I bumped into my Greece travel buddy tonight so it seems fitting that I upload a photo from Delphi.
Bit of a textbook picture but I spent a fair few years studying Greek architecture so it had to be done.
The photo below shows what is left of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. This temple was home to the Pythia who sat upon a tripod and provided messages from the gods in answer to pilgrims’ questions. Unfortunately the answers were always worded as a riddle and could often be interpreted to align with the results, whichever way they fell!
I didn’t know this before visiting, but it turns out that Delphi means dolphin. Sure enough, while enjoying lunch at a restaurant on the sea not far away three dolphins appeared and spent quite a while playing in the water in front of us.
I mentioned yesterday that I finally made it to the Cinque Terre after three attempts. This photo is from another place I once planned to visit but failed. After I finished university, I did a six week European tour from Amsterdam to Athens. The plan was to stop at Delphi and Meteora towards the end of the trip as we made our way from Thessaloniki in Northern Greece to Athens in the South.
Our problem was, we had a really good night out in Thessaloniki and decided we wanted another one. As a result we cancelled our stop in Meteora to stay in Thessaloniki another night. That decision was complicated the next morning when we were summarily kicked out of our hotel, due to some boisterous behaviour, and were left to wander the city in search of accommodation.
We still planned on stopping in Delphi for a night, but following two consecutive big nights out in Thessaloniki we weren’t at our sharpest. As a result, we got off the train at the wrong stop and would have to wait hours for another one to take us back. Instead, we decided to get on the next train to Athens.
So, I failed to make it to both Delphi and Meteora on that trip and have wanted to go back. At the end of March 2016 I had an opportunity to go back to Greece but only had a few days. Still, I managed to visit both Delphi and Meteora in a whirlwind tour.
The following is a photo of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi, a monument I saw often in text books. I did my best to take a photo that’s a little more interesting than the standard straight on textbook shot.