Our second morning in Greece, I woke up at the (slightly) more reasonable hour of 6:30, but without such a fantastic view to tempt me, I didn't start badgering George to wake up until around 7 am. We had another very full day ahead and didn't quite have the luxury of sleeping in yet. After showering and packing up the room again, we headed down to a rather disappointing breakfast.
Again, when I say the view wasn't great...it's all relative.
Now, to be fair, it wasn't awful. It was toast and jam and butter with a few special muffins and pastries, some lunchmeat, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs. Which, on reflection now, is actually fairly impressive for what we paid to stay there. But at the time, I felt as if I were being asked to eat dog food. Also, I already missed the Greek yogurt, George, as ever the reasonable one, said that it wasn't bad and I was being dramatic. Puhlease. Anyway, the Plaza Hotel in Loutraki was a rather average experience, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that the Villa Pantheon was just that impressive. Plus Loutraki was mostly just a tiny beach/resort town for Greeks. Not much culture there for foreigners. Oh, the hazards of travel.
Pretty pleasant view from the breakfast room, admittedly.
Our first stop of the day was to see the Ancient Corinth canals. It took us approximately seven minutes to get there from the hotel, and half of that time was just us trying to get out of our parking spot and on the road (did I mention the drivers here are a little nuts?). They were impressive and we shoved our way through a crown of coach bus tour people to get our photos.
I don't even want to think about how many people died in the making of these canals.
After that, we drove another 15-20 minutes before arriving at the Ancient Corinth site. This was the part of the sightseeing phase of our trip which George was most excited for, as it was the only place he hadn't been to when he came to Greece with his family as a kid. And it was worth getting excited about. There is an incredible number of ruins and artifacts concentrated in this one, fairly small area. We probably spent a bit more time there than was necessary, but the weather was perfect, the sun was out, and there were almost no other people there besides us. Also, we made friends with an adorable Border Collie mix. That's probably the real reason that we spent so much time there.
It's hard to see, but there's a castle at the top of that mountain. You can go up to it, but we didn't have quite enough time to do so.
How cute is she? She much preferred George to me though...
Speak of the devil..and he will get in my shot
We left Corinth at around noon, and timed it PERFECTLY. We had spent most of the morning discussing how much we hate coach buses and tours, and as we pulled out of the parking lot, we counted approximately 29 coach buses. Twenty-nine. Multiply that by a minimum of 25 people per bus, and you can imagine what the place looked like as we were leaving. By sheer luck (or, as I see it, brilliance on our parts), we had come and seen everything in peace. We crossed our fingers that we would have similar luck in Olympia.
But first we had a four-ish hour drive to get there. I don't know if I've yet mentioned the atrocious amount of tolls that you pay on the Greek highway system, but you stop continually, and pay a minimum of about three euros per stop. In an attempt to keep our spending money from literally being nickeled and dimed away, and in an attempt to jump off the beaten path, we chose to ignore our GPS and take a mountain route through. This was absolutely the right decision.
Going through the mountains was breathtaking. Everything was green, there were no tourists, and plenty of S-curves and hairpins to keep George (and me) happy. Admittedly, the Chevy Spark was struggling a bit, but it made it through. There were a few incidents where we were slowed down because we were behind more cautious drivers than ourselves, but all in all, we made excellent time (though our GPS was yelling at us continually in Greek to get back on the main road and slow down...).
I should have taken more photos while we were on this route because these do not even begin to do it justice.
Whilst on the road, we also stopped for our second Greek dining experience. In case you were wondering, that breakfast at Litochoro actually kept us full the entire day, so we didn't have a chance to experience any of the local cuisine at either Delphi or Loutraki. But on this day, the pitiful breakfast at the hotel was not going to tide us over. Us being us, did not realize we were getting hungry until we were famished, so we took a gamble on a random restaurant in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Our luck held out, as the meal was delicious, if one of the strangest dining experiences either of us ever had. We walked in and saw that, again, we would be the only patrons; the rest was a combination of staff and family (though there may not have been a distinction in that regard). A woman, who I presume is the owner of the establishment/matriarch of the family came in and told us to sit wherever we wanted. We asked for a menu; instead, she rattled off their specials. We picked two; she said that we couldn't mix the those two entrees and proceeded to tell us what she was going to bring out. She then asked if we wanted anything to drink; we both said coffee. She told us no, we could have coffee after we finished our food. So we contented ourselves with water for the meantime. I proceeded to people-watch the familial interactions happening across the room; George immediately became invested in some random, awful Jackie Chan movie that was on and, for reasons I still do not understand, featured a dolphin as a main character.
