(There are approximately 40 images in this post; sorry? )

I woke up in Delphi after a great night’s sleep, helped by a really really good (hot, powerful) shower. There’s really nothing worse than stepping into a shower that disappoints; I imagine that to be something like the feeling that women have when they’re with a man who can’t quite perform. But anyway, not an issue here!

Some setting of the scene. Delphi, as mentioned, is about 3 hours bus journey outside of Athens. It’s half way up a mountain (Mt Parnassus) so it’s quite picturesque. It’s the site of a couple of really old temple complexes and where the ancient oracle was situated. It’s a UN protected world heritage site.

It’s 7.45, it’s time to go. Apparently most people do a long day-trip to Delphi so I’ve gained a few hours on that; I just need to find out about some extra things that I can fit in.

I pay the €18 (quite cheap for a really nice room) and have a chat with the guy about what I might want to do today before I get the bus out at 4pm. His English is pretty good and he’s very helpful, handing me a map of Delphi and surrounds and talking me through it.
“There’s the stadium, the museum opens at 9, the ruins of Apollo open at 8, there’s an observatory up the hill, the Temple of Athena is a couple of km out of town…”

Stop right there! Stall the digger! Hold your horses! He might have said the magic words!

“Observatory, you say? Up the hill, is it?”

You can imagine me cackling with glee at that point (not outwardly, that’d be weird); you may have noticed, I have a thing for hills with views.

He explains. There’s a trans-European hiking trail (E4) which goes through Delphi, coming from a town about 3 hours walk down the mountain and continuing onwards to a village approx 3.5 hours hike onwards on the top of the mountain. The observatory is on this trail but only 75 minutes away. I’m in, sign me up!

First things first; food and water. There’s a bakery next door, I get myself a Greek sausage roll thing (pastry with pork, hard to go wrong) for eating as I go.

The start of this hike reminds me of Eze ( http://travel.gerardsweeney.com/nice-trip-day-2/) ; sun already beaming down, mountaintop visible high above, not necessarily obvious how I’m getting there. Time for an Adventure!

I climb all of the steps to reach the top of Delphi itself – that in it’s own is pretty challenging and I’ve not even really started yet! Towns built on the side of mountains can be challenging.

With only a little difficulty (it’s not very obvious but the hotel guy had given good instructions) I find the trail and begin my ascent. It’s steep, and rough, and I’m pretty sure in some parts it’s just the bed of a mountain stream. Plenty of clambering. Goats would be at home here, for sure. Eze was hilariously easy compared to this! The mountainside isn’t far from being vertical so even with how steep the trail is it’s all switchbacks and meanderings. Plenty of photo opportunities on the way though, including some nice ones looking down at the old stadium.

Eventually, thankfully, epically, I get to the “observatory” and have a bit of a collapse. It’s taken me about 80 minutes of which Google tells me 60 minutes was walking, the rest was admiring the view and taking photos. I put observatory in quotes back there because, well, as you’ll see, calling it that is a little bit generous. OK, sure, you can certainly *observe* from it, but let’s not kid anyone – it’s three walls, a roof and a bench. Not that I’m complaining, but still!

I spent about half an hour up there; some of that was talking pics but mostly I just stood there looking out at the scenery. Visibility was decent, a bit hazy but not too bad. I’m trying not to saturate the term, here, but the view was simply incredible. I jotted a few words down in my notebook while standing there: peaceful, sunny, pretty, nature, dwarfing, lonely. “Lonely” is the only one there that might be a surprise, but I think it was the first time on holiday I had *really* wanted someone else there to share an experience with. Cue relatively soppy text to Erin from the top of a mountain.

Anyway, enough chatter, have some pics!

