Delphi

Tuesday morning, I went down to the AVIS office to pick up a rental car and do some sightseeing. This was complicated by the fact that I had slept for about 2 hours that night. Still, I bit my teeth and resisted the urge to nap during the afternoon and had a good night before going to Mycenae on Wednesday.

I had ordered a GPS gadget and managed to not get lost more than a couple of times. Traffic out of and in to Athens was insane and it took me the better part of an hour to get out of town Tuesday morning. The speed limits on the motorways are a pleasant 100-130 km/h (appx. 65-80 mph), and most of the vehicles will happily cruise along at speeds upward of 30 km/h (20mph) faster than that. On the other hand, once you get off the motorways, the rural routes can be slow and will take you through villages with very narrow streets, sometimes even with two-way traffic and big tourist buses doing their best not to drag whole buildings to the ground in their wake.

My destination for Tuesday was Delphi, where there was an oracle in ancient times, and where they would hold games every four years. The oracle was an elderly woman chosen from local peasant stock who would go into a trance; her ravings were then "interpreted" into ambiguous statements (in verse) by the priests. There has been speculation that the trance was due to toxic fumes coming out of the ground, but nothing has been proven for certain.

Thousands of "prophecies" of varying historical accuracy are known from Delphi; perhaps the most famous is the answer supposed to have been given to emperor Julian the Apostate when he tried to reawaken the cult as part of his (sadly unsuccessful) attempt to crush Christianity - here in a translation by English poet A. C. Swinburne:
Tell the king, on earth has fallen the glorious dwelling,
And the watersprings that spake are quenched and dead.
Not a cell is left the God, no roof, no cover;
In his hand the prophet laurel flowers no more.

The site is located on a hillside with majestic views over the Pleistos valley.


Just lovely.


The mountain above is known as Mount Parnassus, and is heavy with mythological significance.


The Sibyl rock, where another medium (not related to the cult of Apollo) is said to have given her prophecies.


The stadium.


The temple of Apollon, which was the center for the whole building complex. The Delphi area was said to have been decreed "the navel of the earth" by Zeus himself.


The views towards the west and the port city of Kirrha. Not so shabby.


That's the Mediterranean sea down there.


Nice.


The area just above the Castalian spring.


There is a museum just west of the ancient site. It has separate ticket sales from the archaeological digs, but you get a discount iffin you buy access to both.


Lots of loot has been found and put behind glass.


This is the most famous item found; the Charioteer of Delphi was buried by an earthquake around 373 BC if I remember correctly, and thus preserved till modern times. Most bronze items of any size in ancient Greece were blatantly stolen by the Romans and brought to Italy for the perusal and enjoyment of the filthy rich.


Kitteh! Naturally, the area is teeming with homeless cats. This little angel was so trusting, she remained still while I manuvered my fat ass onto the chair to the right.


At first, I thought these were spider nests, and shuddered. But the bartender at the sports bar in Athens said they were made by butterflies.