Greece
Olympia
Ancient starting blocks still mark the stadium where Olympic contests unfolded for centuries.
The starting blocks are still grooved into the stone — parallel lines carved into the surface where sprinters placed their feet twenty-eight centuries ago. At the far end stands the sacred precinct, surrounded by fallen columns and the ruined foundations of the temples and treasuries that once held the wealth of the Greek world.
The ancient Games ran here every four years from 776 BC to AD 393, and the site keeps the original track, starting blocks and judges' platform. The Temple of Zeus once held the 13-metre chryselephantine statue counted among the Seven Wonders of antiquity. By ancient accounts the surrounding Altis held thousands of bronze victor statues, and their empty bases still line the paths. The site museum holds the temple's reconstructed pediments — Lapiths and Centaurs mid-combat — beside the Hermes of Praxiteles.
Solo
Standing on the starting line alone in the early morning, the museum's sculptures in natural light, and the quiet walk through the Altis.
Couple
A full day exploring the ruins and museum without rushing, followed by lunch in the Alpheios valley tavernas below the site.
Family
Children can run the ancient track and stand on the starting blocks, the museum brings the games to life with artefacts at their scale, and the site is flat and shaded.
- You can toe the same marble starting line the ancient sprinters used — and most visitors do exactly that.
- The stadium's entrance tunnel survives; walking it is the closest thing to an athlete's-eye view of antiquity.
- Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike of Paionios wait in the museum, minutes from where they were found.
- The Games' abolition in AD 393 ended a run of more than a thousand years — the site reads as one unbroken story.
Grilled lamb at Taverna Thea in Flokas village, the ancient site's neighbour.
Thick Greek yoghurt under thyme honey and walnuts — a breakfast that needs nothing else.
Gettysburg
United States
Fifty-one thousand killed, wounded or missing in three days, on fields where silence still weighs.
Troy
Turkey
Nine cities layered on top of each other where Homer's war may have actually happened.
Port Arthur
Australia
Honey-coloured ruins and harbour gardens disguise the machinery of Britain's convict punishment.
Aspendos
Turkey
A Roman theatre preserved so completely that an unamplified voice carries to the topmost row.
Meteora
Greece
Monasteries balanced on sandstone pillars 300 metres above the plain, reached by rope and faith.
Pelion
Greece
The centaurs' mythic homeland — chestnut forests and stone villages sliding from peak to shore.
Agiofarango Gorge
Greece
Three hundred hermits once lived this gorge — a cave chapel and the Libyan Sea remain.
Skyros
Greece
Wild Skyrian ponies roam the southern hills of an island where Carnival masks hide ancient rites.