Walk the sanctuary where the Olympic Games were held every four years from 776 BC until Theodosius I banned them in AD 393. The Temple of Zeus once housed Pheidias's chryselephantine Zeus — one of the Seven Wonders. The Stadium track is still walkable, entered through the Roman vaulted tunnel the athletes used. The Workshop of Pheidias survives as a Byzantine church built on its foundations. Every narration traces to Pausanias's Books 5 and 6 — the two books of his Description of Greece devoted entirely to Elis and Olympia.
Every stop traces back to primary archaeological and heritage records. Not AI-generated guesses. Here's how each narration gets built.
Each stop pulls from OpenStreetMap · 55 features in this old town (the open mapping database used by Apple Maps and Tesla), Wikidata · 31 cross-referenced entries (the peer-reviewed structured-data project), the heritage authority below, and primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Deutsches Archäologisches Institut · continuous German Archaeological Institute excavation since 1875.
Every sentence is checked against the verified sources above. Anything that can't be supported gets cut.
Tier-1 stops trace back to specific passages in Pausanias's Description of Greece, Books 5 and 6, cited per stop.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The walled sanctuary at the heart of Olympia — the Temple of Zeus where Pheidias's gold-and-ivory cult statue stood, the Heraion (the oldest temple at Olympia), the Pelopion mound dedicated to the hero of the games, the Philippeion built by Philip of Macedon, the great Altar of Zeus where the ashes of ten thousand victims piled into a hill.
The track itself — 192 metres long, single-event capacity 45,000 — entered through the Roman vaulted Krypte that the athletes used. The Palaestra where wrestlers and boxers trained, the Gymnasium colonnade for runners and javelin throwers.
Twelve city-state treasuries lined the slope north of the Altis — Sicyonian, Megarian, Selinuntian, Sybarite, Carthaginian, Geloan, Metapontian. Foundations and a few standing courses survive. Each was a permanent advertisement of a polis's wealth and Olympic ambitions.
Doric peripteral temple, marble metopes depicting the Twelve Labours of Heracles. Housed the gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — until it was lost in the 5th century AD. The temple itself fell in a 6th-century earthquake; column drums lie where they landed.
The brick building where Pheidias assembled the chryselephantine Zeus — gold plates and carved ivory over a wooden armature. Excavation here recovered a cup inscribed 'I am Pheidias's' — among the most personal artefacts in Greek archaeology. The Byzantine church built on the foundations preserved the outline.
192 metres of running track set into the slope, capacity ~45,000. Athletes entered through the Krypte — a Roman-period vaulted tunnel that emerged into the stadium from the sanctuary. The original stone start- and finish-line slabs are still in place; modern visitors run the full length.
Doric peripteral temple of Hera that originally used wooden columns gradually replaced in stone — Pausanias noted one wooden column still standing in his day. The Hermes of Praxiteles was found here in 1877. The Olympic flame is still lit at the altar in front of the temple before each modern Games.
The Pelopion is a circular tumulus to Pelops, the hero whose chariot race against King Oinomaos gave Olympia its mythic founding. The Philippeion is a circular Ionic tholos built by Philip II after his victory at Chaeronea — housed gold-and-ivory portrait statues of his family, the only such dedication to mortals in the sanctuary.
A square colonnaded courtyard for wrestlers, boxers, and pankration competitors, paired with the long Gymnasium colonnade for runners and javelin throwers. Athletes trained here for the month preceding the Games. The Doric column bases and stylobate are in situ.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 30 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each narration traces back to a specific passage in Pausanias's Books 5 and 6 — the two books of his Description of Greece devoted entirely to Olympia. Where Pausanias is silent (the Roman Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus post-dates his visit), the narration draws on modern consensus from the German Archaeological Institute, which has excavated continuously at Olympia since 1875.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
From the Doric metopes of the Temple of Zeus to the Krypte tunnel the athletes walked through to the inscribed cup that named Pheidias. Major monuments get deep dives. Treasuries and statue bases get concise narrations.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2 hours audio total, but you walk at your own pace. 30 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Your access lasts 30 days from purchase, so revisit as often as you like.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.
Each Olympia narration traces back to a specific passage in Pausanias's Description of Greece, Books 5 and 6 — the two books devoted entirely to Elis and Olympia. Book 5 covers the sanctuary architecture, the Statue of Zeus, the treasuries, and the workshop of Pheidias (chapters 7-27). Book 6 lists and describes the bronze statues of victors that lined the route to the stadium (chapters 1-26). Pausanias's 2nd-century AD eyewitness account has been the foundation of Olympia scholarship for 1,800 years. Where Pausanias is silent (the Roman Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, the Byzantine reuse of the workshop), the narration draws on modern excavation publications from the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), which has excavated continuously at Olympia since 1875 and produced the canonical Olympische Forschungen volumes.
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