The Trip to the Oracle
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
73
75
Trip End
Feb 05, 2008
Delphi, Greece
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
because we each had our own cabin, due to an empty ship. We arrived in
Patras and quickly walked to the train station. But this train station
was very tiny and the next train didn't leave for two hours. So we
waited and went through our Greek schedule. We decided to cut way back
on where we would go because we were getting tired of all the fast paced
travel. We decided to go to Corinth, Delphi, Athens, and Mykonos. We
hopped on the train to Corinth but got there so late that we couldn't see
anything. Since we didn't want to keep moving and get to somewhere else
super late, we stay the night there. We ventured out for food seeing a
little bit of the downtown shopping area. It was nothing special.
The next day was another long travel day to Delphi. Because the public
transportations system in Greece rivals that of Spain, you could hardly
get anywhere by train. Therefore we had to take a bus from Corinth to
Athens and then Athens to Delphi. But the bus station you get dropped
of at in Athens is not the bus station that takes you to Delphi. That
station is a cab ride away. Awesome. We eventually made it to Delphi,
again in the pouring rain, and found a place to stay. Since the tourist
season was about to end the hotel rooms were cheap. We dropped off our
stuff and then went to a posh little restaurant for dinner. We were
super excited to find that they served italian food.
The next day we went to see the oracle, or at least whats left of where
she used to live. The ruins are a quick walk out from the main bit of
town and up a little hill. This location is a very important historical
location because Greek kings and leaders would make pilgrimages here to
seek the advice of the Oracle. She was always a young virgin who could
connect with the god Apollo and give advice. The wars were started over
what the oracle said. What they interpreted as being connected with the
gods was actually an opium trip. They would burn opium in the Oracles
house until she hallucinated and said something, and usually what she
said was very vague and could be interpreted many different ways. But they couldn't
of picked a more awe inspiring spot to house her. The temple of Apollo overlooks
a deep valley that stretches to the sea. A very mystical view. This location was
where they kept all the different greek regions money. There were a bunch of old foundations and
ancient structures that were banks for the greeks. We wandered through out the hill side exploring
the ruins. You can hike all the way up to the top and get an even more amazing view as well as see the circus maximus. This circus maximus was about half the size of the one in Rome, which is still pretty big to be carved into the side of a mountain.
Aside from all the ancient wonder, there were also a ton of cats. Literally cats everywhere. There was this especially cute little kitten who just walked right up to Braden and practically jumped into his arms. We named him Apollo and I spent a good 10 min convincing Braden that we couldn't take him home. So we walked back to town to do a little souvenir shopping. It was great wandering the streets (literally there are only two) of Delphi without any other tourists. This meant that we also got really good deals on a the little shops. The shop owners wanted to get rid of their stuff before the close for the winter. Unfortunately I didn't want anything, thankfully Braden did. We went back to our little italian restaurant for dinner and called it a night. We had to be up early to catch the bus back to Athens.
