Day 10 - Delphi

Day 10. - 19 September 2016

Let's start with a brief word about toilets in Greece. All you are allowed to flush down them is what comes out of your body! For the paper, there's a little bin next to the toilet. Takes a bit of getting used to. 😬

Anyway, I woke up at 04:15 😱 this morning. OMG it's supposed to be a holiday so why do I get up so early! Showered, dressed and then loitered around in my room until 05:00. I sorted out the bill last night (€70.00 for two nights) so I just had to unlock the front door of the hotel and let myself out. Can you believe it, it was raining. When I got up there was lightning in the distance. Got to the station at 05:15. Dark, locked up and nothing going on. About 5 minutes later, a woman came along and opened up. I bought my ticket (€22.40) and waited. In all, we must have been about 15 people. The first leg of the trip was to Paleofarsalos. It made a couple more stops and picked up more passengers. We got off and waited for the connecting train from Thessaloniki. It was 15 minutes late. Off we went with the sun starting to rise.

From Paleofarsalos to Levadia took 2 hours. We had thunderstorms, lightning and rain for about the first hour, then the sky started to clear.
Got off at Levadia. Only 1 taxi. I ended up having to wait for him to come back. At the moment I am sitting at the stop waiting for the bus from Athens. It gets here at 12:00 and I will be in Delphi by 13:00. I've had a lovely cup of coffee and a Nutella filled donut.

The weather is OK. Warm and windy. Makes me feel at home. The tour buses are streaming past on their way to Delphi. I'll go to the museum later in the afternoon when the buses have left. Tomorrow I need to be up early because I'm going to be at the gates early so that I can have the site mostly to myself.
Later.....
The bus eventually arrived 20 minutes late. Everybody streamed off to smoke, drink, eat and ablute. I'm so lucky. There were only 2 empty seats left on the bus. If they had been taken, I would have had to wait until 16:00 for the next bus. It was a quick 50 minute drive through a winding pass. Only cost €4.50. I'm staying at Hotel Sibylla and it's 200m from the bus station. The bus station itself is just a sign outside a shop. Dropped my bags off at the hotel and walked around town. At about 16:00 I walked down to the museum. The ticket costs €12:00 and is valid for the museum as well as the archaeological site. I can use it over 2 days, so as planned, I will go to the site tomorrow morning at 08:00.

Delphi must have been magnificent in its heyday. Unfortunately not much is left after earthquakes, Romans plundering and barbarian sacking. The museum is small, but contains some nice pieces. Walked out into a storm.

Thunder and lightning and hard rain. Walked very swiftly back to the hotel. I opened the French doors leading to the balcony and enjoyed the respite from the heat. Haven't done too much since. I'm going to have an early supper and then to bed. It's been a long day and I'm tired. I want to be at the site by 08:00 and after that take a taxi ti the Monastery of Osios Loukas.

Levadia

Delphi

Sibylla Hotel

Delphi Museum