Delphi

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We went to Delphi, the site where Apollo killed Python the dragon who who used to guard the navel of the Earth on the last day of the year. And it was a cold misty rainy day. It did not dampen our spirits as we walked through the ruins and heard tales of Oracles and of Olympians who gathered here every four years starting in 586BC to participate in the Pythian Games, one of four Panhellenic Games, the precursors of today's Olympic Games. It is also the residence of the prophetic Delphic Sybil, an oracle who used to foretell events.

There is a small and very interesting museum on site and a short walk up the mountain there are the remains of the original stadium.

Pindar's Muse was written in honour of this place:
Muses, what was its fashion, shownBy the skill in all artsOf the hands of Hephaestus and Athena?Of bronze the walls, and of bronzeStood the pillars beneath,But of gold were six EnchantressesWho sang above the eagle.But the sons of Cronus
Opened the earth with a thunderboltAnd hid the holiest of all things made.They were angry at the sweet voice,Because strangers perishedAway from their childrenAnd wives, when they hungTheir lives on the honey-hearted words.

The mist evaporating off Mount Parnasus in the windy rainy day helped us image the times of myths and magic. Now we were seriously hungry and all we had to do was go and have a good meal. Which we did, but before we arrived at the nearby village we had a slight mishap. The roof of our bus scraped and got lodged in a balcony on the winding roads to the restaurant, and we had to wait around for quite some time. The town's roads are very narrow and most of them one way. Pity the Oracle did not warn us of this. We would have taken a packed lunch from our hotel.

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Photos

Delphi
Doric Columns

The Treasury
This was built to commemorate the victory at Marathon