Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Zeus's Door

OK, so Delphi is the home of the Temple of Apollo and not Zeus, but who doesn't love a good Bobby Dylan reference? I've been excited about this trip since I first heard that it was on the docket. Delphi has more religious and historical significance than Martin Luther forgetting where the church's "Complaints" box was located back in 1522. I wouldn't have been so stoked if I had known that we were going to have to wake up at 6 AM on a Saturday to climb the equivalent of Olympic StairMaster. The early start was warranted, Delphi is a two and a half hour drive from Athens and we were reminded along the way that people during ancient times actually had to walk the ungodly hot flat lands separating Delphi and Athens. All I could reference during that mental image was Animal Mother in Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" saying "Better you than me". That was one of the first times on this trip that I actually enjoyed being on a bus because I don't care how powerful my gods were and how sexy/omnipotent this oracle was: "These Tevas weren't made for walking"!

Athenian Treasury

Delphi is located on the second highest mountain in all of Greece and to get there you have to pass through a beautiful Greek ski town that reminded me a lot of Berchtesgaden in Germany. There is one street that runs across the face of the mountain through the center of town and the buildings are built up and down this near 90 degree face of this imposing geographical figure. A little bit further down is the entrance to Delphi starting with the Temple of Athena, Purity Spring, and then the entrance to the complex itself. Delphi was the religious center of all Greece and people would trek from all over the WORLD to come see the famous Oracle who resided in the Temple of Apollo. The oracle was to be consulted before the Greeks made any major decisions be it battle plans, buildings, diplomacy or any other decision the Greeks deemed important. Of course, historians later learned that the chamber where the Oracle was get had seismic fault lines running through it which emitted natural gas. Essentially, this means that the omnipotent oracle got stoned out of her mind 24/7 to the point where she started babbling in incoherent metaphors and the priests gave vague interpretations of those metaphors. It would be akin to you seeking stock market advice from Paul, who lives in the Samsung box at the corner of 34th and Madison. A completely ridiculous premise that you think no one would believe, yet it sparked a mass and almost continuous exodus to Delphi throughout the early 5th and 6th century B.C..

Temple of Apollo

Delphi, like everything in Greece, is gorgeous and I was once again disappointed that I was not able to see the location in its prime. Our guides told us about the preposterously long lines that would form waiting to see the Oracle, but with the views those people were getting while they waited, I can't see what they were complaining about; except maybe the heat, or the abnormally large number of steps they had to climb to see her, or the thousand mile journey they just completed to come to Ancient Greece's version of Disneyland. This was probably the most physically taxing site we had visited and coming on the heels of our journey up Hymettos, it was not a welcome one. The history and the well preserved ruins that awaited us at Delphi's heart though were well worth any physical price. The Temple of Apollo watches over the valley below where Apollo can keep a careful, majestic eye over his subjects. Along the way are the ruins of grand marketplaces where traders from all over the known world would trade exotic furs, spices and people to one another for exorbitant sums of money. The ruins of the many treasuries of various Greek city states were located along the way too, where the votives and riches of the city states were stored as offerings to the god Apollo, he was nothing if not organized. At the back of Apollo's temple which still stands rather imposingly over the ruins of this once proud city, is the stone of the oracle where allegedly the oracle would spout her musings and where more famously Richard Dreyfuss hammed it up in 2009's "My Life in Ruins". We stopped for the obligatory picture looking out from the hole in the stone before proceeding up to view the impressively well maintained Stadium where games were held in honor of Apollo. Despite the beauty around me, my attention started to wane and I proceeded down the mountain a bit before everyone else just to get the hell out of the Sun. Well played Apollo, well played indeed.

Oracle Stone

Cheesing by the Delphi sign. Rolled up sleeves on this white body means that it is hot.

After visiting Delphi we journeyed slightly down the face of the mountain to view the remains of Athena's temple, where pilgrims would seek wisdom before consulting the oracle. The point of it was that they wanted to make sure they asked the right question to avoid getting stonewalled by a James Cromwell like response in "I Robot". It was pretty but it seemed the longer we dwelled in this religious haven, the hotter it got and our journey was pretty short lived at the locale. After waiting another 30 minutes or so in the Sun for our replacement bus to find us, we traveled back into town for a delicious lunch and then the tumultuous journey back to Athens. Though beat from the Sun God's wrath and his labyrinth of stairs, many of us conjured up the energy to go out into Agia Paraskevi and treat Hannah to a very nice birthday dinner before collapsing from sheer exhaustion in our own individual dwellings; knowing all the while that the next day, another early morning awaited us and another hot journey to the ruins of the past.

The beautiful town of Arachova.