Location - Delphi

Remember when I said that the heat was not so bad, and that the tourists were relatively scarce? Scratch that.

Because we did not want to miss Aliki’s breakfast at 8:30, our plan to get to the Delphi site as it opened at 8 was altered. Her fig and plum jams alone were worth it. The honey here is also astonishingly yummy. Aliki proudly served us a mild, chamomile-like “mountain tea” that she promised had medicinal qualities. We were also delayed by my folly: on my way out to breakfast on the terrace, I pulled the door of our apartment shut. I did not realize that it locks automatically, nor that the keys were in the inside lock, which disallows a second outside key from opening it. Thankfully, Athena had left a window unlatched, but we did have to wait for a neighbour with a ladder and a willingness to climb through the small second storey opening. He laughed at us. Deservedly, I suppose.

We had read that the day-trippers from Athens don’t arrive to the site until 11, but when we arrived at 10, there were already a handful of tour buses parked in the shade. And the groups just kept coming for the next two hours. French, Spanish, and, of course, English. And was it ever hot! We sought out shady spots with vantage points. There were lots of those though. Everything is very vertical there, from the obvious (the tall columns of Apollo’s Temple in front of the tall mountain backdrop) to the macro (the 700 vertical feet climb from the entrance along the Sacred Way past the treasuries, temple, and theatre to the stadium), to the natural (oddly tall and pointy evergreen trees that looked like the ones they use in architectural models). And I guess that makes sense; it all looks up to the sun god, who got stronger and stronger all day.

We were done about noon, and thought about driving into Delphi for lunch before seeing the museum, but given that the Sanctuary of Athena closes at 3 while the museum closes at 4, we decided (probably foolishly) to walk the 1.5 km over to the second site right away. It was in the mid-30s as we dashed from tree to tree on the shoulder-less highway with whizzing tour buses passing us. I’d like to say we took a long luxurious time soaking in the majesty of Delphi’s most photographed site, but we were so, so hot that we grabbed a few shots (mostly of Athena, to be honest), and girded ourselves for the trek back. We did stop at a small ‘cafe’ for a 20 euro snack of lemonade and ice cream, and the 20 minutes of shade there saved our sanity.

We then headed into the tour-group filled museum to see some astonishing stuff. The big, famous pieces here are the Sphinx of Naxos, the Twins, and the Charioteer. Great museum, but we were pretty exhausted by the time we were done it.

We drove into the town of Delphi for supplies (okay, just wine and chocolate), and David had a long conversation with the store owner, who recommended a restaurant and tried to arrange a marriage between his 8 year old daughter and Triumph. Then after a couple hours in Aliki’s garden with the hammock and the kittens, we went to the recommended Delphi restaurant where we were able to gaze out over vast olive groves and the Gulf of Corinth.

We left before the sun fully set, though; we required a bit of light for the 15 km single lane mountain highway full of switchbacks and crazy Greek drivers not to mention that four-by-four terrain section near our house at the end of the one-car wide rubble road on a shear cliff edge. David, determined to drive like a Greek, now wants to drive, well over the speed limit, with an iced coffee in one hand and his mobile in the other, while being yelled at by his wife with expressive hand gestures, while goats (Athena provides the sound effects) bleat in the back seat.

Off to bed with very tired legs.

PERSONAL PICTURES TO COME WHEN THE INTERNET IS MORE RELIABLE.

Hopefully the embedded links will suffice.

Location - Delphi

Sunday morning. Church bells and hypnotic chanting are all that fill the Plaka. It is referendum voting day too. Seems a good day to slip quietly out of Athens.

The roads were thankfully emptier than expected, so it wasn’t hard to find the highway. We made a stop about a half hour out of Athens in the small industrial town of Elefsina where one would never expect to find anything profound but which is the site of the Elysian Mysteries, the very ancient rituals performed in honour of Demeter. Supposedly, this was the spot from which Hades kidnapped Persephone, and Demeter sat and mourned and plagued the crops until her daughter was returned. This made all the carvings of flowers and wheat appropriate. No one really knows what used to go down at this spot, but we suspect it was a bit scandalous, a bit creepy, and likely drug induced. It was also clearly popular as there was massive stadium-style benches all around the temple’s edge. The site also includes a Plutonion, an entrance to Hell, a small shallow cave with a hole in its wall where people still put offerings of flowers and fruit and pine cones. There is also a vague, round bottomless chasm that looked like a well. I’d be upset if my kid was pulled down there too! After a small picnic under a tree there, we said thanks to Demeter and headed out.

