Day 41 – 5th June. At Sea-> Patras->Olympia

Day 41 – 5th June. At Sea-> Patras->Olympia

Interesting night on the ship – they started making announcements over the loud speakers around 4am in 4 languages that came on every 30 mins or so. To top it off, I was lying awake after the first announcement in the dark and I hear a staff member outside in the hallway saying to another person Ï am going to wake up all the people, ALL the people.”The other person was saying “wait”but the first guy says “No! I will wake up ALL the people.”

Now I'm WIDE awake and having a Titanic moment – should I wake Graeme and tell him something is very wrong, or should I go find Jack and a whistle to go with my life jacket??!!
I decided to lie in a a sweat and wait for a bit, then about an hour later at 5am they announce that they are stopping at the first port. Phew! Wake up call must have been for all those people getting off first?

Lay in bed till wake up call at 8am, the ship is very stable in its sway and it was nice to lay there looking out at the Greek Islands.
We got into port at lunchtime, so off the ship and onto our new bus with the greek driver – Andreas.

We drove to Olympia in the middle of a storm – apparently it NEVER rains here and guess what? This June is very strange they say. But when we got there it fined up and we had a great greek meal that I have forgotten the name of –it had pita bread, pork, yoghurt and cucumber and onion – delicious! Then we went to the Olympus where the original stadium is. The first games were played there in 779BC ! It was amazing that something thousands of years old still exists, albeit in ruins.

We even saw the track with the start/finish line! Apparently only men could attend and they all competed naked –imagine watching the sprints !@#!!
Two of the aussie guys decided to do a strip and go for a run, but only got to undoing their trousers when the local guide panicked bigtime! Apparently, the police would be called and they would be arrested! It was funny though. Also went through the museum with all the stadium artifacts displayed.

Then to our hotel which is by far the largest most sprawled out hotel yet. We are all so sick of being served pasta and fish every night for dinner as you don’t get a choice on tour, but tonight – OMG! We had the most amazing buffet meal with every meat you can imagine. We are all so starved of red meat, so we were all in heaven. Everyone said they are true converts to Greek food now as we haven’t had the regional foods of the countries that we thought we would sample, but this was fantastic!