Olympia tickets let you walk through the sanctuary where the Olympic Games began and enter the museums that hold its finds. Pair your visit with other tours in Greece across the Peloponnese.
This page covers what the tickets include, the time slots, free and reduced entry, audio tour and virtual reality options, the Altis, the two museums and the way to Ancient Olympia.
What do Olympia tickets cover at the site and the two museums?
Olympia tickets cover three places. They are the site, the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity. One listing names all three entries together. Only the Archaeological Museum has a timed slot.
The official museum website goes one step further for Olympia tickets. Its ticket page says the entry gives access to the same three places. It adds a fourth: the Museum of the History of the Excavations at Olympia.
A second operator sells its Olympia tickets as an e-ticket. The operator sends an email with instructions to open it. That listing names the same three entries, and it lets you explore at your own pace.
Olympia tickets are tied to a date. One operator calls its ticket valid for one day. Another says its ticket is valid on the selected date. A listing adds that the travel date cannot be amended, so check your calendar before you book.
One reviewer of the site-and-museum ticket reports that it worked at the entrances. Another says the pre-bought ticket let them go straight in.
How do the time slots work for Olympia tickets and the museum entry?
Olympia tickets set a time slot only for the Archaeological Museum. You choose the day and the time when you book. The site and the Olympic Games museum take you at any time on that date.
The museum slot has a small window. A listing says entry is allowed only at the selected time or 15 minutes before or after it. Two listings also say you cannot change the slot once you have booked. One listing tells you to check availability to see the starting times.
The slots come from the monument itself. One listing explains that the monument works under time slots. So the ticket office cannot promise a ticket for your preferred time. Pre-booked Olympia tickets fix your time before you arrive.
The site has no slot. One listing says you enjoy unlimited time there. One traveller met a big queue at the museum door and chose not to wait. So reach the museum in good time.
Opening hours frame the day. From April to October the doors open at 8:00 and close at 20:00. From November to March they open at 8:30 and close at 15:30. The last entry is 15 minutes before closing, so pick a slot well inside these hours. One listing urges you to confirm the opening times for your travel month.
The official museum website says the site is open 359 days a year. In Greek Easter week the hours change. Good Friday runs from 12:00 to 17:00, and Holy Saturday from 8:30 to 15:30. Check these days before you fix a date for your Olympia tickets.
One traveller suggests the museum first and the site after, to picture how the place looked. Olympia tickets with an early museum slot make that order easy to follow. The site and the Olympic Games museum need no slot, so they fill the rest of your day.
Who gets free entry, and which reduced Olympia tickets exist?
One entry listing says EU citizens under 25 and non-EU citizens under 18 get free admission at Ancient Olympia. They show an ID at the ticket booth. Visitors with a Disability Certificate also enter free. Check these rules before you buy Olympia tickets.
That listing comes from Key Tours. It sells only regular adult Olympia tickets, and people of all ages can use them to enter. Its inclusions also name an option for reduced admission.
The Clio Muse Tours listing sets different rules for its Olympia tickets. People under 18 are eligible for free admission. So are visitors with disabilities who come with one family member or helper. EU citizens aged 18 to 25 get a 50% discount.
That listing adds that the supplier does not provide reduced or free tickets itself. The Sights of Athens listing says reduced admission tickets are not available. It adds that child and infant tickets are not available either.
The Olympia Back In Time listing repeats the age rule. Visitors from the EU under 25 and from outside the EU under 18 enter free. So the rules for free and reduced Olympia tickets differ from listing to listing.
The museum’s own website lists the days of free entry. They are 6 March, 18 April, International Museums Day and the final weekend of September. From 1 November until 31 March, the first and third Sundays of every month are free too.
Which audio tour and virtual reality options come with Olympia tickets?
Four listings add an audio tour or virtual reality to Olympia tickets. Key Tours and Clio Muse Tours include an audio tour. Sights of Athens includes a virtual reality app with audio. Olympia Back In Time rents VR glasses with audio.
The Key Tours Olympia tickets include an audio tour in nine languages. They are English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese and Polish. The audio tour of the archaeological site comes only when you select that option. The Olympic Games Museum tour comes with every option.
