Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil

Run by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, this museum treats the olive as technology and economy rather than as a cliche, and it is one of the better-designed small museums in Greece. It opens with fossil olive leaves from Santorini some sixty thousand years old, moves through the plant's domestication and its role in ancient trade and cult, and then devotes most of its space to pressing machinery: stone mortars, lever presses, screw presses and animal-driven mills, several of them full-size working reconstructions in an outdoor courtyard that visitors can operate. Displays cover soap-making, lamp fuel and lighting, and the trade routes that carried Laconian oil. Labels are in Greek and English throughout.

What you actually see

• The working presses - full-size reconstructions in the courtyard.
• The fossil leaves - olive leaf imprints from prehistoric Santorini.
• The mill sequence - the technology of pressing across three millennia.
• The uses displays - oil for lighting, soap, cult and food.

When to go

Year-round; it is indoors with an outdoor courtyard, and pairs well with the archaeological site on a Sparta day. It closes on some weekdays, so check hours.

Honest expectations

The subject is narrow, and visitors without interest in agricultural technology may find ninety minutes long. The building is modern and modest from outside. There is no tasting or shop of substance.

Nearby

Ancient Sparta's acropolis is at the north edge of town; Mystras is a short drive west.