The Ancient Site of Delphi and a Mini-Trip to Itea (Day 2, Part 2)

After finishing up in the museum, we headed outside to explore the ancient site. It was still pretty chilly out, but everything was so incredible that I didn't really mind the cold. My hands did get pretty cold because I'd forgotten my gloves and I was constantly taking pictures because I wanted to try to document every bit of the ruins. Seeing a photo is nothing like actually being there, but I'll do my best to describe the experience. You enter the site and follow the Sacred Way through the remains of the Treasuries. Each Greek city-state had one where they stored valuables. Most of them are in ruins (left), but they've reconstructed the Treasury of Athens as an example (below). Of course, when they do reconstructions, they only restore the stone elements, leaving off the wood-beam and tile roofs, the brightly colored paint, and all of the interior decorations. It gives you a basic idea of the form, but in reality, these reconstructions are pretty far from what the actual buildings looked like in ancient times.

We took our time making our way through the ruins and attempting to imagine what it must have been like during its prime. After weaving along the Sacred Way, we finally made it to the Temple of Apollo, where the Sybil (the Delphic Oracle) made her predictions, probably in a haze induced by gases from the ground. Her ramblings were interpreted by the priests, and the answers were rarely straightforward. Really, it's a rather cleaver approach because if you're vague enough in what you say, your predictions will always come true. My philosophy teacher likes to tell us a story about a general who went to ask for advice about whether he should go to war. The seer responded "A great empire will be defeated," which he took to mean he would be victorious in battle. However, it turned out the empire which was defeated was his, not the one he attacked. Punctuation also makes a great deal of difference in interpretation -- another of the oracles predictions read: "You will go you come not in war you will die." Depending on where you place commas and periods, this could mean either you'll die in war, or you won't, which pretty much covers the oracle from being wrong. Regardless of the validity of the predictions made in the temple, even the remains are imposing -- it's easy to see how intimidating and impressive it would have been when fully constructed. Below is the view from above -- it's much easier to get an idea of how the buildings were laid out from above than from ground level.


One of the other important ruins at the site is the outdoor theater, where performances were held as part of the Delphic festivals. Processions came from Athens to Delphi to perform these important religious rituals, and later to perform the plays of famous Greek playwrights. The roots of ancient Greek theater lie in rituals about the transformation of things rooted in the worship of the god Dionysos. We marveled at the construction (and preservation) of the theater, and were trying to figure out how we could get a picture of the three of us. There was a group of Chinese women nearby and I listened in on enough of their conversation to realize they were speaking Mandarin, so while Kelly and Aubrey were debating rotating pairs and such, I decided to put 9 years of classes to use in Greece of all places and walked up to one of them and said, "Excuse me, could you take our picture?" My grammar was a little off -- I think I said it as a statement rather than a question, but she definitely understood me. She looked up, stared at me in shock for about 20 seconds, and then said (in very good English), "You speak Chinese?!?" I said yes, and she shouted in Chinese to her friends, "She speaks very good Chinese!" and then took the picture for us. It was definitely exciting to finally get to use the Chinese that keeps popping into my head when I try to speak Greek (and not in the "I accidentally answered the question the woman in the bakery asked me in Greek in Chinese" way!)

The weather finally began to warm up as we began trekking even further uphill (the whole site is built on the side of a mountain, so as you walk through it, you're getting higher and higher, and the view becomes more and more impressive). The last site we wanted to see was the stadium. You can't enter it, but it was neat to see. The stands on one side, gates at one end, and the outer walls are fairly well preserved. After taking many pictures, and a video (hopefully I'll upload a few of my videos to youtube and post them here later, when the internet isn't abysmally slow), the three of us began making our way back down through the site. We took a slightly different route and just tried to soak it all in. We also had a bit of fun with the self-timer on our cameras, which eventually resulted in the picture below.


We made our way back towards the hotel, stopping to grab a sandwich from a cafe on the way, as we were all starving at this point. After hanging out at the hotel for a bit, we met up with Amanda, Caitlin and Katie and went searching for the bus station to buy tickets to take a daytrip to the seaside town of Itea, which we could see from our hotel balcony. We went over about an hour and a half before the bus was supposed to arrive, and the bus station was closed. Luckily, there was a very cute cafe across the street, so we settled in on their comfy couches and ordered hot drinks to try to warm up. I had a delicious (and beautiful) hot chocolate. About 10 minutes before the bus was due to arrive, we went back to the bus station. It still wasn't open, and while we were waiting a guy showed up and started banging on the doors. It turned out that his luggage was locked inside and he needed to catch the bus to Itea. He was running around trying to find someone who could let him in, and I'm not sure what ended up happening, as at this point pretty much everyone else in our 43 person group showed up to get on the bus as well. A few minutes late, the bus showed up and we piled onto it. 45 minutes later, we were deposited in Itea, where we quickly realized there is very little to do in the winter. The town was dead: hardly any stores were open, the cafes were empty, and we were all pretty glad the next bus back was in about an hour and a half. Kelly and I wandered around on our own for a bit and found a playground, and then ran into the rest of our mini-group and decided to go sit in another cafe until it was time for the bus.

Back in Delphi, we napped for a while and then headed back to the same taverna we'd been to the night before with a larger group. Another group of Arcadia kids ended up going there as well, based on our recommendation. I got the pasta Aubrey had gotten the night before, as well as the stuffed peppers, which were just as delicious the second time around. The special that night was an artichoke dish, which several of the girls ordered along with soup or an appetizer, assuming it would be side-dish sized. It turned out to be a huge portion, but it was delicious: artichoke hearts, potatoes, and carrots in a lemon, caper, and dill sauce baked in the oven. I had quite a bit of that as well, since they were having trouble finishing it. After spending a few hours stuffing ourselves there, we began to head down the steps to the hotel, but a few of us got sidetracked by a little cafe that had desserts. Three of us shared a waffle, which only came with one set of silverware -- it's hard to eat a honey-covered waffle with just a knife! There was a traditional Greek music performance going on in the restaurant which was attached to the cafe, and we could see older Greeks dancing and singing along through the door, which was very cool. After dessert, we made our way to one of the two dance clubs in Delphi, which was full of kids who seemed to be of about middle school age. There's no restrictions on who can enter a bar/club in Greece, and while the drinking age is technically 17, I've had several Greeks tell me that it's perfectly okay for children to go to the store and buy alcohol for their parents. We'd seen the kids around town and the archaeological site earlier in the day and they seemed to be on a school trip of some sort. It was definitely a bizarre experience to be out at a club and turn around to see someone who looked like they were about Lizzy's age standing behind me. After a few hours of dancing to a mixture of techno, Greek music, and American music remixed to have a techno beat, we headed back to our hotel -- thanks to the tiny size of Delphi, this took all of 2 minutes and I was soon snuggled in my bed and asleep after a very long day.