Mount Olympus & VerginaSep 26, 2018
|
|
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus in Winter
Home of the Olympic Games
We are being pleasantly surprised by things we see and learn about around every corner.
Day two saw us busing south to Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods and home of the Olympics. There is little remaining except ruins, nothing to indicate how important this place was in 350 BC. We hiked near the foot of the mountain, the location of the Olympic Games of long, long ago. We spent time exploring the site of Dion, the sacred city of the Macedonians. There was nothing standing, but one could imagine what an impressive city it must have been with public toilets where the poop was washed away with running water and the urine saved for tanning, long walkways with market on each side, and beautiful mosaics on the floor of homes long gone.
Day three we headed west to Vergina, home to Aligia, the ancient capital of Macedonian kings. Hidden until 1977, the tomb of Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great, was discovered under a hill of dirt. More than one tomb was discovered along with a multitude of artifacts. The sight of the tombs is now a museum. The hill of dirt was removed to expose the crypts and artifacts, then a roof was installed and covered with soil thus the museum is underground. A confident guide spent most of the morning explaining the history of the tombs and the history of the times they were constructed. We were not allowed to take pictures so some of the picture are from Google. It was an amazing museum and history lesson.
