Delphi

We had a tight schedule to follow this morning. The hotel surprised us by informing us that hotel was served in our room! The earliest breakfast slot was at 0730. We had 15 minutes to eat as we had to meet George, our guide, at the archaeological site for our tour at 0800. We made it! 

George imparted a lot of information so we will just post photos of a few facts/items that stuck with us. We would highly recommend George (Mal found him online somewhere...). He was informative, pleasant, interesting with a hint of mischief, but professional. Plus he told other groups and their leaders off for being intrusive. 10 points for George!! 

We had to hurry back to the hotel to make our check out time which we did with a few minutes to spare. It had been getting progressively hotter by the day since our arrival in Greece, and this heat intolerant family was starting to feel it! We decided to drive straight to Piraeus (port near Athens) to return our rental car. 

Good morning Delphi!

Our amazing breakfast tray!!

complete with juice and Turkish coffee

A model of the religious sanctuary to give context to the ruins. We started on the path on the bottom right and zigzagged our way to the big building in the building which was the Temple of Apollo. All the smaller buildings were treasuries or porticoes. The theatre seating 5000 is at the back

A preserved wine cup depicting Apollo from the 6th century BC

Musical inscriptions of a hymn to Apollo. Above the verses, notes were inscribed for the melody

The famed Charioteer

A rare surviving bronze statue from the era, only 1 of 5 remaining

After the museum, we went onto the site which looked down into the Delphi valley with its gorgeous carpet of olive groves

The agora or shopping centre of Delphi!

Foundations were found with inscriptions which detailed things such as the offering that was given, the cost, the materials etc everything was transparent! Tell that to the pollies...

One of the treasuries with the marble still intact, thanks to being covered in dirt most likely from an earthquake. The pieces have been put together in modern times, but the blocks are mostly original, other than the obvious "subs"

If you look closely, you can the fine carvings depicting laurel wreaths

The polygonal wall, original 6th century BC stones that are still there...

Very fine details on the stones. My finger there for a sense of scale...

The Temple of Apollo, the Oracle would be towards the back where she breathed in hydrocarbons from the deep

The theatre

Let's talk about car rental. The car was hired via QEEQ who used Car Wiz who used Lets Drive Piraeus at a rate less than half of that offered by the major operators. What could go wrong? In the end, not a lot.. but it nearly went completely pear shaped. The car was to be returned to Lets Drive Piraeus which was naturally found in the Blue Star Ferry building. The shopfront of Blue Star was 25m from the vehicle entry to Gate 7 which is used for cars loading onto the ferries under the strict guidance of the port authorities. There was no driveway to Blue Star, only 8 or 9 unmarked, "reserved" roadside spaces for car returns. "Reserved" is not a particularly well observed word in Greece. Only one space remained but it was blocked by a double parked taxi and we were riding the slow wave of cars towards the ferry.  Now, it wasn't Car Wiz's fault that we had just taken a wrong turn, performed an illegal U turn and driven against traffic, up a one way street to make it to the "return centre", but it was their fault that their location, signage and expectations of their customers left a lot to be desired. A last minute gap in the traffic and a micromovement by the taxi provided an opportunity for us to dive for the corner even though we still had no idea where the try line was. Grateful that we were stationary and in a legal position we were able to wander around and thankfully discover that we were right outside Bluestar/Lets Drive/Car Wiz. Simple! 

Bring on Island Time.

Our port hotel

Nice big room and big bathroom for a change

Drive To Delphi

We relished our sleep-in after 2 big days of walks. Next on the agenda was Delphi, home of the sanctuary dedicated to Apollo and the famous Oracle of Delphi. The town itself was pretty, perched on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, and offered amazing views of the Delphi Valley below and the Gulf of Corinth in the distance.

The drive itself was uneventful and we checked into Hotel Nidimos at around lunchtime. Fortunately the hotel had some (albeit limited) onsite parking, and we managed to snag one of the squishy spots. The main road of the town was tight and it was rather scary watching big buses manoeuvre their way through...

Beautiful views from Delphi. The body of water visible is the Corinthian Gulf, and the carpet of green are olive trees!

Our hotel 

Similar to our other hotels, compact and clean

Really, really small bathroom

Free welcome drink! Cheers! View from our balcony

After a delightful lunch across the road from the hotel, we sought respite from the heat in the comfort of our air conditioned room. At 3:30pm, we set off towards the archaeological site. We had to cover the "secondary" archaeological sites of Delphi, namely the Tholos of Delphi at the sanctuary of Athena Pronea, the Castalian Spring and the ancient gymnasium. The last was closed due to recent landslides so we were left with only 2! It was hard going, despite being high in altitude the heat was no less intense.

Dinner was at Vakhos restaurant, a family taverna recommended by George, our guide for tomorrow. Once again, dinner came with a view. For the foodies, Delphi has its own olive - big and dark. There are strict laws forbidding the beautiful valley from any other use besides the growth of olives. Some of the olive trees are over 1000 years old! They are so proud of their olives that they hardly even use them for olive oil. We tried them and...sorry Delphi, kalamata olives are better. (Don't worry, we have already left)

Lunch across the road with a view

A very tasty stewed deer 

Have we mentioned great views yet?!

The Tholos of Delphi

The sun was a killer...

Compact town

Pretty streets

Dinner with a view!

Monasteries of Meteora

Not content with the previous day's torture, we tackled another 12km walk today. Our aim was to walk to all six of the monasteries at Meteora (well technically 2 were convents with nuns). Our apartment was only 350m away from the start of the trail but it was uphill all the way. Muscles, ligaments and joints already destroyed by Mount Olympus felt every single step. The seemingly never ending uphill trek fortunately came to a stop at the first monastery, Holy Trinity. From here the gradient changes were manageable and most of the walk was on the road which made it much much easier. Our main adversary today was heat. We started at 0745 but by 0900 it was already hot. 

We won't bore you with all the details of our walk...but we did make it! As much as an achievement as it was, we probably would have hired e-bikes if we had to do it again. Only the hike up to the first monastery and the hike down from the last was not on roads. It would have been easier to coast on bicycles...

0745 start

Looking back at Kalambaka

Yes we needed a rest after 15 minutes because the ascent was so steep!

We made it! One!

Holy Trinity, the iconic one in pictures of the monastery perched on a tall hunk of rock

Two!

St Stephen one of 2 convents

Three! Roussanou, the second convent

Four!

Varlaam the second highest

Five! Great Meteoron, the highest and the biggest

Last but not least...six! St Nicholas Anapausas

Lunchtime!

Tomato and capsicum stuffed with rice and other goodies

There were many resources on the hikes and monasteries. The one that we thought was the most useful and the we used was this one which included a map, photos and a handy description of the path. The other useful site was one which described photo locations. Beware if you want good sunset photos, you would have to get to your spot early if you don't want people in your shots...

Lunch was at Gardenia, another recommendation by one of our guides, at Kastraki. The food was tasty and cheap. We had the best stuffed tomatoes ever. The rest of the afternoon was the boring necessity of laundry, showers and rest! We finished off the day at Restaurant Meteora, another winner recommendation!

Still smiling

Something about adding dried fruit and pomegranate to a salad that makes it tasty

Eggplant saganaki. So good

Grandma's meatballs. Amazing! The potatoes were the yummiest

To appreciate how high we climbed...on the left most rock (right on the very right edge) was Holy Trinity. On the right most rock (right on the left edge) was St Stephen. Our apartment was the white building to the right of the pole