Sometimes Roads are Attacked by Landslides… Just Drive Over Them Anyway

This morning we got on the bus for a long and winding journey toward Olympia.  We were on the bus for a little over an hour when we hit the ancient town of Messene.  We walked around the site and saw a temple and stadium.

Then we headed to the Messene gate, which provided fortification for the city.  The road goes right through the wall and so we drove the bus through and got some group photos (we have, at this point in time, 2.5 million group photos).

Back on the bus for 1 ½ hours to the town of Malagi (????) where we went to the supermarket to grab provisions for a picnic lunch. Back on the bus for another hour or so to the site of Mt.  Lykaon, (http://www.penn.museum/research-mediterranean-section/304-mt-lykaion-excavation-and-survey-project.html) which, along with Mt. Ida in Crete, is said to be the birthplace of Zeus.
Zeus: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html  First we stopped for lunch.  I skipped lunch the second I heard “Yes, we just caught a poisonous snake and there are poisonous spiders here.”  I decided to wait until we were back on the bus to eat.  On the VERY TOP of the mountain they uncovered a huge ash altar, so we hiked on up.  It reminded me a bit of what the Von Trap family did in the Sound of Music, but with less singing.  The hike was steep, but well worth it in the end.

Hike (the tiny red circle on the right is or bus, where we started the hike)

The site also has a hippodrome and they uncovered the remains of the start gates.  There were games to honor Zeus here as well and in Olympia.

Then we hopped back on the bus for another 1-2 hours up some more winding roads along the mountains.  Below is a drawing of what the roads look like (the drawing is completely to scale and 100% accurate, the width of the road is quite narrow):

Mountain in Greece, road winding to the top.  Absolutely Amazing Drawing By Jennie Anglim
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Our next stop was the Temple of Apollo at Bassai.  The temple has been covered with what appears to be a large circus tent in order to protect it from the elements.  

The structure itself is built on a fault line (as are waaaaaay too many ancient sites) and so there had been some earthquake damage.  We had the chance to go inside the structure itself and it was pretty neat.  Unlike the other temples we’ve seen, this one had the interior columns attached to the walls.

After that we had an hour and a half drive through the mountains to Olympia where we will be staying for the next two evenings.  The drive was windy and at several points in time the road kind of disappeared because of rock slides… but the sunset over the mountain was gorgeous!!!