Pyrgos

The first thing to understand about Pyrgos is that the reason to come is usually not Pyrgos.

Ancient Olympia is twenty kilometres east, and almost everyone visiting this part of the Peloponnese is on the way to or from it. Which makes Pyrgos a genuinely good place to stay: it has the museum, the market, the olives and a decent number of hotels, none of which Olympia has.

The second thing to understand is what Pyrgos actually is. It is the capital of the olive oil, and it is not a metaphor. The town sits in the middle of the flattest, most productive olive country in Greece, and the oil here carries a protected designation of origin as Olympia oil, made from the Koroneiki and Kollyreiki olives. In a town like this the trees are not decoration; they are the economy.

What Pyrgos itself has is two very good late-nineteenth-century buildings. Ernst Ziller designed the municipal market of 1890, which now houses the Archaeological Museum, and the Apollo Municipal Theatre of 1878. Both are in the same streets, and the market in particular is one of the best small market buildings in Greece.

The modern town is, as its name suggests, built around a tower — the tower of Chernota, traditionally dated to 1520 and the origin of the town's name. It is an Ottoman foundation in a region with much older layers.

Elis, the region, is one of the oldest settled parts of the Greek mainland, and it has a distinct classical identity of its own that is separate from Olympia. Homer calls the people of Elis the Epeioi, and Stephanus of Byzantium records two rival eponyms for them and their city: Elis from Helios, the son of Tantalus, and the people from a King Epeios. There is also a patronymic form, the Endymioniadai, and a habit of calling a particular Zeus 'Aleios the Zeus'.

Olympia itself was for centuries Pisan rather than Elean — Stephanus gives the older name — and the Olympic games were later claimed by Elis at the expense of Pisa. Pausanias records that the Alpheius, the river that runs through the site, rises not in Elis but in Arcadia, and that the games had a Cretan origin in the age of the Deucalian flood, when Clymenus held them, before Endymion set them up as a race with the kingdom for prize.

Pyrgos itself prospered in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the export trade through Katakolo, above all on the currant — the stafida — which was shipped from the port in enormous quantities and which the town's fortunes rose and fell with.

The town is built on seven low hills, a fact everyone repeats and which is true.

Pyrgos is inland — the nearest coast is around thirty kilometres away, at Katakolo to the south and Zacharo further south still — so this is not a place for a morning dip, but the coast is close enough to use.

Katakolo, at about thirty kilometres, is Olympia's ferry port and the nearest cruise port to the region, and it is the sensible place to swim if you are coming off a ferry. Skafidia, at about fourteen kilometres south-west, is a village with a beach on the same road, and Epitalio, at about twenty-two kilometres, is a beach village with more of the same.

South of Katakolo the coast opens out into the long sandy strand at Kakovatos and Akretinia, which is the best swimming in Elis and belongs to the neighbouring municipality of Zacharo. Kyllini, out at the far north-west cape, is Elis's other ferry port and has beaches of its own, though it is a long drive from here.

North and east the coast is the wrong direction entirely — that is the interior, and ancient Olympia.

Because the town is built on seven hills, the beaches are not below it as they are in a coastal town. You drive to them, which is the whole difference between Pyrgos and a place like Katakolo.

This is olive country and the oil is the point.

The local oil carries a protected designation, and the two varieties — Koroneiki and Kollyreiki — are genuinely different in character, with the Koroneiki the pepperier and the Kollyreiki the softer. Buy a tin at the market or the co-op and use it on everything.

Around it the cooking is western Peloponnese: grilled lamb, pies, stuffed vegetables, and local cheeses. The region is also known for its sweet wines, and there is a long tradition of home-made wine in the villages around the town.

Eat in the town rather than at the roadside tavernas on the Katakolo road, which are catering to coaches off the ferries rather than to the place.

April to June is the best time: the olives are flowering, the country around is green, and Olympia is comfortable before the heat. October and November are excellent, with the olive harvest — which runs from late October into December — and the vine. September is the sweet spot. July and August are hot and the coast is busy. Winter is mild and wet, with rain rather than cold, and the olive harvest is genuinely worth timing a trip around.

Pyrgos lies on the main road running to Kyllini and close to the Olympia turn-off, with buses from Athens, Kalamata and from Pyrgos station on the railway that runs to Kyllini. Coming off the ferry at Katakolo, it is a 30-kilometre drive inland.

A car is close to essential for Olympia, the castle at Chlemoutsi and the beaches — none of which are well served by bus. Go to Olympia early: the site is exposed and the museum there closes relatively early in the afternoon. If you are coming off the ferry at Katakolo, drive inland thirty kilometres rather than assuming Olympia is next door — it is, but only after the drive. And take an empty bag for the olive oil.