When I visited Olympia back in 2004, Bassae appeared too difficult to reach, so I just simply skipped it. Now finally, when Greece still appeared to be a nice place to avoid corona back in September 2020, I decided to go. It was my first time to visit a WHS in 7 months. 

But it was a long way from where I was. In order to enter Greece without quarantine or covid test, I, a non-EU citizen, traveled from my dacha in Ukraine first to Bulgaria (non-Schengen EU), second to Poland (Schengen EU) and then to Greece.

Once in Athens, you can take two connecting buses to Andritsaina, the base town for Bassae.  The first one runs from the Kifisou bus station in Athens every morning at 9:30 to Megalopolis and the second one runs from Megalopolis to Andritsaina except Saturday. You should be there in about 3 1/2 hours. 

But I wanted to visit the town of Kalavryta in northern Peloponnesus first for some reason, so I decided to go to Andritsaina from Pyrgos. For this I just had to time myself to be in Pyrgos on Friday, as the direct bus from Pyrgos to Andritsaina departs at 6:00 only on Friday.

Once in Andritsaina around 8:00, I bought a cup of coffee and stored my luggage at Café Neio, which is right by the main but tiny square where the bus dropped me off. This café also sells bus tickets.

Several taxis were on que at the square. I took one to Bassae (15 Euros) and was there by 9:30.

 A girl at the ticket office didn’t speak very good English and said something about two openings at the tent that covered the temple. I thought what she said was that I should enter from one opening and exit from the other. I couldn’t find such a way, but when I saw a sliver of space without a rope cordoning off, I went ahead and walked through and on, taking photos along the way, as it was the only way forward.  I tried to pay attention to the Corinthian aspect of the temple. Then to my surprise the girl came out and said to me I wasn’t supposed to be there. After escorted off the tent, I walked around the other ruins outside for about 20 min. 

Since my bus from Andritsaina through Megalopolis to Athens was leaving at 15:00, I had plenty of time. So I decided to walk from Bassae back to Andritsaina, some 12km away with a short cut.  Along the way I started doing some research on my phone to see if there was anything interesting to see in Andritsaina and found out that there was a library / museum that displays the replicas of the frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epicurius. Upon the discovery I wished I had taken a taxi back to Andritsaina so that I could have more time at this library, but if I hadn't been walking, I might not have discovered this library anyway…

I also wanted to have lunch in Andritsaina, so I ended up spending only about 20 min. at this library.  This was enough to see the frieze but not enough to read the description...in Greek. But, even though they were replicas, they helped differentiate the experience of visiting this temple from other Greek temples by allowing me to see up close some artistic additions to the architecture of the temples that would otherwise appear pretty much identical to inexperienced eyes.

http://www.andritsainalibrary.gr/en/