Ancient Olympia-Apollo Epikouros Full Day Tour

The Canal connects the Aegean with the Ionian Seas, and Peloponnese with the rest of Greece. The construction of the Canal begun in 1882by a French Company, stopped in 1889 because the company went bankrupt and comlpeted in 1893 by the Greeks. It's 63km long, 23m wide and 8m deep.

Best view of the Canal is from the old bridge

Tip: The idea of building a Canal through the Isthmus of Corinth was conceived by the tyrant Periander in the 6th century BC

The temple is located in Bassae near the ancient city of Phigaleia. It was built in the second half of the 5th century BC and was designed by Iktinus the architect of Parthenon. It’s an unusual and mysterious temple as it combines all of three classical architectural orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

The temple was dedicated to Epicurius Apollo, god of music, poetry, art, medicine, plague disease, sun and knowledge. Apollo was son of Zeus and Leto and was brother of Artemis.

The temple is in the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1986 and is characterized as the “Second Parthenon”.

In the archaeological site visitors can also admire the Temple of Artemis Orthansia and the Temple of Aphrodite.

Olympia, the small town in Elis on the Peloponnese, is at the same time, the birthplace of Olympic Games and the most celebrated sanctuary in the ancient world, dedicated to Zeus, father of the gods.

The archaeological site of Olympia was primarily dedicated to Zeus and held over 70 significant buildings and ruins of many of these survive, such as athletic premises (ancient stadium, palaestra), administrative buildings, altars, temples, monuments, baths, the workshop of Pheidias and hippodrome.

The temple of Zeus housed one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the gigantic chryselephantine (ivory and gold on a wooden frame) statue of Zeus sculpted by Pheidias.

We must not omit the Olympic Flame’s official ceremony which takes place in Olympia several months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Eleven women, perform a celebration at the Temple of Hera in which the first torch of the Olympic Torch Relay is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror. After the ceremony at Olympia, the Olympic flame first travels around Greece, and is then transferred during a ceremony in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens from the prior Olympic city to the current year’s host city.

The archaeological museum of Olympia houses important findings of the excavations and some of the most significant exhibits in the world such as the statue of Herme by Praxiteles which is considered as the ultimate model of male beauty and Nike by Paeonius.