I also experimented a bit with the “photo sphere” feature of my phone; I doubt WordPress handles those very well so here are some links to them in Dropbox instead:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q2sa82j6he4geh8/PANO_20141110_092722.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pa44ygu0uxxqye5/PANO_20141110_093231.jpg?dl=0

I made my way back down, appreciating the views on the descent even more than on the way up as I didn’t need to worry about photos any more. Going down was generally easier than coming up, but the spots where I’d had to climb and clamber up were quite tricky and dangerous going the opposite way. Nevertheless, I made it down in one piece in about 50 minutes of walking. Time for another little collapse, my legs are jelly now. Also, surprising nobody, and following the pattern, I now utterly stink.

No rest for the wicked, though, up and at ’em! After making a short confusing stop at the bus station to confirm the bus times (the woman there thought I wanted to buy a ticket, so printed one and then got a bit miffed when I showed her the one I already had) I made for the Sanctuary of Apollo just down the hill outside of town.

Museum first, which held offerings that had been given to the sanctuary in ancient times by both city-states and rich families. Most of these were small bits and pieces but some quite impressive things as well, including a very well-preserved statue of a sphinx. I like sphinx. Sphinxii? Sphinxes? Sphinz? Statues? Sphinx is probably right.

Up to the sanctuary itself. “Up” is pertinent there; the sanctuary is built into the mountainside so it’s a whole bunch more climbing up and down. Once again I’m failing to come up with descriptive enough adjectives; “impressive” will have to do, just look at the photos instead of me trying to paint a picture of words.

After an hour of wandering around the site I was off again, this time to my final bit of Delphic sightseeing – the Pronaia (temple) of Athena. This one was about 1500m further outside the town, down the hill this time. All very well on the way there but I’m wise to the ways of the world now; what goes down must come up!
Athena’s site doesn’t have a huge amount left of it, but still worth making the journey down.

Oh, almost forgot. Cats are definitely a thing in Delphi. What’s the collective noun for cats? A plague? A nonchalance? Whatever it is, they were *everywhere*. I took a whole bunch of pictures once I noticed them but I won’t inflict that on you; have a couple for good luck though:

OK, I’m done with sightseeing, need sustenance. I have about two hours before the bus and I plan to spend it sitting down somewhere.

I wandered up and down the streets (there’s really not much to it) for a little bit and eventually settled on a nice-looking cafe. I asked the eagerly-helpful guy for his recommendations and he didn’t disappoint: the walnut cinnamon syrup cake was oh-so-wonderfully good.

I need to try to reproduce that. It’s dark but apparently just from the nuts. The cinnamon is there but not too strong. The bottom 25% is deliciously soaked in syrup. I reckon I can attempt something similar; a project for later!

After the well-needed rest I catch my bus, inflicting my scent on the poor unfortunate sitting next to me. I’ve done my best, attempting to clean up a bit and changed back into yesterday’s T-shirt, but it still can’t be good. Nothing more of interest on the journey, but here’s a pic from the rest stop:

Back in Athens, it’s time for proper food pretty soon. We were dropped off the bus right next to a tube station; one would think the sensible thing to do after my day of exertion would be to just catch the tube somewhere interesting, but no. Sensible thing, me? Don’t be silly. So instead I walk 3km to an area I know has a reputation for good souvlaki!

And here’s what I found: souvlaki in a pita. It was quite nice, and surprisingly only €1.50.

I also called into a bakery and asked for some traditional Greek sweet things:

(I ate them later, they were delicious – two were syrupy, one was pistachio-y. I don’t know the name of any of them.)

The day is done, back to Antonio’s apartment. Shower, collapse, Skype with Erin, plan tomorrow, sleep. Good day!

Oh yes, the apartment. It’s not what I’d call “clean”. It’s not particularly dirty, (mostly) messy, but I’m reminded of being back in some pretty dingy shared housing in uni days. The shower itself is quite good, but there’s no shower curtain so I had to kinda squat in the bath to try to prevent (too much) water from escaping onto the floor. Would I have chosen here knowing exactly what it’d be like? No, I’d probably have just stayed in a hostel instead. But hey, it was worth a shot!