November 5, 2008

Itea and Delphi

We managed to get up early this morning. So we had plenty of time to get ready and eat breakfast leisurely. Once the call came to hop on the bus for the tour, we were ready to go. We tried to get onto Bus #1, but it was full so we again got on Bus #2 with Amalia. We drove about 20 minutes to the museum at Delphi.

Once we arrived Amalia took us around the Archaeological Museum of Delphi and explained all the items of significant interest. Some of the items of interest were the bronze charioteer, the sphinx, the ivory and gold covering for the statue of Apollo, and Kleobis and Biton (archaic marble statues). We then had about 20 minutes to wander by ourselves before meeting up again and walking to the Temple of Apollo and Oracle site. The walk to the site took no more than 5 minutes.





At the site Amalia talked and walked us up to the Temple of Apollo. Along the way she pointed out the Roman market, the treasuries from the different Greek city-states especially the Athens treasury which has been rebuilt of original materials, and the original steps up to the temple that were placed by the Romans. It was so cool to think that we were walking on those same steps that they used ~5 BC. We adopted a college student, Pam, from New York who is an exchange student in Paris, France. We hung out with her all day long.

We then arrived at the Temple of Apollo and saw the altar they sacrificed animals on and discussed the Oracle and her ability to tell the future. This was supposedly accomplished by burning laurel leaves and breathing in the fumes to enter a trance, but the predictions were always so vague as to always come true. Another interesting item was the tripod. No practical use, but instead more like our trophy. The Oracle would sit on one while making predictions and tripods were also used as offerings.



Once done there we were free to explore further. We hiked up to the theatre and the stadium.



We returned to the bus and drove to the modern city of Delphi. We decided to get off the tour bus and have lunch and do some shopping. We had lunch at Taverna Dionysus of asparagus soup, the ever favorite tsatsiki, olives, moussaka, and souvlaki. The restaurant overlooked the entire valley of olive groves.



We then walked all the shops and bought some trinkets. We caught the public bus back to the Port of Itea and dropped off our finds in our room. We then walked to the supermarket to see if we could find any interesting local products. Afterwards, we had an early dinner before heading to Heinrich's lecture on Unity and Disunity in the Greek World.

It was then time play on the internet before heading to bed or the tepid tub, depending on our ability to stay awake.