Getting to Ancient Olympia took a long time (a full day if you come from Hydra, like we did!) so this is another destination that might not be for everyone if pressed for time. It was an interesting place and amazing to see the remains of the original Olympic stadium.
We were in Ancient Olympia towards the end of September 2022 as part of a 3 week trip, so all my notes are based around my experiences at that time. Links are to websites if I can find useful ones, or Google Maps locations if not, so you can see where they are. Please also note this post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!
You can read my notes on what we got up to below, but if you are short on time here are my top recommendations on what to do in Ancient Olympia, plus you can take a look at my more general notes on travelling in Greece: Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands, too:
Travel:
KTEL ILIAS S.A.: Bus from Athens to Pyrgos, which leaves from KTEL Bus Terminal A, Kifisou, then get a local bus to Olympia (buy the tickets at the bus station when you arrive at Pyrgos)
Do/see/visit:
Archaeological Site of Olympia: As well as the archaeological site itself, your ticket includes the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games of antiquity and the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. Use Rick Steves’ ‘Greece: Athens & the Peloponnese*’: for great self-guided walks around them all.
Eat:
Taverna Orestis: lovely atmosphere on the terrace.
Symposio Tavern: more lovely terrace atmosphere and excellent chips.
Sweet Creations: bakery with good selection of sweet and savoury treats.
A bakery I don’t know the name of that’s very close to this restaurant: for delicious cakes.
Travelling to Ancient Olympia
From Athens you need to get a bus to Pyrgos, then a local bus to Ancient Olympia (details above). We were coming from Hydra, so first we had to get a ferry to Piraeus (07:20 – 09:20), get from Piraeus to the bus station to catch a bus from Athens to Pyrgos (13:00 – 17:30), then a local bus to Ancient Olympia (19:30 – 20:15ish). Normally you’d get the Metro or a bus from Piraeus but as we arrived into the port it became clear that something wasn’t right – turns out there was a public transport strike so we had to find another way to get to our booked bus (which is a private company so not affected by the strikes). Good job we had plenty of time between connections! We remembered watching an Athens Travel Guide by Attaché where he mentioned a taxi app, BEAT, which is run by FREE NOW to order normal taxis, so we gave that a go and it saved the day – taxis there are much more affordable than in the UK so it didn’t cost a fortune, either.
KTEL Bus Terminal A, Kifisou is big but well signposted, though we were still slightly unsure about which was our bus it all worked out fine. It was comfortable, so five hours didn’t feel so bad and we had a leg stretch break at a service station part way through.
Eventually we were at Pyrgos at about 17:30. Pyrgos bus station is lovely! Lots of lovely planted areas, very clean, a café, toilets (though the paper had run out) and even a teeny tiny church! Of course the next bus to Olympia wasn’t until 19:30 so we headed across the street and sat with a drink and crisps at Ozzi café, watching the cars go by. Finally we got the bus, along with a load of teenagers, and made it to right outside our hotel in Olympia about 45 minutes later.
I haven’t listed our hotel in my recommendations here because although the location was good and the people were very nice, it wasn’t as sparkling clean as many would like so I don’t feel I could really recommend it, but it was okay in many ways and had lots of character!
We ate at Taverna Orestis, where we bravely (for us) chose to select our own sea bass from a drawer and enjoyed it served on a platter with school-style veg and a jug of local white wine, exactly what we needed after a long day of travel! We were given a dessert that I think may have been Halva with Semolina (my notes say it was similar to marzipan but maybe not as finely ground and this is what seemed closest on Google), before heading off to sleep.
How we spent a full day in Ancient Olympia
Wandering, relaxing, museums, archaeological site
We didn’t have to rush up today as we were planning to visit the archaeological site in the afternoon to avoid the strongest sun, so we took our time, wandered into town to buy yogurt, honey, water and juice for a relaxed breakfast on the balcony, where we gazed at the view and greenery. We did a bit of washing and hung it to dry and I took pictures of the interesting quirks, like the artificial flower display hidden in a cupboard.
The town in Olympia is lovely, with wide streets to stroll along and a real sense that this is a place designed with tourists in mind. That’s great in many ways, but there is something ‘Disneyland’-ish about it, if you get what I mean.
