimeter of the temple were massive blocks of stone from the fallen columns and the rest of the building. There was also nothing left of the Statue of Zeus, but in its’ prime it stood thirty-six feet tall and beautifully crafted out of gold and ivory by the sculptor Phidias. Just to the west of the Temple of Zeus was Phidias’ workshop. This once third story building was where Phidias made all his molds and worked on his statues. The walls still remained and when it was excavated, archaeologists found molds and other materials that helped them to understand how he worked. One of the most interesting finds was a little black drinking cup. On the bottom of the cup read “This is Phidias’”. This is one of the rare examples of when archaeologists could say, without a doubt, that the cup belonged to Phidias. We then exited the workshop and headed over the Roman bathhouses. On our way over you could clearly seen the difference between what the Greeks had built and what the Romans had added. The brick showed what the Romans had built, and the fact that it was usually on the top layer. We finished up on site and then headed over to the museum to look at all the finds. As soon as we finished with the museum we grabbed a quick lunch and then departed from the hotel. We endured the four-hour bus ride and then we arrived on the mountains of Delphi. We dumped our suitcases in our rooms and then walked down to the Sanctuary of Athena. After finding several closed entrances, we finally got in and walked down part of the cliff to the sanctuary. All that remained where three partially reconstructed pillars. After a few group shots with the gorgeous backdrop, we headed back into town and grabbed dinner. Later that night we all went dancing where there was, to our disappointment, no Greek music.