day three - delphi

lots of driving today. 8 hours lots. It was totally worth it though, as we were rewarded with a great hotel and an amazing stop at the oracle of delphi (the old sanctuary of apollo), and apparently the exact middle of the earth, if you believe the mythology.

some of the towns we passed on the way to the site were actually quite interesting, like this one on the slopes of mt. parnassus (I think). I forget what the town is called, so don't bother asking. it's important/neat because it was one of the few towns in greece that wasn't occupied by the ottoman turks during the long occupation of greece. if you can't tell from the picture, it's a little out of the way. these days it's mostly a ski resort for athenians who come to the mountain to ski in the winter (yes, there is actually snow in greece, who knew?).

upon arriving at delphi we went right to the museum, which was crowded but tolerable. as far as museums go, it was a good one - lots of interesting sculptures from the sanctuary of apollo. one of the bronzes was so well done that you could actually see veins on the guy's arms and hands, pretty impressive if you ask me. however, I didn't spend that much time in a bus to see statues indoors, no, I wanted to see the sanctuary.

the sanctuary itself is situated 3300 feet up the slopes of mt. parnassus, a 9 thousand odd foot mountain that is snow-capped until july/august every year. the valley below is one giant olive grove, and it's been like that for thousands of years apparently. like most of the greek ruins, there isn't all that much reconstructed - the athenian treasury, some of the columns of the temple of apollo, some other small things, but it was an impressive site nonetheless. probably my favourite so far. we were only given half an hour of free time (seems to be the trend so far that Marina talks too much and we don't get all that much time to ourselves) so my dad and I practically ran to the stadium, which is above the rest of the sanctuary; we really wanted to see what it was like as we only caught a glimpse of the stadium in athens from the top of the acropolis. the stadium used to seat 25 000 people, I think, and it's a good 200 metres long. my mom and sister walked the entire length of the stadium (which isn't that far, I know) but I didn't stick around; people were waiting for us at the bottom as our free time was nearly up. I took a few pictures for posterity and practically ran down the hill - I don't like to be late...