The Clio Muse Tours audio tour comes with its Olympia tickets and runs on your smartphone. You download the app and the audio before your visit. Offline content includes text, audio narration and maps. It covers the site and the Archaeological Museum, in five languages.
The phone needs Android 9.0 or later, or iOS 17.0 or later, plus 100 to 150 MB of storage. You can replay the audio tour before or after your visit. The supplier recommends downloading it for offline use first.
The Sights of Athens listing pairs Olympia tickets with a virtual reality app and audio. The audio comes in nine languages: English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian and French. Instructions arrive with your ticket voucher.
Olympia Back In Time rents VR glasses with an audio tour built in, so you need no earphones. You collect them at the local partner’s office, where the host explains how they work. The listing asks for a passport, driving licence or ID as a deposit.
The glasses show 15 monuments as they looked 2,000 years ago. You walk inside the Temple of Zeus and see the statue of Zeus. In the ancient stadium, you watch athletes compete. You also see the lighting of the Olympic flame.
The museum itself offers a free digital virtual tour system for visitors with hearing problems. It needs a booking first.
What do you see in the Altis, from the Temple of Zeus to the stadium?
Olympia tickets take you into the Altis, the sacred precinct that was mainly dedicated to Zeus. Look for the Temple of Zeus, the Temple of Hera and the Philippeion. The stadium follows on the same walk.
Your Olympia tickets lead to the ruins of the Temple of Zeus. Builders worked on it from about 472 to 456 BC, and Libon was the architect. Inside stood a gold and ivory statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The statue is gone, but the ruins remain.
The temple measured 72 metres by 30 metres. Its roof tiles were Pentelic marble, cut thin enough to be translucent. Of the 102 lion-head waterspouts on the roof edge, 39 survive.
Olympia tickets also reach the Temple of Hera, the oldest temple at Olympia. It dates from about 600 to 580 BC and began as a joint temple of Hera and Zeus. Stone columns replaced earlier ones at widely different times, so they differ in shape and detail.
The Philippeion is a round building of limestone and marble. It held gold and ivory statues of Philip II and his family, including Alexander the Great. It was the only building inside the Altis dedicated to people instead of gods.
With Olympia tickets you can walk into the stadium. It is a plain field with start and end lines marked by stone curbing. Athletes entered through an archway in a vaulted corridor. Spectators sat on the sloping banks. The length of this track became the standard stadion, a Greek unit of distance.
One ticket listing also names a hippodrome, a wrestling school and a gymnasium where Olympic athletes trained.
Which finds fill the Archaeological Museum of Olympia?
Olympia tickets include the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. It holds finds from prehistory to Roman rule. Its principal pieces are Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, the Nike of Paionios and sculptures from the Temple of Zeus.
Your Olympia tickets show the Temple of Zeus sculptures here. The west pediment shows a fight between centaurs and the Lapiths, with Theseus among them. Apollo appears in the scene and points toward the human side. One metope panel shows the eleventh labour of Heracles, with Atlas in front of him and Athena behind.
The statue of Apollo from this pediment once appeared on the Greek 1,000-drachma banknote.
Two statues draw the eye. Hermes and the Infant Dionysus is attributed to Praxiteles. The Nike of Paionios is the work of Paionios. With Olympia tickets you also see an oenochoe, a type of jug, that belonged to Phidias.
Olympia tickets reach a bronze collection that counts among the important ones in the world. Small pieces include a bronze discus awarded to an Olympian. A winged bronze figure from 590 to 580 BC is a rare surviving example of hammered bronze.
The terracottas run from prehistoric to Classical times. They include a late Archaic statue of Zeus and Ganymede. A terracotta disc once stood at the apex of the Temple of Hera. One listing for Olympia tickets says the museum shows a vast number of finds from the excavations in the Altis.
What does the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity show?
The Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity shows the story of the games. It holds around 400 ancient works from Olympia and other Greek sites. Olympia tickets include entry, so you see it on the same visit as the ruins.
The museum sits in the building known as the Old Museum, or the Syngreion. It was the first archaeological museum of Olympia, built through a donation from Andreas Syngros. Two German architects, Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Friedrich Adler, oversaw the neoclassical building.
