Today, we had scheduled a full-day guided tour to Delphi. The car arrived at 8am, so we had to rise early to shower and have our breakfast. We were pleasantly surprised to note that our guide for the day was the same person (Giorgi) that showed us around the Parthenon and Acropolis on the previous day. We were also introduced to the driver who's name also happened to be Giorgi. It was a Friday, so traffic was a bit heavy in the downtown areas of Athens but as soon as we were on the highway, it cleared up and we were able to make good time. The landscape changed quickly from flat/crowded/metropolitan to scenic and mountainous. We passed by a very large lake that supposedly supplies water to Athens and is thus experiencing rapid reduction in its level. Almost 40% of Greece's population lives in Athens so it's a city that consumes the majority of natural sources of water that are available. There are very few rivers in Greece and rainfall is scarce, so almost all the water that is available is from lakes that are fed by snow melting in spring from the many mountains in Greece.
The region that Athens belongs to is called Attica and this region is largely mountainous. As we continued on into the neighboring region (Boeotia) which is mostly flat and plateau-like, the driver picked up speed and reached speeds exceeding 140kmph (90mph). Speed limits on highways in Greece go up to 130 kmph which is higher than any interstate in the US. But, the weird thing is that the speed limit changes very frequently and varies widely between 80kmph and 130kmph, so it makes almost impossible to use the cruise control feature. Within a distance of 2-3 km, the driver may see speed limit signs varying anywhere between 80kmph, 100kmph, 120kmph & 130kmph! Thankfully, most drivers in Greece don't really pay attention to the speed limit, so we sped along at 140kmph for a very long time. As a result, we reached Delphi in less than 2-1/2 hrs, way less than the 3 hours estimate that we were given initially.
Delphi is located on the slopes of Mt Parnassos which creates a stunning visual backdrop with steep cliffs, huge mountains and valleys. The site of Delphi contains ruins of the Temple of Apollo. There are many stories and legends about the various spots at the site which the guide told us about. Too many to cover in this blog but I'm sure they're all available in Wikipedia, Reddit and other online sources of information. After visiting the ruins, we proceeded to the museum where there were several of the artifacts that archeologists had retrieved from the ruins and kept for safekeeping and security.
After the tour of the museum got over, we went to a nearby town and had lunch in a small restaurant (To Patriko Mas) with an amazing view of the mountains and valleys. We invited both the Giorgis to have lunch with us, so we had a nice time getting to know them better. After lunch, we drove back to Athens with a brief stop at Arachova for a few selfies with a backdrop of the mountains and valleys.
In the evening, after resting for a bit, we decided to go out and get a bite to eat. We weren't very hungry so we went back to Vegan Beat and had a pita with various types of dips. After that, we stopped by another vegan/sugar-free ice cream place called Sugar Killer and enjoyed a couple of flavors of ice cream from there.
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