Katakolon – a geriatric playground

We parked Spacegrazer along the town quay at Katalon to go visit the site of ancient Olympia from there. Katalon is a weird place! The town was completely empty when we got there. But soon after, two cruise ships arrived. Shops opened, souvenir stands popped up, horse-drawn carts and beer bikes appeared. The waterfront filled up with gray-haired globetrotters living it up.

Early in the morning we set off to catch the little train that would take us to ancient Olympia. The first Olympic Games were held here, in the 8^th century BCE. They continued to be held here for almost 4 centuries. The train ride was lovely, through green fields and not-quite through people’s gardens. The kids had a blast counting goats, cats, dogs, and the occasional sheep.

Making the roly-poly an Olympic sport

We all enjoyed wandering around the beautiful site of Olympia. It is green and lush, has a great museum, and a little park with a botanical garden. Even though the kids don’t really dig the old stones, they relished being out and about, and scored excellent running times on the ancient running track! They also got a kick out of doing roly-polies down the slope that the spectators used to sit on. The uniformed guard, however, was not amused, and blew her whistle frantically until we managed to “stop the children”.

On the way home, we could barely stay awake. Back at the harbour, the golden oldies had left town; all was quiet again. The only sound we heard that night was a cricket chirping. More about crickets in another post…