Days 19 & 20 - Delphi to Athens to Athens

We’ve got some internet troubles at our hotel here in Athens, so no pictures right now, I will try to upload some if our internet situation improves here or if the internet access is better when we get to Rome.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to post two days at once again, but I’m going to give it a shot again. This post will cover yesterday and today.

Yesterday we went to Delphi. Delphi was the religious center of Greece and much of the surrounding world. There was a temple to Apollo at Delphi, and at the temple they had an oracle that people believed Apollo spoke through (Apollo was the god of divination.) It started out that one day a year (April 7th) the Pythoness (priestess) would come out and answer questions. Eventually they would do it once a month (the seventh day after the new moon) nine months a year (Apollo apparently wintered somewhere else.) So nine days a year people would come to Delphi to ask the oracle what they should do. The oracle always gave these mysterious answers that could mean anything, but people believed they were from the god. There was a king (I think the Lydian king, they had a city in what is now Sardis, Turkey. One of my favorites on this trip) who asked the oracle if he should go to war against the Persians. The oracle answered that if he warred against the Persians, a great kingdom would be destroyed. So, thinking that the oracle gave him the ok to go to war, he attacked the Persians and lost and his kingdom was destroyed.

Ten percent of the spoils from battle always went to the gods, and Delphi was where that ten percent was offered. So there were all sorts of monuments that were built as offerings to the gods at Delphi. Most of them are gone, but a few of the Athenian things were still there. One of them was a treasury that the Athenians built to commemorate their victory over the Persians at Marathon.

We had a beautiful day at Delphi, so it was really fun to hike up the mountain and look at all the stuff. I was even able to crawl underneath the foundation of the temple of Apollo where the Pythoness would go to get the answers of the questions from Apollo. That was fun; I also hiked up to the top section of the city on the mountain and saw the theater and stadium that were there. You’re not allowed to climb on a lot of that stuff in Greece like you are in Turkey, but it was fun to see stuff that was in really good shape.

After Delphi we drove to Athens. Athens is a really cool city. We had great weather here yesterday, and today the high was in the mid fifties, which is great. After we checked into the hotel last night we walked out and saw some of the city. We saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, which became I lot more impressive when I found out that each of their shoes weighed six pounds (there was a whole lot of high stepping and holding the feet out in the air.) Then we went to a gyro place, had dinner, and then walked out and took some pictures of the Acropolis at night.

Today we went out and saw the remains of the temple to Zeus, then went over to the acropolis, where we saw the Dionysus theater, which is the oldest theater in Europe, then we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis. There we had a great view of the city, and the Parthenon and another temple was up there too. It was a great place to see the old Agora, Mars hill and other old places in the city. After spending some time up there taking pictures we went down to Mars hill, where Paul may have made his defense to the Areopagus. Then we went down to the old Agora, and went to the other place where Paul’s defense to the Aeropause may have taken place.

All of that stuff was great, but seeing the theater was one of my favorites since it is so old, then every famous Athenian has probably seen a play there. If Socrates or Plato had seen a play in Athens, they would have seen it there. Pericles was probably there, Alcibiades probably lived there. If Paul went to see a play in Athens it would have been there (and there is an interesting line in his defense to the Areopagus that is very reminiscent of Aeschylus’ Eumenides.) And the great Greek playwrights, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides probably all debuted plays there.

After that it was on to lunch and then the Athens Archeological museum. When we got back from the museum we had a little church service, and that was it for the group activities for the day.

I went out to dinner with my roommate Brian and some other people, we went to a crepe restaurant where I got a calzone, but should have gotten a crepe. After dinner we walked over to a hill in the city called the hill of the muses and hiked up it. It is pretty close to the Acropolis, and gave us a beautiful view of the city. It was such a pretty night, it was great sitting up there and looking over at the Acropolis and out over the rest of the city.

Now is a good time to note one of the really strange things that I’ve noticed in almost every city we’ve been to, in both Turkey and Greece. There are stray dogs everywhere. In the places where there aren’t stray dogs, there are stray cats. And we have a tendency to pick of the dogs as members of our groups. They just follow us along, herd the people at the back, and bark at cars or motorcycles that drive by.

I don’t know if it is us or the dogs, but even tonight, when six of us hiked up to the hill of the muses, we picked up two dogs that followed us up, down and almost all the way back to the hotel, about a two hour walk. They even chased off some other strays that got close to us, it was pretty cool.

Well I had better go; tomorrow we’re driving down to Corinth and then back to Athens for the night. Then Tuesday morning we fly to Rome. As always, thanks for reading and until tomorrow…