The port of Katakolon lies on the west coast of Greece and serves as the gateway to Olympia, the ancient site where the Olympics were originally staged.

For our tour today, we decided to forego Olympia and chose to tour a traditional Greek farm. We couldn't have made a better decision! What a day!

Following a 30 minute bus ride through the beautiful Greek countryside, we arrived at Magna Grecia Farms, an olive farm and vineyard. As soon as we arrived, we were given the traditional welcome drink of their estate white wine and a piece of warm olive pie. We admit that we have consumed a lot of beverages on this trip, but this set a new record for us having our first glass of wine at 9:30am!!

Our host (and farm wife) was Francesca, and she started by providing us with a tour of the farm and a presentation about the olive trees, the harvest and the process of making olive oil. We had some free time to wander the vineyard and see the farm animals. (Photo #3 is a 1,000 year old Olive Tree that was recently transplanted!) We were then invited into a large dining area, for an amazing lunch of bruschetta, olives, sausage, fried zucchini, tzatziki, bread and olive oil, and eggplant and chick peas. We also had a bottle of estate red wine on each table. This was followed by home made baklava for dessert, which was outstanding! (You'll enjoy photo #4 of Karen eating her olives!!)

Before we had even finished our meal, we were treated to the family performing a number of traditional Greek dances. We thoroughly enjoyed this, and at the end, we were all invited to join in! (photo 5 and 6) What an experience! We all agreed this day will go down as one of our trip highlights! Opa! We are now sitting in the Katakolon Agora (meeting place), having a drink (using their WiFi!) and sitting under 150 year old trees! It's a tough life here in Greece! Photo # 7 is Pete and Jim walking on the beach in Katakolon. Photo #8 is Kelley and Karen with our favorite waitress, Oana from Romania.

Thoughts of the day...
Pete says, "Jim and I just went for a quick walk on the Ionian Sea beach, and the water is incredibly warm. I'm ready for a swim!"
Jim says, "I was looking forward to our excursion today, but it far surpassed anything I could have anticipated and it is the high point to date for me!"
Kelley says, "Francesca said, "it doesn't matter how much money you have, if you don't have an olive tree, you don't have anything". Now I wish I had an olive tree!"
Karen says, "I'm not doing well with the olive eating, but I ate 2.5 "big" olives today and they weren't bad!"