The Hermes of Praxiteles, the Nike of Paionios and the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus were first shown here. The growing finds later filled the building, so they moved to a newer museum. Today Olympia tickets open the old halls as a museum of the games. It was restored thanks to the modern Olympic Games in Athens.
With Olympia tickets you follow a story that starts with sport in the prehistoric Aegean, Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece. It moves on to Zeus and his worship, the events and the victors. It also covers the games at Pythia, Isthmia, Nemea and the Panathenaia. Works from the sanctuary stand beside loans from Greek museums.
One story stands out for visitors with Olympia tickets. Women were forbidden to take part in the ancient games, except as horse owners. The museum tells of Cyniska, daughter of the Spartan king Archidamus. She was the first woman to raise horses to compete, and she won the tethrippon race.
How do you reach Ancient Olympia, and when is the quietest time to visit?
Ancient Olympia is a 3 hour 30 minute drive from Athens and a 1 hour 25 minute drive from Patras. Early mornings in spring and autumn are quieter, so choose those times for your Olympia tickets.
Plan the journey before you buy Olympia tickets. The museum website gives the distance from Athens as 290 km. Buses run from Athens through Pyrgos, the capital of the region. Trains or buses from Patras through Pyrgos take around two hours. Buses also run to Olympia from the port of Kyllini.
The same website lists the nearby ports. Kyllini is 66 km away, with links to the Ionian islands. Patras is 117 km away, with ships to Italy. The nearest airport, Araxos, mostly handles charter flights. Kalamata airport is about an hour and a half away by road.
The site is a 20-minute walk from the small village. No private vehicles are allowed inside the site, so you walk between the ruins. Olympia tickets cover an open-air site, so dress for the weather.
One audio tour company calls April to June and September to October the mild seasons. It says tourist numbers start to dwindle in autumn. A travel wiki warns of hot sun and tourist crowds in the summer months.
The same company advises an early visit, when the site opens, to avoid the midday heat and larger crowds. There is no shelter from rain on the ruins, so come prepared on wet days. Pick those mild months for Olympia tickets if your dates are flexible.
What else do visitors ask about Olympia tickets?
How long does a visit with Olympia tickets take?
One traveller booked the entry ticket with the virtual reality audio tour. They were well entertained for about 2.5 hours across the site and the museum. A separate virtual reality glasses tour lists a duration of 2 to 3 hours, with a 3-hour rental. Wikipedia says that visiting the full site requires extensive walking.
Can wheelchair users visit with Olympia tickets?
The museum that Olympia tickets include has a wheelchair for visitors, according to its official website. You must reserve it. It also offers a parking space for people with disabilities, which you can use after you make contact.
For the site, the same page says prepared routes and ramps at specific points help wheelchairs move around. The Clio Muse Tours listing warns that parts of the site are not wheelchair accessible. The main entrance, where the museum stands, has steps. The listing advises visitors with lesser mobility to use the other entrance.
Where can you buy a coffee, and are pets allowed?
A visitor with Olympia tickets has two cafés to choose from. The museum café sits in the east wing, to the right of the entrance and next to the shop. The site has an open-air café in the Olympic Truce grove, north of the ticket office.
A kiosk with souvenirs and books stands right next to the ticket office. The café and shop hours match the opening hours of the museum and the site. Pets are not allowed inside the museum or the site, but dogs that assist people with disabilities are.
What is the town beside the site like?
Its official name is Archaia Olympia, which means Ancient Olympia. The village serves the adjacent archaeological site that Olympia tickets open.
The Kladeos River forms the western border of the site. Visitors walk over a bridge to reach the main gate.
Wikivoyage describes the village as very small, with a handful of stores and hotels. It says you need no vehicle to get around it. One traveller found a shop of handmade wooden crafts from olive trees there. The same family had run it for three generations.
Is Ancient Olympia near Mount Olympus?
No. Wikipedia says that, despite the name, Olympia is nowhere near Mount Olympus in northern Greece. Olympia tickets lead to a site on the Peloponnese peninsula, far from that mountain.
The official museum website says at least 11 cities in the world are named Olympia. The one in the western Peloponnese gave birth to the ancient Olympic Games. It also gave its name to all the others. So Olympia tickets belong to the original Olympia.