The road to Thebes was filled with the goddess’s gifts: sweeping vistas of lush agricultural fields. Oddly, they were often punctuated by wind turbines and fields of solar panels. David suspects German money may have built this infrastructure. Hmmm …

Athena and Triumph slept through most of this part of the trip and only awoke in Thebes, now (sadly) just a typical, somewhat rundown Greek town. It is hard to imagine the Thebes of Oedipus, Heracles, Cadmus, and Tiresias being there. Kristine got out to take a picture of a statue of (we think) Oedipus at the spot that (we think) the “three roads meet.” We decided that Laius was likely the first crazy Greek driver (not that this justifies his death).

We tried to find the mouth of the river Styx in Lividia (David had a clear memory of it from 1997), but just found the sleepy town, not much different from Elphesina or Thebes.

When we arrived in Arachova (a small ski resort just before Delphi), we contacted our Airbnb host, Aliki, who lead us down a scary, precipitous mountain-cliff side road to her gorgeous stone house (see link above) and then feed us a garden dinner of spanakopita, salad, bread, cheese, and wine. The big draw for Athena were Aliki’s two wee kittens, whom she lured with feta but was still unable to actually pet. After dinner, we the went for a walk through the “neighbourhood” (farmland ) and try to figure out what fruit we were seeing and catch a glimpse of the local sheep.

Early to bed to be ready for Delphi the morning.

Location - Athens

This was the big day! So much important stuff to see before we head out of Athens.

On our way to the Agora, skirting along the base of the Acropolis, we stumbled upon the almost empty Roman Forum. It wasn’t a big draw for us, but it was covered by the Acropolis ticket we had purchased the day before, so what the heck. When in Athens …

We continued on into Agora, and stopped first in the reconstructed stoa / museum. We spent a long time in there and repeatedly lost David who clearly site-sees differently than the rest of us. Kristine was quite moved by the autographed clay ostracism ballots, and the kids were equally so by the coffin of the small child, complete with her bones.

It was so lovely and cool in the stoa that we lingered, which meant we ended up walking the ruins at exactly the wrong time: in the blazing 1 pm sun (Having said that, we shouldn’t complain. It is only the high 20s to low 30s these days. It could be much worse). Beyond the original stoa, the Temple of Hephaestus is by far the highlight of those ruins; apparently, it is the most complete in Greece. And after we exhausted the rest of the Agora, we found Jesus. Literally. We looked up at the roof of the 1000 A.D. Byzantine church (our first church here), and there he was.

At the risk of sounding like vultures, this is a good time to be on Greece; neither the sites nor the restaurants are super busy. While there are certainly tourists here, it does not feel like they dominate the places we go. We hear far more Greek than English, even in the touristy places; we are pleasantly surprised.

On the path back home from the Agora, we bought some delicious dried beets and strange nuts from a man with a cart. It was just the kind of interaction that we imagine happened a lot in the agora back in the day. We also went down a quiet alley to buy David a new hat. The one he brought from home was embarrassing enough before he swam in it and then rolled it up to stick it in a bag, which completely destroyed the brim. Athena and Triumph simply refused to be seen with him in it, and a man without much hair really needs a hat here. His new hat is not exactly unique among the tourist set, but it is much, much better looking.

After lunch and an hour of chilling-at-home-time, it was on to the main event: The Acropolis. We intentionally went late in the day in order to avoid any possible crowds as well as the heat; it worked quite well. It was windy but wonderful. We managed to walk around the whole place several times, and it was more relaxing each time. We remained up on the sacred rock until the light became magnificent.

As chance would have it, we ran into the same Columbia professor we met in Sounion, and after we stopped her just to say hi, she started to give us another quick lecture … until her husband whisked her away. Her group had shrunk considerably. The others must be in Santorini already.

We all left appropriately impressed by Athena’s city penthouse.

We were in no rush on the way home and leisurely wandered down the “Acropolis Loop,” a pedestrian walkway full of buskers and street vendors. We passed some fancy event at a church (we suspect wedding) and wondered for the second night in a row why there are always 6 or 8 motorcycle police guarding this one block near the Acropolis Museum. We have noticed a number of embassies nearby, but this building is oddly unlabelled.

We had another dinner near Mnisikielous, another waiter who wouldn’t let us leave, another stroll through the Plaka, and then off to bed.

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Location - Athens

The day started a little later than planned because the kids were pretty tired, especially Triumph, who was basically unconscious with fatigue for most of the morning.

