Olympia Travel

Olympia
Olympia is a city at the western coast of the Pelloponnes. It was a normal city, like New York, but it had something special. The Olympics. Olympia had two parts: The city and the Olympics field above on a mountain. It was for women forbidden to see the Olympics. Once there was a women who tried to see them. See clothed herself like a trainer and looked at the matches of her son. When son won a match, she shouted like a woman and the men of Olympia killed her. From that time not only the participens but also the trainers and visitors weren’t allowed to wear clothes.
One of the most important sanctuaries of antiquity, dedicated to the father of the gods Olympian Zeus. Olympia is the birthplace of the Olympic games, which were first held here in 776 BC to honor Zeus. The Olympic games where ceased in 393 AD after an edict issued by Theodosius the Great and were revived for the first time, after fifteen centuries in 1896 in the all-marble Stadium of Athens.
Excavation of the Olympia temple district and its surroundings began with a
French expedition in 1829. German archaeologists continued the work in the latter part of the 19th century. The latter group uncovered, intact, the Hermes of
Praxiteles statue, among other artifacts. In the middle of the 20th Century, the
stadium where the running contests took place was excavated. The Olympic flame of the modern-day Olympic Games is lit by reflection of sunlight in a parabolic mirror at the restored Olympia stadium and then transported by a torch to the place where the games are held. When the modern Olympics came to
Athens in 2004, the men’s and women’s shot put competition was held at the restored stadium.The ancient ruins sits north of the Alpheus and lies next to Cronius or Cronios hill.The town has a school and a square (plateia). Tourism is popular throughout the late-20th century.
The city has a train station and is the easternmost terminus of the line of Olympia-Pyrgos.It is linked by GR-74 and the new road was opened in the 1980s, the next stretch N and NE of Olympia will open in around 2005. Distance from Pyrgos is 20 km E(old: 21 km), about 50 km SW of Lampeia, W of Tripoli and Arcadia and 4 km north of Krestena and N of Kyparissia and Messenia. The highway passed north of the ancient ruins. The SanctuaryThe sanctuary of Olympia spreads around the green wooded foot of the Kronion hill, where the rivers Alpheios and Cladeos meet. Olympia has been inhabited since prehistoric times but it only took its final form the 5th c BC with the impressive temple of Zeus and other impressive ancient buildings like the Heraeum dedicated to Zeus wife Hera, the Stadium, the Hippodrome where ancient horse races were held, the Palestra (wrestling school) and the Gymnasium where the competitors were obliged to train for at least a month before the games.