Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The museum at Hóra
Officially Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm, but can be erratic • €2
At
Hóra
(Hóra Trifylías), actually a sizeable town despite the name, which means
“village”, the
museum
on Marinátou, signed above the main square (with Friday-
morning produce market), adds significantly to a visit to the site. If you've no
transport, it might be better to take a bus here first, to the central bus station stop, and
then walk the 45 minutes to the site after viewing the exhibits. In hot weather, or if
pressed for time, you might be able to hitch, or get a taxi.
Pride of place in the display goes to the
palace frescoes
, one of which, bearing out
Homer's descriptions, shows a warrior in a boar-tusk helmet. Lesser finds include much
pottery, some beautiful
gold cups
and other objects gathered both from the site and
from various Mycenaean tombs in the region.
2
Olympia and Ilía
Dominated by the monumental archeological site of
Olympia
, gracing the fertile Alfíos
valley, the sizeable province of
Ilía
comprises for the most part flat coastal plains with a
series of undistinguished market towns, bordered on the west by long, fine, often
underused
beaches
; the resort to head for here is
Arkoúdhi
.
Olympia
The historic associations and resonance of
OLYMPIA
, which for over a millennium
hosted the most important
Panhellenic games
, are rivalled only by Delphi or
Mycenae. It is one of the largest ancient sites in Greece, spread beside the twin rivers
of Alfiós (Alpheus) - the largest in the Peloponnese - and Kládhios, and overlooked
by the Hill of Krónos. The site itself is picturesque, but the sheer quantity of ruined
structures can give a confusing impression of their ancient grandeur and function;
despite the crowds, tour buses, souvenir shops and other trappings of mass tourism,
it deserves a visit with at least an overnight stay at the modern village of Olymbía
(see p.189).
The site
May-Oct daily 8am-7pm; Nov-April Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat & Sun 8.30am-3pm • €6, or €9 for combined site and archeological
museum
From its beginnings the
site
was a sanctuary, with a permanent population limited
to the temple priests. At first the games took place within the sacred precinct, the
walled, rectangular
Altis
, but as events became more sophisticated a new
stadium
was
built to adjoin it.
The gymnasium and official buildings
he
entrance
to the site, located just 200m from the village, leads along the west side
of the Altis wall, past a group of public and official buildings. On the left, beyond some
Roman baths, is the
Prytaneion
, the administrators' residence, where athletes stayed
and feasted at official expense. On the right are the ruins of a
gymnasium
and a
palaestra
(wrestling school), used by the competitors during their obligatory month of
pre-games training.
Beyond these stood the Priests' House, the
Theokoleion
, a substantial colonnaded
building in whose southeast corner is a structure adapted as a Byzantine church. This
was originally the
studio of Fidias
, the fifth-century BC sculptor responsible for the
great gold and ivory cult statue in Olympia's Temple of Zeus. It was identified by
following a description by Pausanias, and through the discovery of tools, moulds for
the statue and a cup engraved with the sculptor's name.