We headed to the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games of antiquity around lunchtime. It was interesting to learn more about what games people competed in and what equipment was used to take part. I liked seeing the delicate metal leaves that had been preserved for such a long time.
We popped back to town for a cheese and ham pie from Sweet Creations and got some water before heading on to the next museum, Archaeological Museum of Olympia. Again this was really nicely presented and it was incredible to see how all the statues would have been displayed in the site itself. I loved seeing all the little offerings to Zeus that had been left there.
We strolled through a lovely little garden area that told us the names of many plants we’d seen around a lot before heading into the archaeological site.
It was amazing to walk through the site itself. I was surprised how freely we could wander about! Seeing the scale of some of the fallen capitals and the reconstructed columns was incredible, too. One of my favourite things was learning that the buildings were made from local limestone, which was filled with shells that you can see in some of the fallen blocks.
We got to the stadium and of course had to run the original 100m track, starting from the blocks they had all those years ago, which was a lot of fun. It was a really good time to go, too, as it wasn’t too busy and not so hot.
We popped back to the hotel briefly before heading out again to Symposio Tavern for pork gyros. Tim had a lovely sour cherry drink and I had sparkling water, and we were given bread (not hugely needed as we already had bread and excellent chips with the Gyros) and then sliced apple and pear with honey.
On the way back a man outside a jewellery shop stopped us to talk and took us in to show us a photo of him at the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in 1976. We had a great chat with him, hearing stories of his adventures, including how he’d been stung by a scorpion the day before and ran to the river to plunge his hand into the mud to cure it (only partly successful, apparently, think I’d still head to A&E instead myself). He gave us a postcard of the event and told us tales from his day as well as insisting on having a selfie – bizarre bit very lovely!
We’d seen a lovely cake shop earlier so went in to get cake but caused quite a bit of confusion for the elderly man there with our terrible Greek language skills. Thankfully a woman happened to come in and translated for us. I had a little sponge cake with cream in the middle and chocolate icing on top and Tim had a tart filled with sweet fruit and nuts. It isn’t on Google Maps but I think it is very close to this restaurant.
Back to pack for another early start!
Leaving Ancient Olympia
Our next destination was Nafplio and we had tickets for the 07:35 bus from Pyrgos to Tripoli, where we’d change for the bus for Nafplio. However, the local bus we’d used to get between Pyrgos and Ancient Olympia didn’t start running in time to get us there. We thought we’d booked a taxi to pick us up at 06:30, but it never appeared. There followed some frantic running back and forth between the hotel and the taxi rank at which we’d believed we’d booked the taxi previously and eventually a driver arrived there for work, so we grabbed him and managed to make it in time for our bus. Phew!
When we arrived in Tripoli we bought tickets for the bus to Nafplio and had about 4 hours to wait for it so we wandered into the town and sat for a coffee at VILLAGIO Enoteca in the square. Tripoli seemed a really nice town with lots of interesting shops, loads of delis, shops selling artificial flowers and icons for memorials and handily a big supermarket on the way back to the bus station, where we bought bread, cheese and grapes for our lunch. The supermarkets are amazing in Greece – proper cheese, meat and fish counters, lovely bakeries, huge amount of choice and all the produce is lovely and fresh. Even the little supermarkets seem to be like that.
We ate our cheese rolls sitting at the bus station and then went in for a coffee there too. It was yet another impressive bus station with a book shop/newsagents with toys, a café with a fully stocked massive bakery counter, pleasant seating and even chess sets in the corner. Good loos too.
Eventually the time came for the bus and we boarded our front row seats for incredible views as we travelled on windy roads up and through the mountains, then around the coast to Nafplio.
It was good to visit Ancient Olympia but it did feel like quite a lot of work to get there and back. If you’re short on time definitely take a look at all the timings and see if you can fit all the buses and waiting into your schedule, or if you’d prefer extra time on a car-free island!
Next stop: Nafplio
Notes on Travel is a blog by photographer Jayne Lloyd, noting the things I found useful to know when I was visiting Ancient Olympia in September 2022 as part of a 3 week trip around Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands. I’ve tried to be accurate but please do check for up-to-date information before going as things are always changing! I apologise for any mistakes, please do let me know if you have more recent info.
* This post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!