Dec 3 – 4, 2009 – Delphi, Greece – The city

The city of Delphi is not very large – probably about 5000 full-time residents – and quite oriented towards tourism, but charming nonetheless.  There are two main streets in Delphi (and a third less important one) both of which are one-way, that meet at this point to head out of town. 

Our hotel (more on that in a moment) was on lower (left) street but we scrambled all over town during our stay.   There are also 4 sets of staircases and sidewalks that run up and down Delphi’s hillsides making it enjoyable to get round on foot also.

I turned around from where I took the above picture to take the one below.  It was a display of flags of most of the EU countries.  It is the road to Athens, but more importantly from a Delphi perspective, it is also just around this corner to the Delphi archaeological site.

 

This is the view of the archaeological site as you round the corner.

We couldn’t figure out is these were standalone, roadside religious monuments or the Greek-equivalent of the roadside memorials that spring up in Canada to the victims of a traffic accident.   I hope they are standalone religious monuments because there were too many of them to make my other alternative something we wanted to contemplate.  There was not standard version of this type of monument, they came in all shapes and sizes.

 

Delphi is located high up on the side of a hill.  You can look up from it and see Mt Parnassus which is over 2500 meters high and home to one of Greece’s skiing areas.  This was the view down into the gorge below Delphi.

We stayed at the Hotel Varonos which is the one our car (with the open tail gate and Allister putting something in the back) is parked in front.  It was a nice hotel, family run, with an incredibly hospitable host, Yiannis.  It was typical of this type of Greek hotel and provided our first introduction to Greek yogurt, a treat we found in other places and came to love, particularly when topped by a drizzle of honey.

 

To give you an idea of the kind of town Delphi was (small, relaxed, very comfortable) when we arrived, we parked our car in the street in front of our hotel to unload fully expecting to later move it to a more permanent parking spot.  We didn’t move it again until we left Delphi – you don’t need a car to see it – and no one complained nor did Yiannis every suggest it might be a good idea to move it (and we consulted with him several times).

Our room had its own balcony overlooking the Delphi hillside and view to the sea.

Yiannis (our Hotel Varonos host) had a unique decorating style – very ostentatious and dense (not my taste but he was quite charming) and he was in the midst of decorating some of the rooms and consulted with us which one of the paintings he had arrayed in the lobby we thought would work best in our room.  Here is an example of his style, in this case a chandelier.

 

This is the view towards the ocean from our room’s balcony.  It was nice to just sit out here and stretch your eyes and enjoy a glass of something.

 

We were to learn that our time in Greece coincided with the olive harvest.  Charlotte took this picture of the some of the harvest, also from our room’s balcony.

We don’t know the significance of this custom (I’ll try to do some research and update this post) but starting with our ferry to Greece, we had observed the Greeks like to put canaries in cages on their walls.  This one was on the wall across the street from the Hotel Varonos.

Dec 3 – 4, 2009 – Delphi, Greece – The museum and archaeological site

The Delphi site consists of a fine museum and archaeological site.  We went to the site first because it looked like it might rain at any moment. 

As you enter the site you are on something called the Sacred Way which winds upwards past a series of statues and ‘treasuries’ donated by grateful city states.  This was one of those.

 

Further up the Sacred Way were the remains of the 4th century BC Temple of Apollo.

One of the best preserved ruins on the site was the 4th century BC theatre, where we see Allister Pavarotti warming up for a performance.

If you’ve going to build a direction sign for a place like Delphi you want to build it to last.  Here we have a sign built of a solid slab of stone backed by concrete to help it stand, supporting 3 languages.

This was the site’s stadium which our Lonely Planet guidebook claimed the best preserved in all of Greece.

Like many parts of Italy, Greece had lots of cats, none of which looked like they weren’t getting enough to eat.

But that didn’t stop them from taking an interest in Charlotte and Allister’s lunch when we stopped on our way from the archaeological site to the museum.

 

The Delphi museum was excellent, offering interesting artifacts, all of which were found on the site, and good descriptions of what was presented.  Keep in mind many of these artifacts date to the 4th century BC.

Having previously visited Italy and become acquainted with the art of the Renaissance, it was interesting to compare it with the art and antiquities included in the Delphi Museum.  As you can see from the following pictures, the artifacts in Delphi are more than up to the comparison.

I recall reading that Michelangelo said his inspiration did not come from any of his contemporaries but rather the ancient Greeks and after visiting the Delphi Museum I could understand why.  Their mastery of the complexity and detail of the human form as early as 4th century BC was impressive.

They also took a turn with other types of technology.

Dec 3 – 4, 2009 – Delphi, Greece – Enroute

After leaving Patras and crossing our favorite European bridge we headed up the highway to Delphi.  On the way we saw this herd of goats meandering along the road, not paying too much attention to traffic.  We didn’t know it then, but this was to become a relatively common sight during our stay in Greece, particularly once we reached the Peloponnese peninsula.

At a couple of other places we saw bays containing a sight we recognized – a fish farm.

At the same place we took the fish farm photo we also saw this impromptu landfill.  Italy and Greece and France to a lesser extent, don’t have the same attitude towards litter and dumping as we do in North America.  Recycling programs are also not implemented in many places.  There is evidence of some public awareness campaigns (and probably more than we know – since we don’t speak the language) but its seems like early days.