Olympia: Birthplace of the Olympic Games
A curated tour of ancient Olympia's most extraordinary monuments — a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Peloponnese, Greece, that was the most sacred sanctuary of Zeus in the ancient world, the birthplace of the Olympic Games in 776 BC, and home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Trip Stops
- 1
The ideal starting point — housed in Olympia's original 1888 neoclassical museum building, this focused collection tells the full story of the ancient Olympic Games through original athlete equipment including bronze discuses, jumping weights, scrapers, starting blocks, and victory crowns. Visiting here first transforms the ruins into a living, breathing athletic festival rather than a field of fallen stones.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
- 2
One of the greatest museums in Greece — its centrepiece is the original sculptural groups from both pediments of the Temple of Zeus, among the finest examples of classical Greek sculpture in existence. Also on display is the Hermes of Praxiteles, one of the most celebrated ancient marble statues ever found, and the Nike of Paionios. The bronze collection is among the most important in the world.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The only structure inside the sacred Altis ever dedicated to a human being — a circular tholos memorial begun by Philip II of Macedon after his decisive victory at Chaeronea in 338 BC and completed by Alexander the Great. It contained gold-and-ivory statues of Philip, Alexander, and three generations of the Macedonian royal family, using the same precious materials as the statue of Zeus — a provocative declaration that the Macedonian kings ranked with the gods.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The oldest surviving temple at Olympia and one of the earliest Doric temples in all of Greece — built around 580 BC, its original wooden columns were replaced one by one with stone over several centuries, leaving a fascinating record of architectural evolution in a single building. Since 1936 it is the sacred site where the Olympic flame is lit by parabolic mirror before every modern Games, a tradition witnessed by millions around the world.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The largest and most magnificent temple in the Peloponnese when completed in 456 BC — once housing the colossal gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, standing 13 metres tall inside the cella. The temple's fallen drums — each the size of a small car — lie exactly where a series of earthquakes toppled them in the 6th century AD, untouched for 1,500 years. A single restored column gives a sense of its original scale.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The actual studio where the sculptor Pheidias created the Statue of Zeus — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — in the 430s BC, excavated in the 1950s when archaeologists found sculptor's tools, ivory offcuts, clay moulds for the statue's drapery, and even a cup inscribed 'I belong to Pheidias'. The building's floor plan exactly matches the interior of the temple's cella, built to those dimensions so Pheidias could check the statue's proportions in situ. Later converted into a Christian basilica.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The administrative heart of the ancient Olympic Games — where the Elean Senate organised every four-yearly festival and where athletes, their trainers, and their fathers swore a sacred oath before the statue of Zeus Horkios (Zeus of Oaths) that they had trained for ten months and would compete fairly. Cheats were punished with fines used to erect bronze statues of Zeus — 16 of whose stone bases still line the entrance to the stadium.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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The most evocative place in Olympia — the 192-metre ancient running track (one stadion, the origin of the word 'stadium') where the Olympic Games were held continuously for over 1,000 years from 776 BC to 393 AD, with earth embankments that once held 45,000 spectators. Visitors can walk through the original vaulted stone tunnel used by athletes and judges to enter the arena — and run the full length of the track exactly as ancient Olympians did.
📍 Ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece
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