Delphi and a Closed Airport

A lot of my third day in Greece was spent in the car. From Olympia we drove to Patra then Nafpaktos via The Rio-Antirrio bridge…

It was €12.90 or $19.13 to cross! But it was the only way back to main land Greece and since we were driving to Delphi we needed to get back to main land.

So after Nafpaktos we were onto some beautiful coast driving.

Then mountain driving

Then Delphi driving.

We parked outside the first hotel we came to and went in, we were hoping to have a base price to compare other hotels to. Instead we ended up haggling for our room which we got for €55 with breakfast. We rock. So we went up to the room and wow was there a view. I knew we were in the mountains… but holy cow!

Our plan had been to take a short nap and walk around Delphi at night, maybe get a drink somewhere. Our little nap turned into sleeping through the night. So we woke up fairly early the next day. After all we were in no hurry we only had the ruins to see before heading back to Volos. So we ate breakfast, threw our packs in the car and we were off to the Temple of Apollo.

You’ve heard about the Oracle of Delphi right? Well I had been under the impressions that the Oracle referred to the building. When in fact the Oracle is the person that gives out prophesies, I know it’s pretty straight forward and I don’t know how I had ever been mistaken. So this Oracle person obviously needed a place to dish out these messages from god. The Oracle of Delphi lived in the Apollo temple!

The Southern slopes of Parnassos mountain house the temple and compound ruins. There was more to the sight then just the temple. A few of the tings off the guide book to see are the Corinthian Treasury, the Base of the Three Dancing Girls, the Theater, and the Temple of Apollo to name just a few of the 29 things to see.

Sadly my camera was beyond dead so the only pictures I have are ones my Czech housemate took and was nice enough to give to me. I was beyond sad I couldn’t take pictures but alas… it was pretty to look at as well.

Here’s a cool tidbit of information that I read from the guide pamphlet

“Worshippers and theopropoi (public messengers sent to inquire the oracle) flocked from all over the ancient world to seek the advise of the god and an oracle whenever they were about to take a serious decision or initiative. They purified themselves in the Kastalia spring, paid a set tribute, the pelanos, and sacrificed an aimal on the alter of Apollo.”

That is a heck of a lot of work. Especially after they hike up that mountain. It was a chore going up in a car. Climbing it by foot… my feet are angry at me for simply thinking about it!

^the view from the top^

Without anymore delay here are some pictures of the temple…

After we meandered about all the ruins at Delphi it was time for us to start the 4 hour drive back to Volos airport. Along the way we stopped in a small town to get lunch. Turns out every place wasn’t serving food, so we ended up going to a grocery store and got cheap sandwich stuff. I also found a voltage converter that I had been looking for for 2 days now. So we headed off to the airport. We said good bye to our wonderful Daisy and went to go wait for our flight.

The airport was closed. We were met by a nice security guard at the doors telling us that the airport was closed and that it would be opening in 45 minutes for the flights. This was the first time ever that I had seen an airport closed. It was really laughable. Lucky for us it was warm so we simply went and had a picnic in the parking lot till they opened the airport.

And then I was off to Rome……

Cheers,

Greece Day 2

Epidaurus was a 2 hours drive from Athens

and the theater there was…

Not what we were expecting. Turns out were at the Little Ancient Theater of Epidaurus. The real site to see looks a lot like this…

Then we stopped in Argos for lunch. After lunch Iwanted to go here,

Castle Larissa, that tiny looking castle ontop of yonder hill. So we started up a mountain thinking we were following the sign. And instead we came to the Monastery of the Panayia Katakekrimmeni.

The monastery was built in 1700 on the location where the Temple of Hera had been on mount Larissa. The monastery prospered greatly till the revolution. The church was the site of the first school ion Argos.


Since the road ended at the monastery we ended up never going to Caste Larissa. So we continued on to Tripoli. Again it was raining as we drove but that was okay with me. I don’t mind the rain. And I still got a picture of the Tripoli Cathedral!

Now Tripoli was a major site for newly liberated Greeks in the Greek War for Independence. And even cooler then that… Konstantinos Georgakopoulos is from Tripoli.


You never heard of him?? Really!?


Well neither have I. Wikipedia filled me in. Any how after dinner we headed off to Olympia.


It was really late when we got to Olympia but it was still pretty easy to tell that it was a cute town. So we got a hotel room and promptly went to sleep.


The next day we got up early and started off with some shopping. There were so many tourist shops. I bought a lot of postcards and these really cool good luck charms. They look like this…

And I bought my mum a four inch one for her office and a bunch of tiny ones for friends. It’s called A nazar, lucky eye or evil eye stone. And the idea behind it is that it protects you from the evil eye. When it does protect you it cracks and you must get a new one. People that use it hang it on the threshold of their house or office, many wear it as a charm or hang it in their car. They’re really pretty in my opinion, I like holding them up to the sun and looking through.


