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Published: September 9th 2008
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Days 8, 9, and 10. Well its the last day of our Pelopennese and Central Greek tour. I daresay Tim is ready for some beach time. And I'll be ready to stop making small talk with other tour members as well. Today we are in Meteora, in Central Greek. It was a far ride from Delphi, and we have another long drive today back to Athens. Central Greece is pretty interesting, there are some great mountain ranges, and wonderful views as all the roads switchback up the mountains. (Kathleen you would get sick just looking at these roads in a picture). We also drove through the Thessaly valley, where they grow corn, wheat and cotton. Greece is the 5th largest exporter of cotton. There you go, you learned something, you're not just procrastinating at work by reading this blog.
So we left off at Olympia, we wandered around Olympia on the third morning of this tour, saw both Zeus' and Hera's Temples, and the stadium. Tim tried to run a 200, made it about 50 metres. It was hot out! The sizes of these ruins are impressive, If you were able to picture Olympia back in the heyday, it would
Delphi
Athena's temple have been a site to see. Women weren't allowed in the stadium in those times, and they had a tunnel entrance to the stadium and that's where they turn the women away. Similar to where we now throw beer away at football stadiums! After that, we went to the Olympia museum and saw some of the ancient statues that they recovered during excavation. That's where some of the pictures are from, since I forgot to take pictures with the iphone at Olympia.
After Olympia, we headed to Delphi. I can't remember whether there were any other stops, we did stop in a cute bay to have lunch, the water here is just so pretty, I can't wait to get to the islands. We made it to Delphi around 4, and headed to the Delphi Museum. The picture of the sphinx from the last entry is from this museum. By the way, our tour guide is still wearing all black, the same outfit as the day prior, and the day prior to that. Button down shirt, buttoned all the way to his neck, black jeans, socks and shoes. It is hot out here in these ruins!! So, the town of
Views of Delphi
It was a much bigger place then I imagines, an entire city! Thought it would just be a well spouting volcanic fumes. But gorgeous. Delphi is not as I imagined it. First of all, its big, second of all, it looks like a ski resort, and third of all the ruins of Delphi are much larger then I had imagined. We went up these switchbacks for about an hour, got to the top, and there's Delphi. Really is stunning, the pictures aren't going to do it justice. Early night tonight, dip in the hotel pool, walk around town, dinner, then on to the next day.
The next day, yesterday, we saw Delphi- which I really liked, not much to say, more ruins, more ancient theatres, another ancient stadium. It was neat to see that they still have the porticos (where the shops were located) and to hear how depending on how richj you were depended on which type of material you brought to write down the oracle's advice. Clay to Silver and Gold. You apparently could only visit the Oracle once in your lifetimes, so it better be for a good reason. For instance, I would not go to the Oracle with the question "Will IGA's milk ever be safe to drink again?" I might go with "How can I get Joe Springer
Greek ski village
Tash -eat your heart out! Colorado's got nothing. to move out of 1822 Calvert though?" 😊
After Delphi, we hopped in the bus, and headed for Meteora, where we are this morning. Meteora is 6 monastaries built on these rocks that jut out of the valley. No ones knows how the rocks were created, hopefully we'll get some good pictures today, but they look like rock formations in Arizona, except a lot higher and a cute Greek town is at the base of them. In the old days when the monks didn't want people to bother them, they didn't have stairs, just a net at the foot of the rock. A person wanting to visit would climb in and a monk would pull them up. These rocks are about as high as the eiffel tower to give you an idea of how far that is. Nowadays, they have stairs, but I would have tried the net!! So today, we climb stairs again.
Tonight we head back to Athens for the evening, and tomorrow catch a high-speed ferry to Mykonos, the party island!
Update: We're now leaving the partying, gay, and tourist mecca of Greece (Mykonos). Its hard to get internet on the beach! Our internet
We met a strange greek woman
In a Greek ski village, apparently they make a lot of furs, who knows what animal Vic is wearing? has been spotty here and will only get worse, so we'll try to update as much as possible. If you really need to know what's going on, come find us! We're at 1 Beach Chair, Greek Island, Greece. See ya!
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Uncle Andy
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Now I am getting jealous - all those blue skies...