Ancient Delphi

Thursday, April 10, 2014 Delphi
Our hotel doesn't have breakfast included, which is okay since we're only paying about $40 Cdn per night and we have a nice room and balcony with an incredible view. We asked for and got a kettle from the desk guy last night so this morning Anita made a Nescafe coffee, which was all she got in Turkey, in her wine glass and we ate a couple of oranges. Then we walked across the street to a little bakery and got a spinach pastry and a sweet pastry for about $2,60 Cdn each. We ate them in our room, got ready and headed out to the ancient Delphi site about 500m down the road.
It was cloudy and raining off and on. When we bought our tickets for 9 euros each ($13.50) the rain was getting harder so we decided to visit the site museum first before going up the hill to the actual ruins. The museum contained lots of artifacts that had been dug up on the site.

This sphinx was a gift from the people who lived on the island of Naxos.
From about the 6th century BC to the 2nd century AD, everybody who was anybody came to Delphi to hear the prophecies of the Oracle. The oracle was actually just one of a series of local village women over the years who, perhaps drug induced, fell into a trance and spoke. Supposedly, they were just vehicles and it was the god Apollo who was speaking through them. The priests at Delphi interpreted the ramblings of the women or the words of Apollo, that is, for the supplicants, so in the end they had control over what was prophesied. Many small nations and individuals brought gifts in honour of Apollo. Whatever the truth of the matter, it was very cool to walk up along the "Sacred Way" just as Alexander the Great and many others did so long ago to seek the advice of the Oracle.

 At left is an ancient theatre and at right is the remains of the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle held court. Later we walked further up the hill to see an ancient stadium where athletic contests were held. The games here rivalled the Olympic games for importance.

Further along the hill and a bit further down, we visited the Sanctuary of Athena. These 3 columns are all that is left of the Tholos, a round building located here among the other buildings. It was cloudy and raining off and on so it wasn't the best day for photographs. However, this building is one of the most photographed in Greece.
By about 1 pm we had done the full tour so we went back to the same bakery and got some more delicious spinach and feta pastries which we ate on our balcony for lunch, along with a glass of local wine. After lunch we went to an ATM for some more cash and got our return bus tickets validated for the 11 am bus back to Athens. The weather got sunnier so we took a short walk around town and then sat out on our balcony and enjoyed the view for the rest of the afternoon. This evening we went out to the same little diner for supper.

This is the view from our balcony down toward the Gulf of Corinth. The flatter area down the mountain looks like it has vast olive groves. Sometimes we can see ships passing in the Gulf. There is also a line of wind turbines on the furthest mountains. On the way here we saw lots of solar and wind electrical generating installations plus most residential buildings have solar hot water panels. Like most of the rest of Europe, Greece is much further ahead than Canada when it comes to renewable energy.
It's getting cooler so we came back to the warmth of our room for the night.