Delphi, 8th June

Greek buses. They are modern, cool and clean. And nigh impossible to catch. Bus stations that aren't bus stations or stations that moved 2 days previously to the other end of town (but no-one was told). There are no bus station signs. No Bus stop signs. No time-tables. There was actually a bus-station at our connecting bus town of Itea, but the times she gave for various buses differed from the two other lots of times we were given by various café owners. This can become critical when one is talking last buses. But we did it somehow.

Delphi has to be one of the all-time greats of classical sites. It has everything and I cannot describe the experience adequately. It has drama, scale, the quality of the remains (some rescued and put into the on-site museum) and above all that, it has situation. Its setting is breathtaking, on the lower slopes of Mt Parnassos, mountains all round and then a falling away in the distance to the sea. Combine that with over a thousand years of use (from 14th C BC Mycenean worshipping Earth (Ge, Gaia) to Apollo 11th BC, Apollo and Athena well established 7th BC and Oracles, etc until AD 393) as a place of pilgrimage, homage, quest and the rolling together of mythology and fact, and it is surprisingly easy to blot out the modern world and try and imagine….The Pythian games were held here every 4 years, secondary in importance only to those at Olympia. (We will visit Olympia later also in honour of the London Olympics).

Delphi is the navel of the world (as assessed by Zeus by the meeting point of two eagles despatched from either end of the universe). There are different parts to the overall site. 1km from current day Delphi town is Tholos and the temple to Athena. Closer in, is the gymnasium. Further up the road is the Kastalian Spring where pilgrims cleansed themselves before finally climbing the Sacred Way into the Delphi complex of Treasuries, Votive offerings, statues and honours, before ascending to the Temple of Apollo, the Theatre (seated 5,000 people) and right at the top, the Stadium. Consultation of the oracle involved making offerings then asking your question. The words of Apollo were spoken through a Pythia or 50+ yr old priestess who then went into a trance and pronounced in ambiguous fashion. Obscure answers were then interpreted by priests to the satisfaction or not of all.

We explored all of that in that order - we walked the 1km from Delphi town down to Tholos and then worked our way back, along the Sacred Way, washed in the Spring, made our votive offering, climbing and wandering, finishing a long day in the museum, where the pieces de resistance are the sphinx-like creature that originally stood atop a 15m high pillar and the Charioteer, a bronze life-size statue of a young nobleman (young, precisely executed and beautiful) as he stood on his chariot behind his racing horses.

And the Oracle did speak. The Chimaera will dissolve and, the lion's paw prevailing, reform to become lion only. The horses with winged hooves will soar with the eagles and the gods above the mountains. And three winds will fight each other and twist round like the tripod and be tied up again in their bag, the fourth to roam free.

Make of that what you will..