Travel Notes in Greece | Traveling over the mountains and ridges to the birthplace of the Olympic Games

November 8

A day on the bus

From Nafplio to Olympia

The destination is not necessarily the purpose of travel;

The process experience between destinations is also the purpose of travel.

I searched the Internet from Nafplio, a small seaside town in the southern Peloponnese Peninsula, to Olympia in the western mountains, but could not find any clear bus information.

Although it is unclear, there is always a solution when you are really on the road.

I went to the ticket window to buy tickets one day in advance. The aunt inside said: "There is no direct train. You have to go to Tripolis to transfer. Which bus should I take at 8:30 am or 3:30 pm? How many people are there?"

"8:30, two."

I don’t know the transfer frequency at Tripolis. That’s it. Trust me, I’ll wait until I get there.

It takes about an hour and ten minutes to reach Tripolis. On the map, it is the center of the Peloponnese Peninsula. Perhaps this location also determines its status as a transportation hub for the peninsula. Its bus station is indeed more like a station than the roadside parking lot in Nafplion: it is a two-story building, and next to the ticket waiting room is a shopping mall containing coffee, desserts, fast food, souvenir shops, bookstalls, etc. A store that integrates functions and business, the store’s cafe extends from indoors to the outdoor garden and to the bus stop. However, there were no guests.

Transfer to the bus to Olympia at 12 o'clock. We need to wait two hours.

JF bought a stuffed pie, took one bite, and looked very unhappy: "It still tastes like pizza..."

What I bought was a bagel smeared with chocolate sauce. From the dough to the filling, it was full of chocolate. I really needed a bottle of juice to relieve my tiredness.

I went to the bookstall and took a look around. Most of the covers were in the style of glamorous ladies in ancient castles. I felt that the content should be the kind of suspense novels popular among Internet celebrities. After flipping through it, I found that they were all in Greek, with pictures of the authors on the cover page, and most of the writers were women. While I was flipping through the book, a Greek lady stood nearby, looked at me, and started chatting with me using a few English words she had suppressed: "Greek... do you understand it?" I said, I can only look at the pictures, haha...

Get on the bus and go to Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

The bus working group consists of an old driver and a young man. The young man loaded our suitcases into the cargo hold and told us after getting on the bus: "It takes 4 hours to get to Olympia."

I checked on Google Maps and found that the self-driving time is 1 hour and 45 minutes. Is this the kind of bus that goes through villages and alleys?

Sure enough, just two minutes after leaving the station, someone stopped by the roadside to pick up passengers. Then we passed through a town, probably the town of Tripolis, and arrived at some small stations one after another, or waved to stop and pick up passengers. After that, we finally turned onto a highway-like road. At this time, there were probably more than half of the passengers on the bus, instead of the three or two people we picked up at the bus center.

For nearly an hour, we passed by a small town called Vitina. The stone houses and buildings looked like a resort atmosphere. There were some tourists, and there were many local souvenir shops opened on the roadside. The bus made a few stops and continued on its way. . After another half an hour, the bus climbed to the top of the mountain, and a "town on the clouds" appeared in front of us. The autumn atmosphere was very strong, and the scenery there was extremely beautiful.

The winding mountain driveway passes through the town. The driveway is very narrow, and only one bus can pass slowly. It seemed that the two young men at the door of the roadside cafe shouted something to the driver, and the driver stopped the car. The young man got out of the car and ran to the front of the road.

After a while, the young man ran back, Balabala said something to the old driver, and then the old driver also got out.

After a while, the old driver came back, but the young man was not back yet.

After a while, the young man came back and had another conversation with the old driver, who stepped on the accelerator.

Probably noticing that JF and I sitting in the front row were watching them, the young man said to us in English: "Welcome to the real world!"

The bus was moving forward, and at the corner of the narrow road, it turned out that a bus was coming. They had just argued, and with the Greeks' quick temper of "starting a fight if they disagree", the scene just now was indeed the "real world" .

After leaving Lagkadia, the "town above the clouds", it was still a mountain road, with continuous turns one after another. Looking out the window at the vast mountains and deep valleys, I was a little afraid of heights.

About an hour later, I opened Google Maps and took a look. It was actually not far from the small town on the cloud in a straight line. It turns out that there are multiple reasons for the 4 hours.

The bus gradually descended into a gentle area, in a small town, and a dozen middle school students came up. They seemed to be after school.

It seems that this should be a remote mountainous area in Greece, but these children are all very good-looking, well-nourished, and their clothes are no different from those seen in the city. As the bus made twists and turns and passed some small villages or single-family houses scattered in the mountains, these children got off the bus one after another. It feels like this shuttle bus passed through this place at the right time and can be used as a school bus.

After they got out of the car, JF and I were the only two passengers left in the car. For the next hour's drive, it was like chartering a bus.

The young man fell asleep in the back row, holding on to the back of the front seat. The old driver also became bored and started talking on the phone while driving. He talked on the phone for at least half an hour. It was the kind of talking method where he held the phone in one hand and put it to his ear. When I reached the bridge, I put it down, then picked up my phone and continued talking.

There were almost no other cars along the way. Just looking at the wilderness outside the window, the occasional villages, sheep, and rivers, we gradually couldn't keep our eyelids open.

Finally, it’s time to reach Olympia. The flag at the entrance of the village is printed with typical sculptures of ancient Greek athletes.

It's a small village. The bus stopped at a roadside. The young man behind is still asleep, the old driver said. He got out of the car, opened the luggage compartment, pulled out a mountaineering bag and placed it on the shoulder of the road. We grabbed our boxes. Then the old driver got in the car, closed the door, started the vehicle, and drove away.

We suddenly realized, whose hiking bag belongs to it? who? There is no one here except the two of us!

No way? It's unbelievable that he actually left a passenger's left luggage on the roadside! Why not take me to the bus station? incredible……

But the two of us still turned on the navigation and walked along the road to the hotel we booked, muttering "...Unbelievable, unbelievable..."

But after walking about ten steps, I felt bad. JF looked at the luggage and I ran back. I took a photo of the bag, then went to lift it up. I looked around and touched it, but there was no luggage tag... At this time, about ten meters away, an uncle came out of a house. He said to me: "OK, OK!" He also made a reassuring gesture and gave me a thumbs up... Could it be that this is his?

I suddenly realized, oh, it turns out that the old driver delivered the mountaineering bag here according to the instructions! Could it be that some sloppy tourist before got off the bus, but Bao followed the bus and asked him to follow the bus again after contacting him?

This small village called Olympia is located next to the ruins of the birthplace of the Olympic Games. It has three or four parallel alleys and the main alley in the center. You can walk from start to finish in ten minutes. We stayed in a hotel at the end of the village near the ruins. Booked from booking.com, there were only three or four hotels to choose from in the village, and I booked the one with the highest rating. A simple youth hostel with a sense of design, including breakfast, a balcony with a view, clean and warm bedding, comfortable hot water, and a shower room that is as small as the two old house B&Bs I stayed in before - I don't know about those tall people. How should Europeans and Americans take a shower?

I went to bed at around eight o'clock in the evening. At one or two o'clock in the night, there was lightning, thunder, and rumble. I hadn't heard such a sound for a long time. I was half asleep. The ruins in this place were dedicated to Zeus and Hera. Why did Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning, have an attack?