D51 Loutro Ermines to Olympia

After a delightful morning swim and breakfast with Katherine we returned through the umbrella pine strip to strike inland heading South for the site of Ancient Elis.
We got a bit lost coming through the modern settlement of Manolada (sprawling and surprisingly populous due to all the agricultural polytunnel enterprises encountered) and stopped for route enquiries with a passing lady. Chargeback into the neighbouring building (the local lycee secondary school) to haul the English teacher out of the preterm planning meeting going on inside.
Sotiri in her turn called over her friend Nina the gym teacher to hear the cycle take and before long we were joined by the headmistress and orange juice was served and a full account had to be given. As we sought to explain Alex's.contribution the term paleo caravanner was introduced to me - literally 'old man of the mess tin' - an affectionate term of abuse which has stuck for Alex!
So orange juice drunk and delightfully distracting conversation dying down the Paleeo Caravanner and I pushed on for Elis...
(no relation but a bucolic picture of a romantic interpretation does hang on my hall wall  at home selected with the youthful pleasure at the coincidence of names 3 decades ago not realizing it was the name of an ancient Greek city state) beside a modern dammed valley reservoir which was the key to our cross country route to the sacred river Aleph flowing through the famous sanctuary of Zeus we know as Olympia.

 We 'enjoyed ' a hot afternoon toiling through rolling hills but eventually reached the valley of the Alfios, fought out way through the tat of souvenir souvenirs shops and restaurants serving a major tourist attraction to.find the site just as calm and atmospheric as I recalled. The last time I was here 35 years ago I  ran in the sacred stadium and I still recalled the rather strangely atmospheric result....so we both repeated the exercise and again commented on the interesting feeling it evokes through the layers of associations. What I hadn't done before was a little Tai Chi on the spectator banks which houses up to 40,000 people in a world were such gatherings would have been far more affecting given the much lower population densities generally experienced.

That evening we camped at a little site above the town funny a delightful family (Diana's Camping) whose elderly patriarch in his early 90shredded is with the Marseillaise! I'm this age of all conquering English we forget how relatively recently French was the lingua franca! I learnt two delightful Greek sayings that evening at our delightful family restaurant run by Helene - the  first about a task begun was already half done ....encouragement for the Greek Project good building our house at Pyromali......the second bagger in my memory related to the Greek word for feeling which I must look into more with my greek  teacher back.in England. The Palaeo"are banned discovered a taste for the Greek distilled digestive  Cheepro that might (as did I) and the evening was rounded off with one of this delightfully discursive conversation with a 67 year old German who had been trekking up in the remote upland gorges of the sacred Alfios using a classical text by Pausanias as his guide seeking spiritual ancient sites, orthodox monasteries and goodness knows what else.

Asconve