Olympia

Wow, Olympia is a ghost town at this time of year.  Some tour buses still come and go (I mean, we're talking the site of the ancient Olympics here), but they aren't staying overnight, for the most part.

I spent two nights in Olympia, arriving around dinner time. My hotel, which is a pretty nice family-owned establishment, was practically deserted.  And the restaurants are utterly deserted and not putting forward any effort for the few customers they do have.  The hotel owner confirmed that the locals generally eat at home, and for the most part, only the tourists eat out.  So at this time of year, you might be the only customer they see for days.  That means, frankly, that you're better off sticking to breakfast and whatever you can scrounge from the supermarket.  After I got some chicken for lunch that was probably older than I was and french fries that had been cooked during the high season eight or so months before, I decided to eat a huge breakfast at the hotel and otherwise, live on pistachios, yogurt, oranges and chocolate during my stay in Olympia.  It may be better during the high season, but I have a feeling it's not much better.  If only the tourists eat out, there's just not much incentive.  I'll bet the food's at least fresher, though.

The other problem with Olympia at this time of year is that the merchants at the shops, particularly the jewelry stores, literally pursue you down the street.  "Where you from?  Ah, New York.  Come to my shop!"  They fight over you.  They don't leave you alone.  They will actually take your arm and pull you.  Geez Louise!

One guy actually did succeed in getting me into his shop, although I didn't buy anything.  He insisted that if I was from New York, he had something in his shop I absolutely had to see, and out of sheer curiousity, I went.  I'm still not sure what was there that was particularly pertinent to my being from New York, but it was rather interesting and amusing just the same.

Turns out the owner had been an Olympic torch bearer (in the '70's, if the hair styles in the photo he showed he didn't mislead me too much).  He even had an old Olympic torch in the shop.  He gave me a photo of his youthful self as torch-bearer, unasked, and signed it, also unasked.  He told me I could take a picture of him if I came back later with my camera (no, I hadn't asked).  Isn't it sad when people reached their peak at age 20 or so, and just can't get over it?

Then, of course, he told me he'd like to take me out that night to a traditional taverna, where we could eat a traditional meal and do some dancing.  Having been a couple of weeks in Greece, I already know that this is Greek for  "Let's go to your hotel room and have sex", so I declined.  (Other translations from the Greek, by the way:  "Would you like to get a coffee" means "your ass isn't half bad".  "Lots of good clubs here" means "Let's get you drunk and naked."  "I'd like to show you the old town" means "I'll put my hand on your thigh and aggressively try to kiss you.")

He persisted, so I showed him my grandmother's wedding ring, and told him my husband wouldn't like it.  He was very embarrassed.  He asked me where my husband was, and I gave him my stock story:  my husband is doing business in Athens and can't get away, but I've always wanted to see X, so I was taking a day or two on my own to see it.  I'd be joining my husband tomorrow.  I've discovered that just being married isn't enough to get them to lay off -- if you're on your own, they think maybe your marriage isn't so great, so maybe you'll want to fool around.  (And trust me  -- with some of these guys, a simple "no, I'm not interested" does not do the trick.  It just makes you challenging.) 

Once he figured out that he wasn't getting any, he started to push the jewelry.  With great difficulty, I escaped.  After a while, I started walking down the side street (it's a small town of 1500 people) to avoid being pursued by ravenous jewelry store owners.

* * * * *

I got up early the next morning to beat the tour buses to ancient Olympia.  Alas, as I walked towards the entrance just before opening time at 8:30 in the morning, two tour buses passed me.

I know from experience that it would take a bit for the tour buses to unload their occupants, get them tickets and get them into the site, so I broke into a sprint and beat them to the ticket office and high-tailed my ass into the site as fast as I could.  Alas, there was already at least one tour group there, and worse yet, it was in English. 

Why is that worse? Because I could understand every inane word.  I swear to you that the following is a direct transcription I caught from the tour -- given to a group of ADULTS, mind you, not children -- before I ran by them:

TOUR GUIDE:  Now this was the gymnasium.  Can any of you tell me what you think the athletes did in the gymnasium?

DUFUS MIDWESTERN GUY (there is always a dufus in the tour group who answers these inane questions.  Me, I'd see the tour guide in hell before I'll answer a dumb ass question like that):  They trained!

TOUR GUIDE:  That is correct.  They trained.  And why do you think the athletes trained?

SAME DUFUS MIDWESTERN GUY:  So they could compete better in the Olympic games!

TOUR GUIDE:  That is correct.  So they could better compete in the Olympic games.  Now, what . . .

Of course it went on from there, but I didn't hear it.  I was seized with a single thought -- I wanted to see the ancient stadium without these people.  I wanted it to myself.  I glanced at my map, and dashed to the stadium. 

I was rewarded.  I entered the remains of the tunnel into the stadium and emerged into the stadium alone except for some twittering birds and some big-ass earthworms tunneling around on the ground where the ancient athletes competed. 

The stadium apparently never had seats for the spectators.  The judges' seats are still there, in ruins but recognizable.  Best of all, the starting and ending lines for the track races are still there (they are stone).  It was actually pretty thrilling to stand on the starting block for the ancient athletes, all by myself.  I had time to take some pictures and do my own little sprint to the finish line on the other side (I'm a runner after all) before a tour group started to swarm in.

It turned out to be fairly easy to avoid the tour groups.  There were only a handful.  If you were OK with seeing the monuments out of the suggested order, you could pretty easily look at each of the sites in peace.  Another lone-traveler type, a guy, was clearly doing the same thing.  We smiled at each other and left each other alone -- we didn't mind each other, but we weren't looking for company. 

I must say, it's a lovely site, full of trees and grass and wild flowers.  Even without the ruins of the temples and baths and stadium of the ancient Olympic complex, it would be worth a walk.  With the ruins, it was just perfect.  It was even worth braving the jewelry store dudes and that hideous chicken dinner.  Do come here and see it before you die. 

* * * * *

 I found something else in Olympia worth seeing besides the ancient sites, and that's one of the sons of the hotel owner.  Since it's a family business, he works there, at the desk, but hadn't been there the night I arrived.  Wowee wow wow, is the dude handsome.  Charming too.  I'd consider going to a traditional taverna with him.  But alas, he was working, and worse yet, he didn't ask.  Ah well.  But I did get to hang with him a bit by a roaring fire. 

Although luckily it was an absolutely beautiful day, it was pouring rain in the evening.  I was loaded up with nuts and fruit, and after my experience with Olympia cuisine thus far, I decided I was better off indoors.  I glanced into the little parlour, and the fire place was going, and that decided me.  I went upstairs and fetched my book, my pistachios and my fruit, and curled up in front of the fireplace.  The TV was turned to the National Geographic channel (in English), and I left it there.  Too lazy to read, I munched my pistachios and half watched the TV (a rather stupid special about bigfoot sightings), getting up occasionally to stoke the fire.

As I was stoking, a deep and gorgeous voice behind me said "You are doing almost everything right, but let me show you what you are doing wrong."  I turned around, and there was my Adonis of the front desk, every handsome bit of him.  He took the poker from my limp hand, and said "the logs need air to burn.  We need to put another log beneath this one to give it air."  He lifted the burning log -- it was a particularly large one -- with the poker, and I stuck a smaller log beneath it.  He did some further adjustment, and the fire burned admirably.

We hung out by the fire for a while ("I could spend evenings looking into a fire," he said), although he got up from time to time to answer the phone and attend to one of the other guests.  But alas, at around 9 pm, a bunch of loud guys came in, smoking like chimneys, and plunked themselves in front of the fire.  I decided it was time for bed.