The Palaestra and Gymnasium at Ancient Olympia were the training grounds where the athletes of the Olympic Games prepared for their contests. The Palaestra was a fine colonnaded building for the combat sports of wrestling, boxing and the pankration, its sanded courtyard ringed by rooms where athletes oiled, dusted and washed. The larger Gymnasium beside … Read more
The Philippeion is one of the most elegant and unusual monuments at Ancient Olympia, a graceful circular building set in the sacred Altis beside the Temple of Hera. Begun by Philip II of Macedon after his victory that made him master of Greece, and completed by his son Alexander the Great, it held gold-and-ivory statues … Read more
Ancient Olympia is one of the easiest and most rewarding ancient sites in Greece to visit with children. The site is flat, open and safe, so families explore it freely, and its greatest thrill for children is running the ancient stadium where the Olympic Games were first held thousands of years ago. Add small, engaging … Read more
Yes, Ancient Olympia is well worth visiting, and for anyone with an interest in history it is one of the essential sites of Greece. As the birthplace of the Olympic Games, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the home of the Temple of Zeus with its lost Wonder of the ancient world, it combines deep … Read more
The Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae stands alone in the wild Arcadian mountains of the Peloponnese, one of the most remarkable temples of the ancient Greek world. Built in the fifth century BC and attributed by the ancient traveller Pausanias to Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon, it was the first Greek monument inscribed … Read more
Chlemoutsi Castle, crowning a hill above the west coast of the Peloponnese, is the finest and best-preserved Frankish fortress in Greece. Built in the early thirteenth century by the Crusader prince Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, it guarded the medieval capital of the Frankish Principality of Achaea and its harbour of Glarenza. Its great hexagonal keep … Read more
The Hermes of Praxiteles, also called Hermes carrying the infant Dionysos, is one of the most celebrated statues of ancient Greece and the star exhibit of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. Carved from gleaming Parian marble and standing over two metres tall, it shows the god Hermes at rest, the baby Dionysos on his arm, … Read more
The Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity at Olympia is the museum devoted to the ancient Games themselves, rather than to the art of the sanctuary. Housed in a handsome nineteenth-century building given by the benefactor Andreas Syngros, one of the first provincial museums in Greece, it tells the story of … Read more
The best place to stay in Ancient Olympia is the small town of Archaia Olympia, right beside the archaeological site. A few minutes’ walk from the ruins, the museums, the tavernas and the shops, the town has hotels, guesthouses and family apartments for every budget, and staying overnight lets you reach the site early before … Read more
The best time to visit Ancient Olympia is late spring and early autumn, from May to June and in September to October, when the weather is warm, the archaeological site is comfortable to walk and the crowds are at their thinnest. Olympia sits in a green river valley in the western Peloponnese, and its open … Read more