I’ve left the kingdom of Epirus and after a day of driving with a couple of uneventful detours to closed sites, I’m now on the very oddly shaped peninsula of Peleponnese. In addition to the much reduced winter hours, the whole country apparently closes every Tuesday, and since I was driving on Tuesday, I missed out on a couple of ancient theaters. They were small sites and last minute additions anyway.

There’s really only one thing to see and do in modern Olympia and that’s to visit ancient Olympia, home of the Olympic games. As usual, I started at the museum, but Olympia has two museums. Yay! The first was the Museum of Olympia which was awesome! There were all kinds of artifacts in that place, and about twenty tour busses full of daytrippers from Athens.

I can’t remember which temple this came from, but it’s Zeus fighting and defeating the giants. The only piece of Zeus left is one foot though.

Olympia started out as just a site for the cult of Zeus, so he’s kind of a big deal here. They’re not sure, but it’s believed that the religious worship of Zeus started sometime in the 10th century BC. Other gods were of course represented too. Below is Hermes carrying an infant Dionysius and a winged Nike statue that was right out front of the Temple of Zeus.

It seems somewhat ironic, but the Temple of Zeus was among the last buildings constructed here, roughly three hundred years after the games started. Between ancient wars, centuries of neglect and looting, and two devastating earthquakes in the 5th century AD, there’s not much left of the temple. They were able to round up the remains of the west and east pediments of the temple and sort of put them together again though.

The east pediment depicts the moment before a chariot race between Pelops and King Oenomaus with Zeus in the center. Pelops is who the Peleponnese Peninsula is named after. The west pediment is Apollo in the center with a bunch of centaurs. Apollo invited the centaurs to a wedding and they proceeded to get stupid drunk and raised a bit too much hell. There’s a close up of Apollo below left.

Temple of Zeus west pediment

Once I saw all the tour busses, I knew what my plan for the day was going to be. I am an experienced traveler after all. I would first visit both museums and explore the site last when the tour groups were done and off enjoying lunch somewhere. So, I walked over to the other museum, the Museum of the History of the Olympics. As I said, Zeus is kind of a big deal around here.

There were a few interesting artifacts in the museum, but the most interesting part was learning all about the Olympics and how they started in the 8th century BC. Wow! The main events were boxing, wrestling, various types of foot races, and eventually chariot races. Even more interesting was that during those turbulent times they were able to convince all of the neighboring kingdoms and towns to put aside their differences and suspend any and all hostilities during the games. Quite an accomplishment!

My plan worked out perfectly because when I finally got to the actual site there was almost no one else there. Right at the entrance was the gymnasium. Athletes had to show up a month before the games and prove their athletic ability in front of judges in order to be allowed to compete.

Perhaps the most important sport in the ancient Olympics was wrestling. So much so that they had a whole separate complex built for the wrestlers to practice and train, the Palaestra. It’s also probably the most intact building at the site.

The Philippeion was a monument built in honor of one of the Macedonian King Philip II’s military victories. It was started by Philip II, but he died before it was finished so his son, Alexander the Great, finished it up.

This really awesome mosaic was at the entrance of the Prytaneion, a government building that was also the headquarters for the ancient Olympic administration. It looks like Poseidon to me, but I’m not totally sure.

Considering this place started out as a place to worship Zeus in the 10th century BC, it’s a bit weird that the first building that was actually built here wasn’t until the 6th century BC, and it was a temple for the goddess Hera. Why? I don’t know. They kept a flame burning in the temple at all times as a tribute though and that’s where the idea for the Olympic flame came from. The Olympic flame is only a modern addition to the games, but every four years the flame is lit right here at this temple before it’s sent on its epic relay to wherever the games are that year. Not only is it an important temple for the modern day Olympics, but it’s also one of the oldest temples in Greece.

Right outside the Temple of Hera is the Nymphaeum. It’s basically just an ancient fountain.

The Olympics started in the 8th century BC, but the first Olympic stadium wasn’t added until the 5th century BC. Athletes walked through the Propylaeum, a short tunnel, before coming out into the stadium for their events. I think it’s so cool that the arch is still up. There isn’t a whole lot to the stadium itself, but the significance of the place can’t be understated.

Finally, I came to the what was once the biggest building in ancient Olympia, the Temple of Zeus. There’s not much left, the dual earthquakes in the 6th century AD made sure of that, but it is big. Interestingly, the pedestal that the Nike statue from the museum was on is still standing.

The Temple of Zeus is most famous because it once contained a giant statue of Zeus, the one of legend that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was unfortunately stolen and taken to Constantinople (now it’s Istanbul) and destroyed. The one column that’s standing was restored by a German archeology team for the 2004 Olympics. This was a good day. What an amazing site!

My time in Olympia was very short, but I’m not done just yet. On my way out of town I drove way high up in the hills to see another famous temple, the Temple of Apollo Epicurius. They put this tent over it along with a LOT of support apparatus in 1987 to keep it from falling down.

The temple is just unbelievable! Even though it’s getting a lot of help these days, it’s amazing that it stayed up as long as it did, around 2400 years.

The temple was built between 420-400 BC by the ancient architect Iktinos. Iktinos is the same architect that built the Parthenon in Athens. My only disappointment about it was not being able to get a picture of the whole giant thing up on top of that hill. With the tent it was close ups only, but wow!

Down the road about ten miles was the little Temple of Athena and Zeus Soter. Zeus Soter means “Zeus the Savior”. I don’t know anything else about the temple. I just saw it on the map and it was near the waterfall I wanted to hike to, so I stopped. The view from the temple was pretty awesome though.

Finally, I did a death defying drive down a two mile torn to shreds steep rocky road, at least it was death defying for my tiny little Fiat, and then a short hike to Neda Waterfall. There was also a stone bridge nearby. Not much is known about it except that it was probably built during the Ottoman years. And the waterfall was a great place to take a little break before doing the death defying drive back up the hill. It was scarier going down though.

Now I’m headed further south to my next stop in Peleponnese. There are still many more ancient cities to explore, so stay tuned…