Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae

It may well be one of the best preserved monuments of Ancient Greece, but the projects to protect the Temple of Apollo Epicurius both help and hinder your ability to appreciate it. Covered by some kind of tent since 1987, you unfortunately can't get a wider vista of the temple, and you also can't see how it fits in with the broader landscapes up here in the mountains (which is particularly disappointing because that was presumably a big factor in why it was built in such a remote location).

However, I found that being forced to stand close to the temple created a sense of intimacy that I haven't found at other ancient sites in Greece. With the tent around us, I felt even closer to the monument and it seemed larger than it might have otherwise, the columns looming above. Rather than admiring its overall scale from afar, I had more incentive to study the little details that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Much of the OUV is in these details and, although there are some information signs, I would suggest learning a bit about them in advance or bringing something to read with you. Luckily I had an archaeologist guide who was able to point out the important design features and talk about some of the theories about why it was built north-south (rather than the usual east-west) for instance, or about why there was a prominent Corinthian column in the centre (maybe there there was …

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 …

It's not often that three short letters at 5:45 a.m. ruin all the best laid plans for the day. I was standing in the bus terminal of Pyrgos and had just bought my ticket to Figaleia. Based on Stanislaw's comments I had planned to catch the bus to Figaleia, get off at Perivolia and hike up to Bassae and down to Andritsena. A good day's hike (25km with luggage), but manageable. Those plans were ruined due to three little letters: Nea.

As mentioned in other reviews by me, whenever you see Archaia or Nea in front of a town name be very wary. It means that the new town is so far apart that they decided to denote it with New/Old. In the case of Figaleia, the distance is 23km between the two towns. With it my hiking plan became obsolete.

On arrival in Nea Figaleia, I tried to get a cab. There is one cabbie in town, but he was available only in 3h. So, I wandered briefly through town (they have an old Byzantine monastery) and eventually settled in a cafe at the town square waiting for him. Eventually, he came, drove me to Bassae, waited for me and then dropped me off at Andritsana. Pooh. In Anditsana, again, I spent hours in a cafe on the town square waiting for the bus back to Athens.

The actual visit of Bassae was in comparison to all the time spent on town squares drinking coffee …

Site visited in December 2018. The temple is not isolated as it seems. It can be reached by taxi (not too expensive) from Andritsaina or Figaleia, both connected by buses from Pirgos (Andritsaina also from Tripolis), only during the week days, no weekends. I’ve chosen Andritsaina, taking a bus at 6:15 from Pirgos – it takes 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there; after arriving in the village, I had a coffee in a small restaurant where I left my backpack and the owner arrange a taxi for the temple – only one way, cos I decided to walk down the 14 km road from the temple just to catch a returning bus to Pirgos at 2pm.

The temple is still covered with a bit worn-out and dirty tent, but even so, it makes a very good impression. Being one of the best preserved from antiquity, it still needs some (huge!) repair and reconstruction works before the tent can be taken off. Inside the tent you can watch an informative movie about the reconstructions.

The remaining columns and walls make you feel so small when you’re so closed to them; there are still lots of scaffoldings and other hardware upholding the structure. Lots of numbered pieces of the temple roof around. And lots of cats too.

I was the only person visiting that morning so the lady selling tickets walked with me around and pointed elements that shouldn’t be missed, like the old temple west of …

A few points about Bassae following our visit in Oct 2017.

a. Its Architectural significance

Bassae doesn’t exactly “wow” at first sight. It is certainly wildly and remotely situated but, beyond that, lacks what I might call “first order appeal” (look at its “rating” on this site!). It consists primarily of a rectangle of crumbling pillars, plus some “internal walls” - all much smaller and less “impressive” than its “big brother”, the Parthenon, with which it is approximately contemporaneous (c450-400BC). All is hidden under a rather grubby, disintegrating tent which has been in place since 1987 during a “long term” (!!) restoration project. The tent of course totally destroys one of the building’s main attributes - namely its relationship with its setting. Early photos in the next link below show it in its unshrouded glory.

Back in Athens, the queues for the Parthenon would no doubt have been reaching epic proportions, but at Bassae we were almost alone. There was, however, a group of US graduate school students who were being shown round by a professor from Oxford - so we “followed” them. And he found plenty to talk about – its location, its orientation, its internal layout, its proportions, its decoration, its religious uses, who built it, who copied it etc etc! Wiki says “Although this temple is geographically remote from major polities of ancient Greece, it is one of the most studied ancient Greek temples because of its multitude of unusual features” - …

Watching the audio-visual presentation about the restoration work I began to realise the extent of the work being performed. Each column was being raised off its foundation, a new earthquake-proof foundation was then constructed beneath. The columns were then lowered back precisely into their original positions. Inevitably this is a very slow, painstaking and expensive process.

After some 15 years about one third of the columns have been treated. So don't expect the tent shrouding the temple to be removed for a few decades yet.

Around the site are neatly catalogued rows of stones to be replaced as roof beams etc.

