Delphi

Day Four!  Holy smokes, this trip has been going fast. Anyways, today we began our two day "Greek Odyssey" tour. We met our tour at 8 this morning at a hostel in Athens, a bit of a ways away from our Hotel, so we took the Greek Metro. There are only 4 people (including us) on our tour, so it has been a lovely intimate tour so far.

The day started out with a drive to Delphi, about 3 hours from Athens, with a stop for some snacks and a walk just over two hours in. Once we arrived in Delphi, we were met by a local guide who showed us first around the ruins, then around the museum there.

Delphi was once the home of the "Oracle of Delphi" and important people from all around the region would go to visit the Oracle of Delphi from about the 6th or 7th century BC, until about 400 AD. There, they would consult the Oracle, a woman, who would speak in tongues and give advice about whatever question a person had. A priest would then interpret what she was saying. This spot was said to be centre of the world, as the God Zeus went to both sides of the world, let two eagles go, and Delphi was the point where the two eagles crossed in the sky.

The spot was first discovered when local farmers noticed their goats coming down off the mountain, were particularly... energetic, jumping and dancing and such. So a temple to the God Apollo was built here, and the Oracle was here, and life sprung up around it. As it turns out, the reason why these goats, and, later, the Oracles, were so energetic, and speaking in tongues and such, was to do with the fact that the temple sat on a fault line, where a number of gasses came up from the earth, essentially making anyone who sat there high as a kite. An earthquake has since stopped the gasses from rising. 

Our bus then continued on its way toward Meteora, and today we are staying in a hotel where we can literally see the monasteries of Meteora from our balcony! Tomorrow we head there, then to Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans fought the Persian army.

Later days!

Kathleen.