I see a good workout in your future...

Today we took a bus about 2 hours outside of Athens to visit the ancient sacred site at Delphi, home of the Temple of Apollo and the famous Oracle of Delphi.

On the way up we were treated to gorgeous views of Marathon Lake and Mount Parnassus, before reaching the drop-off point to begin our exploration.

In ancient times, Delphi was a place of sanctuary where people pilgrimaged from around the area to hear the prophecies of the Oracle to help them solve the problems of life, big and small. The history and ritual surrounding the area, requests for prophecies, etc is really fascinating. We reached the Temple of Apollo, viewed the Theater and decided to take on the hike to the stadium... in the scorching midday sun and heat. We climbed and climbed and climbed and then, Wow! This massive expanse of a stadium rises out of the side of the moutain. It seated 7,400 people and is nearly 700 ft long. At this point we were starting to get pretty sticky so we made a quick retreat back down the mountain.

After all that climbing it was nice to get into some AC and enjoy the treasures of Delphi. The bronze statue of the Charioteer is largely intact AND has amazing eyes, composed of Ivory and Onyx. No detail was spared in the statue, including eyelashes that still exist today.

We made a couple of stops in the skiing towns on the mountain and got a chance to see the aluminum and boxite mines in action. We had a fabulous lunch of spanikopita and settled in to the bus for the ride back to Athens.

In the weeeeeeeeeeeeee small hours of the morning we are jumping on a boat and heading to Mykonos for a couple of days. Here's hoping I keep on top of my sunscreen needs (Greece was not made for us fair skinned people....)