So I’ve returned to the states but since I was having so much trouble in Athens trying to write my blog I decided I’ll just finish it here.

Our last night in Tolo was fantastic.  A bunch of the locals we had befriended threw us a going away shindig at 12 Monkeys.  It’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall but it had great music and a great people.  We danced for hours and hours and had such a wonderful time.  It was great to see how we had almost become locals ourselves.

The next morning it was time to say our goodbyes and we were off for a brand new adventure.

We hopped on the big bus and departed for Delphi.  Judy organized a special treat for us and we were able to visit a beautiful monastery.  It’s nestled in green hills of the Delphian mountains about 2700 ft above sea level.  The nuns were so hospitable and gave us a wondeful tour of the sanctuary. Everything was hand carved from gorgeous wood.

They even made us snacks while we browsed through their shop.  All of the income for the monastery is generated by goods the nuns make and sell there.  It really was a very nice surprise.

After about another hour worth of twisting and turning up the craziest mountain I’ve ever seen, we finally made it to the tiny town of Delphi.  Delphi is most famous for the Oracle of Delphi, a girl the gods we seek advice from while she was in a drug-induced stupor.  At the time they were unaware it was drugs, but archeologist later found out it was because of the emission of poisonous gasses under the site in which she stood.

Shorty after we arrived we took off for a walk, which turned out to be a 2 hour hike, down to the Temple of Athena and the old gymnasium where the athletes trained.

The next morning, we were off at the break of dawn to hike up to the upper ruins of Delphi.  The entire site had such a strange vibe to it.  It reminded of the same weird feeling I got when I visited Stonehenge.

We had a wonderful tour guide named Penny and she was super knowledgable about the site and the excavations.

This is the Temple of Apollo.  Underneath is where the Oracle was kept.

Delphi was built by slaves.  However, the slaves of ancient Greek times were not the same sort of slaves like we think of today.  There are over 800 stones in Delphi and each one tells the story of a slave that worked there.

How Delphi came to be is a cool story. . . One day, Zeus, the mightiest of all gods, wanted to find out where the center of te Earth was.   He sent out 2 eagles from the opposite ends of the Earth and where the collided was over the city of Delphi.

The story of how Zeus came into being is also interesting.  He was the son of 2 Titans: Cronus and Rhea.  Cronus had been told that his child would be mightier than him so everytime Rhea had a baby, Cronus would eat it.  When Rhea became pregnant with Zeus she decided that she would have this baby no matter what.  So she moved away and gave birth to Zeus.  However, when she brought came back to Cronus and he asked for the newborn, Rhea, knowing he would swallow it, wrapped a stone in a blanked and fed it Cronus.  The stone is known as the navel or omphalos.

After hiking around the ruins for a few hours, we got to visit the museum.  It’s completely unbelievable how well preserved  some of the findings were.

The Charioteer was well preserved thanks to the Great Earthquake of 373 BC.  It was discoverd in 1896 during the Grand Excavation and caused quite a stir because it was the first classical bronze stature to be unearthed.

Another interesting find were the Twins of Argos.  Argos was a great city state and these “twins” were votive offerings from Delphi.  Known as Cleobis and Biton, the twins are one of the earliest examples of archaic Greek sculpture.

After an amazing, yet tiring day, it was time to head to Athens. . .