Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Hello from Delphi,
Greece, home of the Oracle! I will add
right here that spelling this trip has not been at all easy. Seriously – even books and maps will use
different spelling in different places for the same names.
This morning, we were trying to find our
hotel for tonight, the
Kastalia Boutique
Hotel.
(You see, about 10 days or so
ago, we got an email from our original choice of hotel in
Delphi that they wouldn’t be open when we got there!
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| Hill where Spartan 300 fought the Persians |
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| Leonidas monument |
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| Leonidas |
So, we needed to find another place, which we
did, but without a printer, maps or pictures.)
So…we needed to first find
Delphi on
Emmy, our GPS.
However, no “Delphi” or
“Delfi” – believe it or not, we found it under
Delphoi – UGH!
Crazy!
And of course, even once we found it, we
couldn’t get the hotel to appear, and spelling the street name was insane.
So, we figured we’d figure it out when we got
there.
Down for a truly meager breakfast about 8:30 am.
While the
Monasteri
may have some lovely views, it is only an average hotel as far as we are
concerned, and definitely below average on breakfasts.
Plastic wrapped cheese slices (and
NO feta!) no fresh fruit or veggies, a
variety of American cereals and some cake.
Hmmm…not much for either of us.
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| Beautiful scenery heading to Delphoi |
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| The bay below Delphoi |
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| Looking down the valley from Delphoi |
We were on the road about 9 am heading toward
Thermopylae, our stop before
Delphoi.
(Also, it is spelled “Thermo-piles” on the Greek signage; always
interesting!
Who knew?!)
Very pleasant morning, with some lowering clouds overhead,
but no rain to speak of. Rather mild but
windy. We found Thermopylae and stopped by the Leonidas
statute to take some pictures. Right
across the street from the statute is the tumulus
where the 300 Spartans are alleged to be buried, and we climbed to the
top. Amazing view, and amazing feel
about the place. The shoreline has
receded greatly since 480 BC as the rivers have silted in the bay, but it was
still possible to imagine the events that had taken place there. The mountains directly behind Thermopylae go straight up; it must have
posed a daunting challenge to the Persians.
From
Thermopylae,
we headed straight across the mountains to
Delphoi.
Wow.
The views along the way as we made our way up and over the mountains,
and then down into the valleys, was amazing.
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| More scenery from Delphoi |
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| Delphoi Museum |
And of course,
Delphoi was up
on the mountain again.
The small town of
Delphoi has basically one major
street going in each direction, which hopefully helps quite a bit with traffic
and parking.
As it turns out, we drove
into town, and as we were looking for a place to pull over to see what the address
was for our hotel - voila! - there it was, on the main street running west to
east – and there was even some parking (sort of…) in front.
Into the hotel, and up to room 408, which is
a small but nicely laid-out room on the top floor, with a small balcony looking
over the main street in town.
We dropped our things, and headed back downstairs. The gal at the desk gave us a city map
(hmmm…) and told us it was a five-minute walk to the museum and site. So, out we went. Lovely walk along the main street; beautiful
views of the far-off sea! Robert took
lots of pictures. I think the museum was
a bit farther away than five minutes, but it was a nice walk.
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| Life-size bull made of gold and silver sheets |
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| Beautiful vase |
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| Incense burner |
As it turns out, the site closes at 3 pm, and it was already
2:15 pm, but the museum was open until 4 pm.
So, into the museum we went. Basically,
the collection is artifacts from Delphi that
were able to be excavated and had not been 1) taken to Rome; 2) pillaged by
Slavs; 3) destroyed in massive earthquakes.
The site of
Delphi
was the home of the famous Oracle, or
Pythia.
People from the world-over would come to
consult the Oracle and receive the translation of the
Pythia’s message by the priests of the temple.
As this was all done in iambic pentameter,
the interpretations must have been pretty interesting.
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| Hadrian's Antinous |
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| The Charioteer |
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| Dinner! |
I remember one example, when King Croesus
sent to the great Oracle at Delphi to know whether he should go to war ... and the oracle replied:
"If Croesus goes to war
he will destroy a great
army.” The problem was, Croesus
didn’t ask further to see which army the Oracle was referring to, because when Croesus went to war against Cyrus and the Persians, it was his OWN army that was destroyed! Oh well!
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| A really lovely wine! |
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| My stuffed eggplant |
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| R's mushrooms |
The museum has a very nice collection of
“stuff” – and I label it that because there were many different shrines built
honoring the Oracle and what is left are really pieces. Different cities would build temples and
their citizens would bring offerings which were stored inside. Honestly, I think it more resembled a very
large banking area than a sanctuary!
There are pieces of columns and bases for statues, as well as pieces of metopes and parts of statues. The most famous piece, the Charioteer, is stunning, as were many of
the sculptures decorating the temples. We especially liked the statue of Antinous, Emperor Hadrian’s young friend. We
had a really nice look around, and then headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow, we’re planning on opening the site
at 8 am! (Although I tend to think it’s
still probably dark then…)
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| R's shrimp (all of it!) and veggies |
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| My mushroom risotto |
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| A complimentary glass of something clear ... |
Even though it was probably 4 pm, it really
seemed to us like the entire city had closed down! We were able to find one little market for
water and essentials, but even the souvenir shops are closed! We’ll see what happens when we go out looking
for dinner tonight. Our hotel has a restaurant,
which is where we’ll get breakfast but apparently there aren’t enough people
here tonight to open it up. So, we have
two recommendations. We’ll see which is
open and ready for business!
More later!
m
xxx
Just back from dinner – and there actually
was a wonderful restaurant which had the benefit of being open! It’s called the Taverna To Patrikomas, which apparently means
something like “our home.” In this case
it is the literal truth, as the 5th generation of Delphi owners of a house have opened it
as a restaurant. The rooms were lovely,
the food was excellent, and once again, thankfully, no smoke to put up with!
We got there around 6:30 pm and had the place to ourselves for
about the first half-hour or so. For
starters, R ordered the mushrooms and I had the stuffed eggplant. We split both things, and they were
great. For mains, R had the shrimp saganaki [Why, oh why, do European
restaurants insist on serving shrimp with the heads attached? – R] and I had
their mushroom risotto with truffle oil … yum!
Somewhere about our main course, a HUGE
tour group came in – and they were everywhere.
One young man asked if the spare seat at our table was free … to which I
told him it was not. Oh…he thought we
were part of his group. They did disturb
the silence of the restaurant, but what was nice was that there was no smoking
at all going on. Yippee!! From the conversation we could overhear at
the next table, it sounded like there were Aussies, Kiwis and a few
Americans. Mixed bunch! Fortunately, we were far enough along in our
meal that we really didn’t have any problems, and were back in our room a bit
before 9 pm … ready to post and picture and get to bed!
For the record: Delphi
seems to be closed for the season.
Almost all of the restaurants we saw were shut, even those in the
hotels. For that matter, more than a few
hotels were completely dark. Not a
problem for us, though; this is the way we like it!
More tomorrow!
m
xxx
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