The Modern Town of Olympia
Olympia is one of the most popular destinations for tourists in Greece. Even cruise ships dock at the nearby port of Katakolo and put people on buses to visit the site. The village of Olympia itself is a collection of tourist shops, cafes, restaurants and a Historical Museum of the Olympic Games. As in most overly touristed places in Greece finding a restaurant is easy though finding a good restaurant is not. My friends at Lonely Planet suggest the Taverna Praxitelous, next to the police station and the Klimitaria, on the edge of town on the road to Pyrgos. We liked the Taverna Bacchus, owned by the friendly Dimitris Zapantis, in the nearby village of Miraka on the road to Tripolis. Just follow the signs for Ancient Pisa and it is a stone building on your right at the top of the hill. In fact it was recommended by George The Famous Taxi Driver because he takes his clients there.
The town of Olympia has a very good tourist office on Praxitelous Kondyli, where you can change money, get maps and schedules for buses, trains and ferries. There are three campgrounds in Olympia, a youth hostel, and many hotels. Booking in advance is advised because of the towns popularity, particularly the higher catagory places which get filled by tour groups.
Be sure to stop in at the Museum Art of Greece art gallery, located in the town center. The store contains some of the best copies of museum pieces and is owned by an American: Ginny Horan Papaioannou. Her husband has the Tourist Club, which serves lunches and has a folkdancing show every night during the season where you can get up and participate if you are in the mood.
The original Olympics began as a small regional festival in the 11th century, which was dedicated to the God Zeus. But the origins of the town itself are Mycenaean who worshipped the Goddess Rhea, sister of Cronus and father of Zeus. If you know your Mythology you may remember that Cronus was told that he would be dethroned by his own children and he devoured five of the sons Rhea had given birth to. When Zeus was born she gave a rock to Cronus and he ate that instead. Zeus survived and later dispatched his father to the underworld and Zeus became top God and founder of the Olympic games.The first Olympic games were held in 776 BC and reached their height of popularity in 576 BC. The festival was open to only Greek born men but later Romans were allowed to compete most likely because they were running the Greek world by then. Slaves and women were not even allowed to be spectators and women caught sneaking in were thrown off a cliff. The events included foot races, wrestling, discus, javelin, long-jump, horse and chariot racing, and a type of boxing called pancratium. There were not only atheletic events but also writing, poetry and history readings, plus business transactions and treaties were made between leaders of city-states. There was no television so unlike modern Olympics, spectators were able to see all the events and not just the ones the Americans were in and had a good chance of winning. The games were banned in 426 by the emperor Theodosius II because they were pagan, and the temples were destroyed. The Olympics were officially revived in 1896 in Athens but actually the games had been started with less fanfare even earlier.