The next morning we awoke to the same windy, cold, and dreary weather as the day before. Undeterred and determined to make the most of our time in Delphi regardless of the weather, we began the walk to the ancient site. It's located about 10 minutes outside the modern town. Along the way, we passed a statue and flags -- we think they're the flags of all the nations that helped excavate the site. As you can see in the photo, it was really a pretty stormy day.
Freezing cold, we arrived at the site and decided to tackle the museum first, in hopes that it would warm up at least a little bit as the day went on. We walked up to the ticket window and handed the woman our Arcadia IDs. She asked us where we studied, and we did our best to answer her in Greek. Apparently, the combination of the IDs and our speaking Greek to her did the trick, and she let us in for free! Hurray for being an "EU" student! The museum had some amazing artifacts, although it was a bit difficult to fully appreciate them with groups of high school students from assorted countries streaming through the rooms on a regular basis. A few adult tour groups came through as well, but while they still took up space, they weren't as loud as the kids. It makes me feel a bit old to be writing this, but the whole experience made me begin to understand why adults so often look at middle and high school students (and even college kids sometimes) with a little bit of frustration. I saw one kid (part of the American group) reach out his hand and drag it along one of the friezes on the wall, and there were more flash photographs taken by that group than by any other group that came through. Apart from the tour groups though, the museum was absolutely stunning. One of my favorite pieces was a small "column" that had three female figures supporting it -- it reminded me of Jenny and Lizzy.
It was really interesting to see how the artistic style evolved over time, starting from a very stiff Egyptian style that included a sculpted sphinx into the flowing style that we associate with Greek sculpture most of the time. I can't possibly do justice to the collection in the museum here, but for me the highlights included a plate with a harpist on it, a small bronze statue of a piper, an incredible realistic bronze foot, the column of the dancers, the charioteer -- one of the best preserved bronze statues from antiquity, and the remains of ivory and gold statues of Apollo and Artemis which were damaged by fire and buried in a large pit. Below are pictures of these in order. The pictures really don't do them justice, as goes for my pictures of the site. All I can say is if you ever have the chance to go to Delphi, don't think twice about it. It is truly an incredible place to visit.
The next morning we awoke to the same windy, cold, and dreary weather as the day before. Undeterred and determined to make the most of our time in Delphi regardless of the weather, we began the walk to the ancient site. It's located about 10 minutes outside the modern town. Along the way, we passed a statue and flags -- we think they're the flags of all the nations that helped excavate the site. As you can see in the photo, it was really a pretty stormy day.
Freezing cold, we arrived at the site and decided to tackle the museum first, in hopes that it would warm up at least a little bit as the day went on. We walked up to the ticket window and handed the woman our Arcadia IDs. She asked us where we studied, and we did our best to answer her in Greek. Apparently, the combination of the IDs and our speaking Greek to her did the trick, and she let us in for free! Hurray for being an "EU" student! The museum had some amazing artifacts, although it was a bit difficult to fully appreciate them with groups of high school students from assorted countries streaming through the rooms on a regular basis. A few adult tour groups came through as well, but while they still took up space, they weren't as loud as the kids. It makes me feel a bit old to be writing this, but the whole experience made me begin to understand why adults so often look at middle and high school students (and even college kids sometimes) with a little bit of frustration. I saw one kid (part of the American group) reach out his hand and drag it along one of the friezes on the wall, and there were more flash photographs taken by that group than by any other group that came through. Apart from the tour groups though, the museum was absolutely stunning. One of my favorite pieces was a small "column" that had three female figures supporting it -- it reminded me of Jenny and Lizzy.
It was really interesting to see how the artistic style evolved over time, starting from a very stiff Egyptian style that included a sculpted sphinx into the flowing style that we associate with Greek sculpture most of the time. I can't possibly do justice to the collection in the museum here, but for me the highlights included a plate with a harpist on it, a small bronze statue of a piper, an incredible realistic bronze foot, the column of the dancers, the charioteer -- one of the best preserved bronze statues from antiquity, and the remains of ivory and gold statues of Apollo and Artemis which were damaged by fire and buried in a large pit. Below are pictures of these in order. The pictures really don't do them justice, as goes for my pictures of the site. All I can say is if you ever have the chance to go to Delphi, don't think twice about it. It is truly an incredible place to visit.
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