Delphi

The morning of the tour I woke up much reenergized thankfully after the exhaustion of Athens. We went by bus up to the ancient oracle of Delphi, passing by the site of the battle of Marathon and the city of Thebes along the way. Mt Parnassos was impressively large and picturesque. We wound up the steep hillside past little red roofed villages with streets so narrow the bus almost couldn’t pass.

 

This is what remains of the original temple of Apollo where the oracle came up with her cryptic "prophesies".

The whole hillside is a switchback trail of rock up to the pilgrimage site. The views make it easy to see why people felt this place was holy. It is extremely impressive.

Once in Delphi we got an in depth tour from our very knowledgeable Greek guide and hiked up to the top overlook where we found the remains of a stadium for ancient foot races.

 

    The museum held a lot of the more valuable antiquities from the site, my favorite highlight being the Antinous of Delphi. That one’s a particular favorite for me because I’ve always thought most of the sculptures of Antinous, especially the one at Delphi, resemble my little brother Kade. The original actually has a broken off nose, but the reconstruction looks way more like Kade after the nose is fixed.

 

This is the reconstructed nose version.

The one at Delphi is in exceptionally good condition as well and is very impressive to see in real life. 

  After we went into Delphi village and got some delicious lunch at a quaint little family run restaurant on the hillside. The chicken I got was so good that I asked about the sauce and the woman who runs the restaurant gave me the whole recipe! The food tasted so good. I hope it's not where we got food poisoning from.. there are a few different suspect restaurants.

 

On the drive down the mountainside our bus stopped for a break at this little town called Arachova that really just begged to be photographed.

We spent the rest of the evening back in Athens shopping little shops, and enjoying the ambiance of the night. It was a great finish to the trip until Garrett woke up in the night violently sick. I was worried in the morning he would be too weak to catch our flight but after a little medicine he rallied and we caught our long flight home. What a death march. Poor guy. It reminded me of the time I got salmonella on my way home from Bangkok. Worst experience of my life. 

   Anyways we’ve made it so far as Atlanta and I’m so relieved to be heading back to my babies I’ve missed so much. I think this trip as satisfied my need to leave them for many years to come haha. It was the longest and most difficult distance I’ve ever had away from them. I'm so glad I went, and I'm so glad I'm coming home:)