I visited this WHS in June 2014. You don't get here by chance! No doubt about that! The Temple of Apollo Epicurius is well hidden in the Arcadian Mountains at 1131m above sea level. From Ancient Olympia to this WHS there was a difference of 20 degrees, so I would definitely recommend visiting in the summer. The mountain scenery was amazing to take in and then about 14km from Andritsaina I saw the white protective tent that covers this WHS since 1987. I have mixed feelings about this tent. While I support the idea of protecting the temple from the elements (mainly ice, wind, rain and sun) it would obviously be a greater sight to behold without the tent. Moreover, the tent needs to be taken care of as parts of it got torn and quite a lot of rainwater and mud got on the doric columns and on the information display screens which were switched off and don't work anymore. This WHS was the first inscribed WHS from Greece in 1986 and is worth a visit if you're nearby.

I visited Bassae in 1959 when the road tomit had only recently been built and was still a dirt road. The site and particularly the condition of this temple were magnificent. I can not understand why it has been necessary to encase it in a tent and risk damage from damp to a structure which has successfully survived 2400 plus years. Please finish your works, if indeed they are necessary, and reopen it to its proper inspirational position on the mountain top.

I was on my own travelling around southern Greece in 2008 and stayed the night in Andritsena as for ages I had wanted to see the temple at Bassae. Staying at another room in the house was a couple who were cycling on a tandem from Rome to Athens. The following morning the man asked if I could give him a lift in my car to the temple as he didn't want to cycle all that way uphill! So I took him even though I had already been the day before and somehow as I was sharing the experience with another it meant so much more to me this second time. It was a Saturday morning and no one else was around: it was bright but cold and seeing that lovely building again with someone to discuss it with was terrific. I'll go again one day but we went back in the car to Andritsena and they cycled onwards to Athens: I don't know who they were but he helped me enjoy my time at Bassae so much.

I have visited three times the temple.

The temple is in a great danger because of the humidity.

The textile cover supposed to be temporary but is more than 24 years that is still there.

The cover keeps the humidity which damage slowly the marmus

Hope that UNESCO will take care as soon as possible

Even though the temple of Epicurius Apollo is being restorated at the moment and sheltered by a large tent, I found it to be breathtakingly beautiful. I can recommend it to everyone. The best way to go there is south from Andritsaina. We made the mistake to drive north from Kopanaki: a 2 - 2,5 hour drive through the mountains.

(August 9th, 2008).

I visited Bassae in 1975. The trip from the coast to get there was through beautiful mountain scenery. As we got closer to the temple the road deteriorated and was full of portions that had broken off and fallen down the slope of the hills. It became foggy and suddenly a few goats suddenly darted across the road (omens of the gods?). Arriving at the temple my wife and I were the only ones there (except for our cab driver). The isolation and fog made for a magical feeling. The temple wasn't enclosed in a tent then, there was no admission fee, and you could wander wherever you wanted. The temple was maginificent, very well preserved, and worth the long trip to get there. Its interior layout was unlike any of the many Greek temples that I have visited. It was a most memorable visit.

In our trip to Greece we have visited the stunning ruins of the temple of Bassae, dedicated by the ancient inhabitants of Phigalia to Apollo Epicurius, the god solar and healer who had come to help them when they were beset by an epidemic of the plague, during the war of the Peloponnese. It was built in the 5th century B.C. (in the opinion of Pausanias by the architect Ictinos, the constructer of the Parthenon, on the place of an earlier temple) near the present village of Andritsaina, on a mount 1130 m high, and belongs to the fist generation of post-Parthenonian buildings. It remained undiscovered because of its isolation, until a French architect came upon it accidentally in 1765 and brought it to the attention of the academic world; the archeological investigation were profitable but prejudicial to the integrity of the monument, that was divested of the internal architrave of the cella, with the Ionic 22 frieze’s sculptured plates (with the Centauromachy and the Amazonomachy, maybe sculpted by Kallimachos), acquired in 1814 by order of the future king George IV of England and transferred to the British Museum with the oldest Corinthian capital. It was restored in 1902 and in 1965 and is now entirely shored up and covered by a tent (the restoration and consolidation works continue), because its critical state. The peripteral building, 39.87 m long and 16.13 m large, is oriented to the north and not to the east, as usual. In Doric order is the …

Approaching this out of the way site, it looks like a disused masons yard with a gigantic tent at its edge. But once inside the tent, which is truely enormous, you are treated to a sight which is awe inspiring in its magnificence. I was immediately struck by its sanctity, even though I am not a particularly religious person myself. All hail to UNESCO and others who are working so hard to preserve this wonderful temple.

While in Olympia for a couple of days, I hiered myself a local guide to take me up the mountains to visit the temple of Vasses, my 142nd World Heritage Site. Driving along the steep sloapes and the mountain villages was quite an experience on this warm July afternoon. Finally reached the temple, still wrapped up in it's tent but in a very good shape. While you're there, also take the opportunity to climb up the extra 150 meters to the small temples on the nearby mountain top. From here you have an outstanding view of the surrounding landscape and also get a good feel for the nature in the Greek mountains

At a height of 1130 meters, it was freezing cold. Snow-covered the surroundings. I was a lonely visitor, again. You must be mad to visit a site like this in winter, but well, I was in the area and just couldn't drive past it.

Due to extensive restoration works, the temple now lies beneath a large tent. This tent has to guard the ancient building against the sometimes severe weather conditions around here. Also, precautions are taken against damage that can be done by earthquakes. Once the work is completed (who knows when), the temple will be back in the open air.

Because of the works going on, not much can be seen of this precious temple. You can only view the columns from the outside, but the inside is forbidden terrain. That's a pity, I'll have to return in a few years to see what they have made of it.