Olive Trees

Olives are a staple in Greece being used in beauty products, health products, and in foods. We encounter olive products daily and frequently pass olive trees on our trips. Today especially I felt like we were surrounded by olive trees, so I wanted to write a little bit about them. Our first stop today was the Menelaion, which is a sanctuary to Helen and Menelaus and was high on a hill where we could see many olive trees some of which were on the hill with us. Our second stop was the Olive Museum where they showcase the uses of the olive and how olives have been made into olive oil throughout the years from the prehistoric until the industrial times. Our third stop was the Sparta Acropolis where we walked through an olive orchard on the way to the Acropolis. Our final stop was what they say is the grave of Leonidas, which actually didn't have anything to do with olives.
I was told some facts about the trees I'm going to share. After around seven years, they start producing olives and around fifteen years, they produce a full yield. They also don't need a lot of water, so they can survive in dryer climates. Here are some trees we saw today, which were pretty gnarly and had some junk in the trunk.

What I found really interesting about the trees and my favorite piece of information I heard was when our leader asked, "You know how you can tell if it's going to rain? When the olive trees turn silver." It was raining this morning, and sure enough, the leaves turned silver because they flip over, so the green part of the leaf is on the bottom, and the underside which is a grayish color flips up.

Can you see the silver trees mixed in with the green?

Here is a close up comparison between the olive and another tree. Note the silver color.

Notice the silver on top and green on bottom of the leaves.

a zoom in of the tree above

I also forgot one more stop we made today. It was to get what we've been told are the best donuts on this side of Athens. Mr. Donut! They were delicious.

We tried the chocolate glaze, cinnamon bun, and apple fritter.

We are still in Mystras for the night at Hotel Byzantion. We will be here for the next three nights, so I'll post pictures of the town and hotel tomorrow probably. (We will do some searching T. Banakis).

Andanian Mysteries and Kalamata Part 2

We are finally at a hotel with decent internet for the first time on this trip. WOOOO!! This means I can upload some pics. I will upload more from Kalamata yesterday that I couldn't and just a couple from today. We are now in Mystras, which is right outside Sparta.
Today we started out at the Kalamata Museum, which was strange; it was warm, dim, and kind of like a maze (I got stuck once and couldn't find my way out). We then drove on to Messene where we stopped at a museum then the ancient site, which was very large and had a really neat statidum. Finally we stopped at a little church in Konstantinoi where Bob gave his report on the Andanian Mysteries.

Kalamata Hotel Akti Taygetos

our patio

view from the patio

walk way to our room

our little set of rooms

the sea we swam in

Bob gave his report today on the Andanian Mysteries which is actually just a religious cult. There are inscriptions on this church from a cult that indicate its rules and laws with things such as what types of clothes are acceptable, what kind of silverware could be kept in your tent, and different types of roles that officials had. Bob also was comparing this to the Eleusis cult and said about it that you cannot reveal the secrets of the cult or you could be killed for it. I then asked Bob "What are the secrets?" and he said "I don't know because no one ever said anything."

Bob giving his report

the two white sheets on each side of the door contain the inscriptions

a zoom in on one of the inscriptions, but it's not very clear

Side note:
At a stop today, our leader showed us a plant that is known to regulate hormones so women take it to help with fertility and to regulate cycles and men take it if they have too much testosterone or to help with prostate functionality. I couldn't remember what he said the actual name was, but one of its street names is Monk's Pepper.

Bonus castle pic because I loved this castle so much:

Kalamata

Tonight is our second night in Kalamata. We are staying at Hotel Akti Taygetos. The hotel is set up kind of funky. There are rooms in the main building then you walk to a bunch of separate rooms. Ours is one in a group of six conjoined rooms. Other than some little ants in our room, this place is pretty nice. We went swimming tonight in the hotel's pool and in the Mediterranean Sea, but not the hotel's beach because they closed it since "it is November". Today is October 29th, but we went with it anyway and just went to a little cove. These three pictures were all the internet would allow me to upload.

Main hotel on the left. Follow the path to get to more rooms.

Pool

the sea

Today we started our adventure at the Chora museum, moved on to a Tholos Tomb and Palace at ancient Pylos, stopped in Navarino Bay, and finally went to the most magnificent castle remnant the Methoni Castle. This place had beautiful views and was quite windy. Posts to come.

Oxi Day

October 28th is a Greek holiday known as Oxi Day. Oxi translates to "no" in English. It commemorates the Greek leader saying "no" to the Italian ambassador when he delivered the ultimatum of either letting the Italians occupy strategic locations in their land or face war. As a result the Italians stormed the Greek border and thus began Greece's participation in World War II.
I hadn't realized this at the start of the day and as we were traveling through towns, they all looked shut down. I was thinking "Wow, the recession must really be hitting the Peloponnese hard." Then I discovered Oxi Day and actually they are just closed for the holiday.
Also, the response from the Greeks wasn't actually "Oxi" but rather the French "Alors, c’est la guerre”, which means"Then it is war", but Then It Is War Day doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I do not have great internet tonight, so I won't be able to upload pictures of the travels. We left Olympia this morning and stopped in ancient Isova/modern Tripoti and saw a Gothic church remain and a dilapidated house; then to Bassae with a large Temple to Apollo Epikourios; one last stop at Megolopoli where there was a Temple to Zeus Soter, an Agora, a theater, and a commerce building; finally we have landed in Kalamata (like the olive) for the night.

(Modern) Olympia

We arrived in Olympia yesterday, but we didn't view the sites until today. I will post photos from the town as it is now for this post and the ancient things in a later post. We started off with the archeological site of Olympia where the stadium for the athletics was held from which we now have the name Olympics. Then we went to the Museum of Ancient Olympic Games, the Archimedes Museum, and finally the Archeological Museum of Olympia. I took over 160 pictures today, which might be a record. I usually only take 3-8 in a given museum, but it was quite interesting for me today. We couldn't take pictures in the Archimedes Museum, but it was filled with inventions from Archimedes and may have been geared more toward young children, but it was entertaining.
We are staying at a hotel called Hotel Neda for a second night tonight. It is nothing special. I don't know why, but I always take a picture of the bed/beds and the bathroom and that's it.

It has also been raining all day. I took a couple pictures of the town, but it's all wet.

Finally, if you were all jazzed up about the ancient Olympia museum finds, I'll give you a sneak peek.

This is me in my raincoat with the marble Torso of the emperor Augustus. I am purely used for scale in this photo and am not dishonoring the statue with a selfie, but I can't help but smile.

The Open Air Water Power Museum

The Open Air Water Power Museum in Dimitsana was a little treasure. It highlights the importance of water-power in traditional society. Focusing on the main pre-industrial techniques that take advantage of water to produce a variety of goods. I was told by others today that a bank here, Piraeus bank, sponsors several of these types of museums throughout Greece and that most are worth seeing. This was unlike any museum we have visited yet. I also may have wandered outside the museum limits at one point, but I'm not sure. However, I feel like I found the secret garden.

Cistern

fire

water mill

water shooting out from the mill

tannery remains

tannery

hides hanging up and holes where the hides were cleaned

gun powder mill

here is where I began my journey into the secret garden

how am I not in the secret garden?