Thankfully, the food arrived quickly, and was delightful. She brought us a fried whitefish with garlic potatoes, and some kind of Greek lasagna (not mousaka...this had meat), and a Greek bean salad. It was all incredible and we devoured every last morsel. One thing that I will say: the overriding theme of the meal was garlic. Which, as a garlic lover, I was mostly okay with. However, it was probably a good thing that George and I had only each other for company during the trip because I am fairly certain we were sweating out that garlic for days.
The coffee ordering experience was also interesting. I do not think I have mentioned this yet, but very quickly into the trip I became obsessed with Greek coffee. It's made a cup at a time, and the grounds are left in the water. Any sugar you want has to be put in while the coffee is brewing. Our host asked us how much sugar we each wanted. We both said black. She did not challenge George, the Englishman. But I was a different story. She said, "You want no sugar? But you're American." You just have to laugh at these situations. I insisted I was fine without it, and she nodded, but as she walked away to go make them, she said over her shoulder, "I put a little in yours."
When we finally made it to Olympia, it was around 4:30. We walked around the outside of the site a little bit, exploring the botanical gardens and looking for a bathroom (I am a constant travel liability). We couldn't find a public one, so we found another café and, all was right with the world again.
After yet another coffee, we headed into the site (7 euros a piece again), and strolled around. This was bigger than Corinth, and had more vegetation. It was lovely. It felt like strolling through a big park that just happened to have the first ever Olympic Stadium and the Temple of Zeus in it. We took lots and lots of photos, and I thoroughly embarrassed myself by flipping backwards over a rock as I was trying to take a photo of George coming out of the stadium. I don't know how many witnesses there were, but I now have a scar from Ancient Greece on my calf, and George has yet another piece of material to mock me with.
The first Olympic Stadium
The photo for which I will forever bear a scar on my left leg.
The Temple of Zeus
Old Stuff (not the trees, in this case...)
After a few hours here (where, by the way, there are many toilets once you get into the site...), we trudged back into the Spark once again for our final LONG drive for awhile. According to the GPS, it would take us 4.5 hours to get to Athens. It was already 7:30pm. We were not excited about this.
I will say, it was probably the most interesting phase of the trip. We spent about half the time on mountain roads (two-lane roads around a mountain in the dark...), were stuck behind slow people, and then when we finally were forced back on the main road, we were, for reasons we still do not understand, pulled over by the police. They took our car rental information and George's license, but then just let it go. We assumed it was a routine, random stop, but it was still strange.
We arrived in Athens at about 1 am. And then spent a nightmarish additional hour trying to find the hotel. Our GPS was brain-fried at this point, and kept sending us in circles. It also didn't seem to quite have a grip on which streets were one-ways and we (and by we, I mean George) had to improvise quite a bit. Eventually, we ended up just using the GPS as a map. And finally found the hotel.
Once we found the hotel, checking-in took ages as the concierge insisted upon explaining and describing probably 50% of the sites in Athens (and there are A LOT). I was nearly ready to punch him in the face; it was 2 am and I just wanted to curl up in bed. George thinks he wanted a tip; I just think he was bored. We also had to go and park the car in a parking garage a few blocks away. Which was enough to wake us both up a bit; the area in which the Marina Hotel is located is not exactly nice. We were given very specific directions on how to get back by the garage owner who told us "Not to go in any alleys". We did not question his suggestion.
Once back at the hotel, we again were asleep almost instantaneously. Another fabulous day; perhaps a touch over ambitious again, but when you have less than ten full days to work with, you do what is necessary. It was still epic and fantastic and I would gladly do that all over again (cops and seedy hotel areas included).
