Today we arrived off the coast of the tiny port town of Katakolo, Greece, our gateway to Ancient Olympia. Because our ship couldn’t dock at the small port, we anchored offshore and used four of the ship’s lifeboats as tenders to transport passengers to shore.
The morning announcement brought something we hadn’t even considered on this trip: rain! We all grabbed umbrellas from our rooms before heading downstairs.
The tender process turned out to be surprisingly easy. The lifeboats hold about 120 passengers, and when we were ready to go ashore, we sent a family representative to pick up numbered tickets. The crew announced groups of numbers as each tender became available. We didn’t wait long, and after a quick 10-minute boat ride, we were on shore. From getting our tickets to setting foot in Katakolo, the entire process took only about 30 minutes.
Just outside the port, we found several coach buses offering transportation to Ancient Olympia, about a 30-minute drive away. Since Olympia was our destination for the day, we bought round-trip tickets, hopped aboard, and headed off to explore one of the most famous sites in ancient Greece.
Ancient Olympia was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, which date back nearly 2,800 years. It was also an important religious sanctuary dedicated primarily to Zeus, with temples and monuments honoring several Greek gods.
When we arrived, so did the rain and cooler temperatures. Our first stop was therefore not an ancient Greek temple, but a modern Greek gift shop to buy sweatshirts for a few members of our group!
From there, we headed to Olympics Back in Time, a tour company where we had reserved VR, or virtual reality, goggles for our visit to the archaeological site. We had been looking forward to trying them, but the staff was understandably concerned about sending expensive electronics out into the rain. They initially suggested that we postpone our rentals until the next day. Considering our cruise ship wasn’t planning to wait around for us, that wasn’t exactly an option.
Our compromise was to buy two more umbrellas. With enough umbrellas for everyone to protect both themselves and their VR equipment, we were off!
Armed with umbrellas and VR goggles, we walked down the road to Ancient Olympia. The archaeological site is enormous, with ruins scattered throughout the grounds and signs explaining the buildings, temples, and other structures that once stood there.
This is where the VR goggles really transformed the experience.
At various points throughout the site, we could put them on and suddenly see the ruins reconstructed around us as they might have appeared thousands of years ago. Instead of looking at the remains of a temple and trying to imagine its original appearance, we could virtually stand in front of and enter the completed structure.
The experience was also interactive. Virtual people populated the ancient site, and we could even use our hands to pick up and throw objects such as a javelin.
Kelsey and Lindsey were particularly amused by the ancient Greek athletes. Since male athletes traditionally competed nude, the VR experience depicted them that way, although this was definitely a G-rated version of Ancient Greece. As the girls pointed out, the athletes looked more like Ken dolls!
There are various ancient stories and theories surrounding the tradition of athletes competing nude, including legends involving women disguising themselves as men to enter the Games. Whatever its origins, nudity eventually became a distinctive feature of the ancient Greek athletic tradition.
The VR goggles were a fantastic way to explore Olympia. There are a lot of ruins and foundations at the site, particularly temples dedicated to the gods, and being able to see reconstructions helped us understand what we were looking at and appreciate the scale and beauty of the original structures. The system also taught us about the ancient Olympic Games and what the competitions would have been like.
Best of all, almost as soon as we entered the archaeological site, the rain stopped!
We thoroughly enjoyed exploring Olympia and returned our VR goggles with just enough time to catch our bus back to Katakolo.
And when we arrived, it felt like we had traveled to an entirely different place. The clouds were gone, the sun was shining, and it was warm and beautiful.
We found a waterfront restaurant and enjoyed a delicious outdoor Greek lunch before spending some time poking around the shops in the tiny port town. Eventually, some of our group headed back to the ship while Lindsey tried a cappuccino freddo, a popular iced Greek coffee. Kelsey and Karen walked down the road to a small beach so we could officially say we had dipped our toes in the Ionian Sea.
We eventually boarded a tender and returned to the ship without any problems.
Only later did we discover just how lucky our timing had been.
Apparently, the rain we experienced in Olympia had been part of a much more serious windstorm back at the port. Conditions became bad enough that the ship suspended tender operations for a couple of hours. Even more alarming, the wind was pushing our anchored ship dangerously close to the rocks, and a tugboat was reportedly needed to help keep it from grounding.
From the Captain’s description later that evening, it had been a pretty dramatic situation.
Meanwhile, we had been happily wandering through Ancient Olympia wearing VR goggles and throwing virtual javelins!
Completely oblivious to the excitement we had missed, we returned to the ship in time for showers and our new routine of enjoying a happy-hour drink before dinner.
After dinner, we watched a magician perform in the theater before finishing the night with a game show featuring the ship’s Cruise Director, HR Director, and Captain. Our Captain has turned out to be incredibly personable and very, very funny. He stole the show and gave us a great ending to another memorable day.
Ancient ruins, virtual Olympians, Greek food, the Ionian Sea, and a near-miss with the rocks that we didn’t even know was happening.
Just a quiet day in Greece!
