Delphi

Wednesday, we woke up at the crack of dawn to drive 3 hours to the town of Delphi which houses the Temple of Apollo and the very place where Greeks from all over would come to consult the oracle. Delphi is an amazing archaeological site all in itself. It's nestled along the southwestern slope of Mount Parnassus, and at the top there is even a bit of snow!

From the entrance of the site, continuing up the slope to the Temple of Apollo itself, are numerous remnants of votive statues and treasuries, which were built by the various Greek city-states (mainland Greece and overseas) to commemorate victories and to thank the Delphic oracle for her advice, which was thought to have contributed to those victories.

The most impressive is the reconstructed Treasury of the Athens (shown above), built to commemorate the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in the Persian Wars.

After the Athenian Treasury as you continue along the "sacred way" leading up to the Temple of Apollo, you find the "Sibyl rock," upon which the Sibyl (the first oracle at Delphi) is said to have sat to deliver her prophecies.

Delphi is not only the Greek mythological site of the Delphic oracle- the most important oracle in the ancient Greek world- but it is also the sanctuary of Apollo, a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python (a deity who lived there and protected the "Naval of the Earth"). Shown in the two pictures below is what remains of the Temple of Apollo, a Doric temple in the typical style of Archaic architecture- austere, simple, lacking in ornate decoration.

This sacred precinct of Apollo in Delphi was also a panhellenic sanctuary where every four years athletes from all over the Greek world competed in the Pythian games, one of the four panhellenic games and a precursor of the modern Olympics games. Shown below is the mountain-top stadium where some of these competitions took place. It was quite a hike to get there!

The view from the top was absolutely incredible. Once we made our way back down, we took a short bus ride to the next town Arachova to have a lunch break. It basically looked like a Greek version of Straton- it's a mountain town and there are ski shops galore!

We didn't get home until dinner time on Wednesday, due to the three hour bus ride back. It's Thursday now and I'm sitting in my Greek History class. We just got our midterms back, I got an A! Waahooo!

It's actually a sunny day today (we've been having a fair amount of rain lately here in Athens, and it's supposed to POUR all day tomorrow!). I plan on going for a nice run at the stadium later and then maybe bumming around Athens for the rest of the day.

As I mentioned before in earlier posts, we have this Friday off and about half of our group is actually flying off to Rome tonight for the weekend. The rest of us are staying here and doing some day trips which I'm excited about. Can't believe we only have a week left!!!