Athens: Temple of Olympian Zeus Entrance Ticket

The temple of Olympian Zeus, one of the largest temples in the ancient world, was likely started around 515 BC, but it was eventually completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 131/132 AD. The Hadrianic temple, constructed with Pentelic marble in the Corinthian architectural style, featured two rows of twenty columns on the long sides and three rows of eight columns across the front and rear, totaling one hundred and four columns that made up the surrounding colonnade. The temple's decline began around the 5th century AD, and today only fifteen of the original columns remain standing, with one having collapsed during a storm in 1852. North of the archaeological site, the remnants of a gate from the Themistoclean Wall [built in 479/8 BC], ancient dwellings [from the 5th/4th BC to 2nd c. AD], and a Roman bathhouse can still be observed.