We walked the five minute walk to the Acropolis Museum (a passive-aggressive attempt to shame Britain into returning the Elgin Marbles) at about 10 am. What a cool building! Glass floors that revealed the excavations below and the tourists’ panties on the floor above, complete with a to-scale parthenon of friezes and metopes on the top floor. It wasn’t too crowded, and we saw lots of famous pieces, like the ‘almond-eyed Kore’, the ‘blond boy,’ and ‘pensive Athena.’ We also liked the three troll-like heads on the Hekatompedon pediment monster and the very cool Lego Acropolis wherein we are pretty sure they are staging Oedipus at the Theatre of Dionysus. But, of course, the big draw, at least for me, was the original Caryatids from the Erechtheion. Such strong beautiful women!

We went home for a take out lunch and to let Tri nap. Then our afternoon plans had to change; we thought we were going to go to the Acropolis at 4, but our host had arranged a doctor’s appointment at 5. (Tri had developed a rash on the top of his foot in Sounion, and we didn’t want to leave Athens without having it looked at.)

We decided to go to the (non-Lego) Theatre of Dionysus while we waited for our appointment. It was cooking hot! We liked the pattern on the floor and the different classes of seating/chairs/benches, which we scaled to the top so we could walk along the upper path to the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, past tons of bust-less pediments (weirdly ordained with male genitalia).

We then headed over to the doctor, a kind, cigar-smoking man with bad teeth whose English was not bad, but whose diagnosis was less than exact. After giving us a prescription for cream and anti-histamine, he gave us his whole life story as a way to explain why he was go voting ‘yes’ on Sunday.

From our apartment, we could hear the demonstrations at Syntagma Square. The megaphones were loud, and, if we spoke Greek, we would have heard Prime Minister Tparis give his pro-No speech, while helicopters circled. And yes, we’ve seen the bank machine line ups and posters for both sides all over the city, but this was the first night we were at all nervous. That is likely because of the reports of tear gas.

We eventually headed off to Anafiotika for a rooftop dinner. It was an adorable walk high along the northern Acroplis slope, above the Plaka, on narrow winding stairwells. We were never sure if we were on someone’s private property or the public path. Many cats, many clay roofs.

We have noticed a few things about wait-staff here: they are almost always older males and they refuse to let you rush away. They will not bring a bill without being asked, and often, even then, they will bribe you to stay longer by bringing you free food. We are not sure if it is cultural or economic (i.e. Do they just not want to rush us, or do they want us to help their place look full?).

After we were finally allowed to leave, we walked through the the Plaka to our home. The streets were packed, even at 11 pm. What a vibrant town!

Location: Athens

We have moved on to the big city.

We drove our little rental car along the gorgeous coast road for about two and a half hours, including a pit stop at Agia Marina for an iced coffee on the beach. The water has such interesting colours, and the colors change every bay. In one of those bays, David finally found where he had left his mega-yacht. He was much relieved.

The crazy Athens traffic began sooner than we expected, with the fearless, helmet-less motorbikers causing the most gasps of shock and sadness for their imminent demise. We got lost once, quite far into town and in solid, lane-less gridlock, but since Athena has discovered the similarities between the Greek and Russian alphabets, she was a great navigational asset.

We found our adorable, marble-staired pedestrian street right under the Acropolis and met our Airbnb host, Dionysia. (How apropos is her name given that her home is less than 300 metres from the Theatre of Dionysus?) She is a charming, highly educated, childless Greek in her mid to late fifties, with a cute labyrinth of a house built in the 19th century (see photos on the link above). It has seven doors that lead outside and seven sets of stairs (some only two or three steps, but two of them 12 steps, one of those outside and the other one inside), with art on every wall and piles of books in every room.

We decompressed for awhile and then headed out for a walk down the Dionyssio Areopagitou, the pedestrian walk that loops the Acropolis. We found ourselves at the Areopagus around sunset … and that seems to be the time to be there. We stayed amoungst all the young lovers long enough for the sun to sink and the kids to get uncomfortable.

On the Apostolou Pavlou, near the Agora, we snagged a fantastic outdoor table with a stunning view of the Parthenon. We were seated in time to see the lights to come on, but the real beauty was watching the huge full moon rise up out of the temple.

Our waiter was very sweet. He implied that business down by about two thirds compared to five years ago. We tried to leave around 11, and asked for the bill, but instead, he brought out two huge ouzo and an enormous waffle covered in four scoops of ice cream smothered in chocolate sauce and icing sugar.

We waddled back to our lovely apartment pretty late but happy to have arrived and be welcomed in Athena’s great city, the start of all things ‘western.’