Greece continues its ancient Olympics role even though the games will be in China. Today the Olympic Flame departed Ancient Olympia on a Torch Relay to Beijing, host of the XXIX Olympic Games.
The internationally televised lighting ceremony starred Maria Nafpliotou as the High Priestess and was choreographed by Artemis Ignatiou.
The first Torch-bearer was Greece's Olympic silver medalist in TaeKwon Do (2004 Athens Games) Alexandros Nikolaidis, who relayed the Torch to China's Luo Xuejuan, an Olympic gold medalist in the 100m breast stroke event. There will follow a seven day Torch relay within Greece that will be completed on March 30 when the Olympic Torch arrives at the Panathenian Stadium in central Athens. There it will be handed over to the Chinese Olympic officials for a twenty nation tour before arriving in China.
The ceremony was to involve a hyperbolic mirror in order to use sunlight (The sun god, Apollo.) to ignite the torch. A back-up match was available in case the sun did not cooperate. Interesting that they had neither one about 1,000 B.C. when the Olympics originated.
Above photo and facts from ANA.
This photo is from 2004 on Paros. I was a few feet from the passing Olympic Torch but there were multitudes of people in front of me so my photo is of the hats of the rear guard.
We have noticed that young goats will climb any and every hill they come to. New hill means new challenge and new game.
Enlarge this picture to see the brown goat on the brown earth.
The Paros Library has recently upgraded their web site. It is very well done; I think it is part of a nation-wide project.
Yesterday was Clean Monday, the start of Lent. To learn more read what I posted last year with photos or better yet go to this new web page based on an excellent article by the Athens News Agency. It briefly explains the meaning of the day and outlines a few Greek traditions as well as giving a typical menu of traditional foods for the celebration.
Our Piso Aliki Beach and large parking lot is perfect for kite flying and as usual a fair group assembled for the fun. This is Karin, looking like a pro, after our neighbour Nikos launched the kite for us.
Sunday we went to Antiparos looking for the scheduled end of carnival parade. Although we did not find it we had a delightful time. On a countryside walk we discovered this new construction in the Santorini style.
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Monday we were on a mission into town. So when the main road was blocked by a farmer moving his sheep from one field to another we decided to turn around and take a different road. Normally we would just follow along and watch for a chance to slowly edge our way through, but this herd had several mothers with young lambs. They were especially skittish.
