11/16/19/-11/18/19 Patras and Olympia Greece

We drove the easy three and a half hour drive from Parga to Patras Greece without any issues. Nice toll highway until we saw Patras on the horizon with a beautiful suspension bridge spanning Patras Bay.

We drove to the toll booth, €13.50 to cross the worlds longest suspension bridge😳 Not much to say at that point but, thanks 😎

A map of where Patras is located

Patras is Greeces third largest city with 400,000 residents. It’s a seafaring port with lots of ships and ferry traffic

Our Airbnb is a cute little rooftop space, quite Greek, but everything we need with an amazing deck and view

The main reason we stayed in this area was to visit Olympia, home and birthplace to the Olympic Games. We drove about one and a half hours to reach Olympia. We were lucky, the weather was wonderful, low 70’s and no rain. Here’s a model of what Olympia looked like in 200 BC

There are two parts to the Olympia experience, one is the museum and the second the Archaeological site, both wonderful!

First the museum. We are not big museum people, but Olympia’s is excellent. Gargoyles from 300 BC

Nike, ya that one 🧐

A picture of what Zeus’s statue would have looked like. It was moved to Constantinople and destroyed by fire in 400AD

Unbelievable artifacts in many, many rooms. Absolutely extraordinary stuff

Ok, now the archeological site. There are reader plaques telling you what you are looking at as it’s all ruins now. The main thought I kept having is they built this in 400-100 BC when the rest of Europe was living in caves, wearing rotten animal hides, amazing.

One of the highlights was the track, which at one time had a stadium that held 45,000 people, in 300BC, amazing. The entryway, imagine entering to 45,000 screaming people in 300BC

Cindy couldn’t resist a lap

Fantastic place, one of our highlights

Ok, that night a huge storm was again forecast for our area, so we decided to take the morning off and then explore Patras in the afternoon. The largest Greek Orthodox Church in the area St. Andrews, beautiful.

Local lighthouse

A shopping and dining area about 10 blocks long. Greeks love to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and watch the world walk by. Do they ever work🧐

Ok, one more stop, the oldest winery in Greece, Achaia Clauss, not bad🍷

Ok, off tomorrow to Nafplio, a couple of hours outside of Athens with a couple of historic sights on the way. Visit Olympia, it’s awesome

Ciao! Ciao !