Olympia, Greece

Can you imagine traveling almost 6,000 miles to Olympia, Greece and NOT laying eyes on the birthplace of the Olympics games?

Since our ship would be stopping in Athens next (where we’d be seeing a lot of ancient ruins, historical sights and tourists), I thought it would be a great excuse to have a beach day instead!

Prior to our trip, I spent hours doing research and found the PERFECT “hidden and local favorite” BEACH. But when I told the taxi driver, he simply replied,

“No… You don’t want to go to that beach. I take you to one better and cheaper to get to.”

The driver was correct!

This beach was not super crowded and the water was CRYSTAL CLEAR! And our highlight was walking past the crowd to find a nice rock for Ross to UNKNOWINGLY REALLY IRRITATE A MOTHER BIRD AND HER HIDDEN BABY CHICK climb. (If you look closely at the photos, mother bird is continually swooping down towards Ross to make sure he’s not messing with her little one.)

In case anyone wants to visit this beach as well, my iPhone coordinates recorded: 37° 39′ 54.462″ N , 21° 18′ 35.028″ E. (My guess would be Ai Lagoudis Beach.)

On our way back to the ship, we were excited to try their local cuisine… GYROS!

We made the VERY best of this stop, but for anyone going to KATAKOLON (the official name of the cruise port closed to Olympia, Greece), I would be remiss not to mention:

* Credit cards were accepted most places, but still BRING EUROS.
* If you’re wanting to save money or take the road-less-traveled, PLAN AHEAD and CONSIDER POSSIBLE PROBLEMS (ie: transportation apps being different; internet connections being unavailable at times; shortage of taxis; taxi driver straight-up saying NO to where you want to go, etc.).
* The beach at the end of the gift shops was very dirty and run-down.
* The “fun bus” that many tourist use to ‘hop-on-and-hop-off’ was over crowded and late- almost resulting in a physical fight between two people arguing about who could squeeze into a tiny space.

If you missed Part 1, it’s ALL about what started this adventure- a MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE! Here’s the link: https://christymartinphotography.com/our-mediterranean-cruise-part-1/

Come back, because mine and Ross’ favorite stop is NEXT… Athens, Greece!