Day 7 - Delphi (Δελφοι)

Saturday, October 2
Travel time: 0 hrs, Distance: 0 nm
Day trip to Delphi

The Didimos crew was up at 7:30 and watched several of the Tradewinds depart. Only four Tradewinds boats remained: Arima, Evangelos, Filomela, and us. Although the harbor was well kept and clean, it is a noisy place on a Friday night. The locals enjoy coming down to the dock and sitting on the benches, just feet away from the boat, and chatting until early morning.

At the appointed time, Kevin and Sue arrived from the hotel, but no cars. We wondered if we had been snookered, and wandered off to catch the 9:00 bus at the town center. It turned out that the 9:00 bus we had heard about does not run on weekends, so we wandered back to the boat. As we got back to the boat discussing our next step, a car showed up with the fellow from the night before and his girlfriend.

It seemed that the girlfriend was really the one in charge, and she worked the deal. The problem was that the car was too small for the six of us. We haggled back and forth and were considering not renting the car when the girl offered to get a second car for half price. That sealed the deal, and she and Mark went off to get the second car and do the paperwork. Mike sent his driver's license along to be the second driver. Mark drove a car back and a guy delivered the second car.

Kevin and Sue joined Mark and Laverne in one car, and Kelli and Mike took the second car, and we all headed out of town for the twenty minute drive to Delphi. Greek drivers are notorious in Europe. We were told that the accident rate in Greece is the highest on the continent. We didn't encounter any dangerous situations, and the road signs were easy to follow. Delphi is a big tourist destination, and the Greeks don't want anyone to miss the opportunity to spend a few euros there.

Greek Religion: Oracles

The word oracle can mean several related things. It means a god who predicts the future, like Apollo. It also means the priest who hears the message, and the message itself, and the place where the priest hears the message. Most often it means the priest or the message.

The Greeks believed (like all other ancient people) that you could communicate with the gods at certain places, at certain times, through certain people, and that the gods would give you advice and maybe tell you what was going to happen in the future.

This is certainly no stupider than calling the Psychic Hotline, which thousands of people do every day. Actually, it probably makes more sense than that. First of all, both the Greek oracles and the Psychic Hotline have in common that they hear the same questions over and over, and they listen all day to people telling more or less the same kinds of stories over and over. "Will my boyfriend leave me?" "Will my kids turn out bad?" "Will I get this job?" "Will I win the war?" After you have some experience, you can predict pretty well what will happen just because you have already seen the same thing happen to so many other people.

But the Greek oracles had a couple of advantages, too. First, you didn't just come and ask your question. You had to hang around the temple for awhile, talking to the priests, so they could get to know you. And they could see you, not just hear your voice on the telephone. Second, everybody came to the same few oracles for help, and the priests at these oracles (unlike the Psychic Hotline) compared notes with each other. So if you asked "Should I get married?" and the oracle said "Yes," and then next week your girlfriend comes and she asks, "Will Giorgios ask me to marry him?" then the oracle already knows the answer to that one. There is every reason to think that the oracles were worth the money they charged.

The most important Greek oracle was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, though there were many others.

Delphi

Delphi (DELL-fee), in central Greece, seems to have been a sacred shrine even before the Greeks arrived in Greece around 2100 BC. Later Greek myth said that Delphi was originally sacred to a giant snake, but when Apollo came he killed the snake and took over its shrine. Why was Delphi so sacred?

Kevin and Sue in front of the Temple of Apollo

According to the archaeologist John Hale, because it had a methane gas leak, and if you breathed enough of this methane gas, it would intoxicate you (like being drunk or high) and you would say mysterious things. There was a story around Delphi that the "crack in the earth" was first discovered by goat herders, who saw that whenever their goats got near this place, they started acting funny. Then the little goat herders tried it themselves, until the grownups interfered.

People built the temple of Apollo at Delphi right over this crack in the earth, and when you wanted to ask the god a question, the priestess went right down into the basement where the crack was, breathed in the gas, and answered your question.

Nobody knows exactly when this started, but certainly before about 700 BC. And the oracle continued to answer questions right up until about 600 AD, for more than a thousand years.

Our Delphi Visit

View from the road on the way to Delphi. The trees that you see in the valley are olive trees. The road to Delphi took us through these acres of trees.

The Sphinx of Naxos (ca. 560 BC) is in the museum at the Delphi archeological site. It was on top of a column just below the Temple of Apollo.

The site spreads up the hill and is the largest single archeological site of ancient Greece structures that has been so thoroughly excavated.

The Temple of Apollo.

The amphitheater.

The stadium where games were held, pre-Olympics.

"What do you think it is?"
"I dunno, what do you think it is..."

On the way down the hill, we stopped in the town of Delphi to do gift shopping and have a late lunch. The hotel restaurant had a terrific view of the valley below. Delphi has many tourist shops, but it is charming nevertheless. We spent the latter part of the afternoon browsing the shops and picking up the obligatory souvenirs.

Then we headed back down the hill. This time, Kevin and Sue accompanied Mike and Kelli in their rental car. Just before entering Galaxidi, Mike's car was pulled over by the Greek police. It seemed to be some kind of checkpoint. This was really surprising given Greece's reputation for essentially no driving law enforcement. The policeman hassled Mike for a few minutes because Mike had only his California's drivers license, not an international license. After an appropriate amount of scolding, he let us go.

We arrived back in Galaxidi at 5:30. We sat in Didimos' cockpit and talked until 9:30 p.m. Then it was time for showers and to change the bedding in our berths. It was a wonderful night, warm and a light breeze.