Greece Day 5- Delphi

Mom and I rose early this morning to be a tourist and take part in an organized tour of Delphi. Delphi is the home of the oracle of Apollo. On our way to meet the bus, we happened upon a lovely little bakery with my favorite European breakfast food- chocolate croissants. Croissants are always better in Europe for some reason. American croissants are too buttery, but these little gems were still warm from the oven! We arrived at the meeting point early, and as we sat there waiting we noticed a group of geriatrics with Power Ts and state of Tennessee key chains. Alas, it was indeed a tour group from Knoxville following in the steps of Saint Paul. What a small world!

We boarded the bus and were soon thankful that we had not rented a car and tried to trek to Delphi ourselves. The guide was delightful, and I think I actually learned a few things! J Along the way, the guide pointed out Mt. Helicon (where the muses lived) and the Oedipus crossroads where he killed his father as the oracle had said. As we passed through the farmlands of western Greece, he showed us a selection of John Deere tractors and gave us a lecture on the future of Greek cotton farming. Apparently, the Greeks grow wheat in the winter, clover in the spring, and cotton in the summer. They obviously have no boll weevil problem as we do in the South, because their fields were absent of those boll weevil things that you see in most every southern cotton field.

The observations of Greek life by the guide were quite imaginative. He described the typical Greek day as “Drink a cup of coffee and head to work at 9. Stop for a break around 10:30 and eat your real breakfast or a snack. Stop for lunch around 2-2:30 and sometimes follow it with a siesta until about 4. Work until 7 or so and then head to dinner around 9 or 10.” Interesting, eh? Would we as Americans be a nicer, healthier, less stressed out people if we followed a more leisurely European lifestyle?

As such, we stopped at several rest stops on the way to and from Delphi. I found it rather annoying as I would just doze off when we would stop! We have truck stops in America too! However, at the last truck stop I did happen upon the neatest thing for my nerd collection. Remember the Fisher-Price farm and house that you played with as a kid? Apparently Playmobil has a collection of Roman soldiers complete with warship, battle chariot, and towers! I was so excited, but I resisted the urge to buy the 15 euro centurion set.

Back to Delphi-When I told all of my teacher friends about my Greece plans, they all came back with the same reply- make sure that you go to Delphi. You will love it! Perched high upon Mt. Parnassus, the view itself was gorgeous. What is interesting about this oracle, rather than the more elusive oracle at Cumae which I visited two summers ago, are the archaeological remains which are many years older than the Roman ones. Mom and I really got a sense of the process of worship and the way one would go about requesting and receiving information from the oracle.

When you walked in the site, you first saw the Roman agora where there are many Christian relics and what looked to me to be tombs. You proceeded along the Sacred way viewing remains of treasuries of several different cities built in thanks by cities victorious in war and where the supplicant would store an offering for Apollo. Then we proceeded to the temple itself where along the way you could see the Greek that had been inscribed upon the walls. Apparently, on the architrave of the temple were inscribed sayings of the famous Greek philosophers such as “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.”

The temple itself was two stories. The oracular process goes something like this: the oracle(usually a young girl but later an old woman..) sat on a tripod in front of a cavern that emitted vaporous fumes. The supplicant would ask a question something like “Will I win the war?” and the oracle would go into a trance and mutter something unintelligible which a priest would then translate into verse. The answers were usually vague, something like “you will win the war but lose the city” or in the case of Oedipus “you will kill your father and marry your mother.”

Above the temple, there was a nicely preserved theatre where plays were held during the Pythian games (kind of like the Olympic games held every four years) and the best preserved stadium in ancient Greece. You could still see the starting blocks. At this point, I was rather crunched for time so I ran up to see the Castilian springs where the supplicants cleansed themselves before visiting the oracle.

I ran back down to the entrance of the Delphi museum, trying to avoid the throngs of Greek schoolchildren who were running around totally out of control and plotting to ruin my idyllic day. The Delphi museum actually had some great finds (you can never tell with some museums) including a great sphinx, some Spartan armor, and a bronze charioteer which is their showpiece. The tour guide made an interesting observation about how all art is influenced by the cultures to which the artist is exposed. That is some food for thought.

Delphi helped me put a lot of pieces together in my brain. Because I didn’t last but a week in Greek class at UT and never took a Greek civ class, I felt like that was a big hole in my education, which was exposed to a large extent as I read Ovid and Catullus with my AP kids this past year. It is difficult to explain how I “get” literary references and have a better sense of place now that I have visited Delphi.

Our next stop was lunch, which we had at a hotel restaurant overlooking the valley of Mt. Parnassus. It would have been a great place to stay in the winter-there looked to be some great ski trails. The menu was moussaka (which, if you told yourself that it did not contain eggplant was actually pretty good), Greek salad, some really odd tasting lamb accompanied by potatoes drenched in olive oil, and some fresh cherries for dessert.

On our way home, we visited Arahova, a place famous for its rugs and textiles. My cynical spirit sat there thinking, “You are trying to sell us rugs and it is 85 degrees outside!” It was obviously a tourist trap, as I saw the same designs in a Plaka shop later.