After lots of shopping we hiked over to the ancient ruins at Olympia. The ruins at Olympia are a mix of athletic facilities and temples.


I was doing some research on the ancient Olympics and I found this story “It was for women forbidden to see the Olympics. Once there was a women who tried to see them. See clothed herself like a trainer and looked at the matches of her son. When son won a match, she shouted like a woman and the men of Olympia killed her. From that time not only the participants but also the trainers and visitors weren't allowed to wear clothes.”


But back to the ruins, needless to say it was epic.


The most well known structure at Olympia is the Temple of Zeus. It was completed in 456 BC and was one of the largest temples in Greece. Although today none of the original columns remain standing, but there is one that was reconstructed and put up for the 2004 Athens Olympics. This is what it looks like today….

And this is what it used to look like….

During the 7th century, one of the very earliest monumental Greek temples was built here, originally a temple to both Zeus and Hera. But when the Temple of Zeus was built it became simply the Temple of Hera.

The workshop of Pheidias is still standing as well. This is where Pheidias sculpted may statues for the temples.

The Philippeion is a memorial which contained statues of Philip's family, Alexander the Great, Olympias, Amyntas III and Eurydice I. It is the only structure inside the Altis dedicated to a human

And here are a few other pictures from Olympia.
 

Cheers,

Athens

When someone says Greece people always think of Greek myths, the Parthenon, and temples. In my fours days there I found out that there’s a lot more to Greece then that. Although the ruins were my favorite part of the trip. Just seeing the old pillars still standing is an amazing thing.


First stop in my Greek adventure was Athens. We drove 4 hours from Volos Airport to Athens. I was under the impression that Athens was going to be this amazing and gorgeous city. No offence Athens, but you were you a huge let down. As we drove toward our hotel I was sad to see that it was a very dirty city. Yes I know most major cities are dirty but this was a run down, worn out, grungy dirty look. So I was a little sad that my spring break seemed to have started off on the wrong foot entirely. Especially since it was raining.

^My first picture taken in Greece^

But we found our hotel around 8. It was tucked away on a pedestrian street and when I walked over to ask where it was that we could park the guy tells me that we can just pull up front… so we did. And my Czech housemate did a fantastic park job…

I could barely fit my fingers between our car and the pillar. But we were in Athens. When we went to bed we crossed our fingers that the rain would stop and we’d have sun for our visit to the Acropolis.

All our finger Crossing was for not… We woke up to gray skies and wet streets.

I didn’t mind too much since it only appeared to be drizzling. So we headed out to the Acropolis.

We get to the famed Acropolis of Athens, home of the Parthenon. We go to the ticket booth and were very sad to find out that the admission was €12. Lucky for me my housemates had a solution. Out came our Student ID Cards… and our admission price… €0.

That’s right I got into the Acropolis free and it felt awesome. The only damper on the epicness of the Parthenon was the fact that it was being repaired and had scafolding up... it was still cool thought.

Now what is it the makes the Acropolis so cool? The quick answer is the Parthenon. The long answer…

-it’s 150m above sea level
-It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the first Athenian king
-the Parthenon was built by Pericles in the fifth century BC as a monument to the cultural and political achievements of the inhabitants of Athens
-It took 9 years to build
-It was completed in 438 BC
-Each piece of the Parthenon is unique and fits together perfectly. So even though it looks like things can be interchanged they can’t!

And check this out. Wikipedia says “The Project began in 1975 and is now nearing completion. The aim of the restoration was to reverse the decay of centuries of attrition, pollution, destruction by acts of war, and misguided past restorations. The project included collection and identification of all stone fragments, even small ones, from the Acropolis and its slopes and the attempt was made to restore as much as possible using reassembled original material - with new marble from Mount Penteli used sparingly. All restoration was made using titanium dowels and is designed to be completely reversible, in case future experts decide to change things. A combination of cutting-edge modern technology and extensive research and reinvention of ancient techniques were used.”

Soooo cool right? The fact that they can undo everything they’ve done is really mind boggling.

“And for some more numbers from Wikipedia “A total of 2,675 tons of architectural members were restored, with 686 stones reassembled from fragments of the originals, 905 patched with new marble, and 186 parts made entirely of new marble. A total of 530 cubic meters of new Pentelic marble were used”

The hike to the top was a short and easy one. And the pictures… amazing!! Here are a few of the 62 pictures I took at the Acropolis.
 

 
Cheers,