You may think we do too much touring and photograph way too many ruins ... we do! But, hey, this is Greece, so, having sailed 50ish miles south along the west coast of the Pelopennisos to Katakolon, we stopped in the little marina there and the next day took a 30 minute train ride to ancient Olympia where superb museums and extensive, you got it, ruins, awaited us.

We started at the archaeological museum and could easily visualize the ancient grounds and buildings and begin to appreciate all the training, competition, worship, orgies, sacrifices, and celebrations that were part of the historical games.

There we learned that the first of these athletic events started in 776 BC and honored the goddess Rea and son Zeus and continued every four years from Mycenean, through classical Greek and Roman times until a killjoy Roman Emperor ended the 'pagan events' in 394 AD. Talk about a long run -that's like 1170 years - eat your heart out Broadway!

The most popular 'games' were wrestling, discus, javelin, long jump and running. All athletes were male and all competition was done in the buff. Spectators numbered as many as 45,000 - again all male except for a few lucky gals who got special tickets with family connections or that snuck in - if caught they were tossed over a cliff...really.

One unusual event described in the museum included "acrobatic somersaults over upended swords" but for some reason that never made it to modern times (hmm, naked young men flippin' over swords - gee, wonder why that wasn't a keeper?).

Next was a walk through the, thankfully, well-shaded grounds of the large site where temple, gymnasium and treasury foundations, broken altar columns and a huge stadium were unearthed by German archaeologists in the late 1800's, a series of earthquakes and floods having virtually buried the grounds for many centuries. There's an aerial view of it all in the top left photo and, to the right, two pix of Craig showing his form at the discus and at the starting line of the running races.

In our photo gallery you'll see more pics of treasures and sculptures found amongst the ruins and, hopefully, some images that communicate the grand scale of this site. There's even a picture of the exact spot where the Olympic flame is ignited to kick off each of the modern Olympics.

So finishing our day trip and returning back to town in the hot afternoon sun, we found the dockside shops and taverns swarming with tourists as three cruise ships were in the harbor. The Port Captain said there had been a big surge as they entered and Sangaris had come close to being damaged on the quay! Not being big on that scene, we decided to cast off and head out to what we thought would be a well-protected anchorage for the night.

Unfortunately the winds shifted around the wrong way and gave us some nasty 'rock'n'roll' for another day and night with anchor drills and other great fun - sorry no pics of that. But that's all part of life on a slant.