Today we took a bus from Athens to Delphi, which took about three hours. As we left the bustling city of Athens and progressed further into the mountains the roads got more and more narrow. Our bus bounced over the pot-hole littered road, and on one side of us the mountain rose high into the air, and on the other side our bus seemed perilously close to the long drop down to the valley below. We could look out the window and see over the top of the valley to the mountain opposite ours. Switchbacks like giant Z’s cut across the surface of the mountain and snaked their way all the way from the top to the bottom. If we looked up we could make out the ridge of the mountain we traveled around. Evergreens decorated the sides and grey rock tipped the peak. On some of the nearby mountains we could make out the remnants of snow leftover from winter.
We have a wonderful view from our room. Our hotel literally juts out over the side of Mount Parnassus, and from our balcony we can look out over the olive groves in the valley and over to the Corinthian Gulf. The room’s a little plain, but the view totally makes up for any mediocrity.
Delphi is a very small town. I’d go so far to say that it’s really only a village. The streets all run parallel from one another horizontally over the side of the mountain. There are a few places where long stone staircases connect parallel streets. With all the up and downhill walking the natives must do here I don’t understand why they don’t have calf muscles like Popeye had forearms.
We arrived here late afternoon, and we wandered the streets for a while before we decided to have supper. We chose a restaurant out of our guidebook. We had wonderful food but our waiter was absolutely terrible. Our appetizer and our main course arrived at the same time, we didn’t get any bread with our meal like all the other diners, we didn’t even get our salad, and we had eaten half of our meal before he even brought out our wine. The manager gave us a discount and told us our wine was complimentary. So if you’re ever in Delphi you can eat at this joint and get good food, but don’t blame me if your service sucks.
Tomorrow we visit the Temple of Apollo, the location of the ancient Delphic Oracle. I’ll let you know how it goes.