Nicole: “You know how everyone’s always saying seize the moment? I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking it’s the other way around. You know, like the moment seizes us.”
-Boyhood (2014)
Go-Date: Day 9. February 1
Lesson Learned: What tour book said “Never drive in Greece”? Bullshit. We rented a car out by the airport and got to the highway and headed to central Greece. We had visions of drunken drivers, lousy roads, close calls with death, and white-knuckled transit throughout the country. Did I say Bullshit? It has been a marvelous experience so far. Great roads, courteous drivers, wide shoulders, and a world of difference between the Beltway, I-35, West Virginia, or even the mountain roads in New Mexico. It’s been great. I highly recommend touring Greece outside of Athens in your own vehicle. Even in Athens, which I discourage driving, not because of crazy traffic, but because parking is a bitch. Do it, enjoy it, see the country not from the seat in a 40-person bus on a rigid schedule.
Lesson Learned 2: There are over 2.5 million olive trees planted in groves around Delphi. Look out a window, its about the only type tree you’ll see. In fact, you don’t purchase land around here, if you want a parcel of land, you purchase the number of olive trees on the plot. Olives are life around here.
Regrets: Oh, hell forget that.
On the road again.
Set out from Athens to see the country. First to Delphi, then on to Meteora and beyond. The roads were fine and the three hour drive was uneventful and the scenery interesting. Even as you rise up into the mountains it was great. Delphi, in the off season is a sleepy little town, maybe I should say catatonic, but there were enough cafés open that we never had to settle for less than a great meal.
First, on the way to Delphi, we passed through Arahova. It’s a cute little village…. think of a Colorado ski resort town, it was buzzing on February 1 as we passed through. Pedestrians everywhere, crowded cafes, narrow streets. If I had skis it looked like heaven, even though we never saw the slopes or the ski runs. Definitely a nice place for a stay.
Delphi, on the other hand, is a summer town. Half the town was closed. The other half had discounted rates. The town is basically divided by three streets. The lower street is the busiest, going one-way the opposite direction we wanted to go, so we diverted to the second street. This is again one-way (though the locals treat that as merely a suggestion) and traversed the town in about 2 minutes until we did a hairpin up onto the last major (loosely termed) through-way up to our hotel. Hotel Orfeas. Pleasant host, great location, good parking (host moved the plastic chair in front of the hotel so we could park our car), and a room you would have found in an old Mickey Spillane novel. When you opened the door, the red curtains bathed the room in a crimson light, enough to make a New Orleans hooker jealous as it looked like the lobby to the Bunny Ranch.
But then, I opened the curtains and the view was worth a million bucks. Still, that didn’t compensate for the dismal condition of the bed which was horrible. Try sleeping on a plywood sheet with a layer of cottage cheese on top. Well, nothing is perfect. We spent three nights here and all I will say is we survived. The breakfast included a hard boiled egg, sponge cake, cookies, slices of lunch meat and cheese, wonderful yogurt with cherries swimming in the fabulous Greek honey. (I seriously want to mention how great the honey in this country is). And Nescafe instant coffee.
OK, I’ve always disliked instant coffee, but perhaps I’ve never given it a chance. Nescafe was really pretty good. I will also say, in Athens if you asked for a simple cup of coffee they really didn’t understand. They just drink the normal Starbucks fare of Lattes, Capacinos, the Greek Frappes, and Greek coffee which to me is the same as Turkish coffee. So, it was nice to have two or three cups of black, strong coffee.
Dining in town was great. People were friendly and we NEVER had a bad meal. Cheaper than Athens, too. Ask, and people were happy to explain anything. Its really nice that so many people spoke English.
Ancient Delphi
This site, rivals anything you can find in Athens. Amazing.
Some of the artifact here are from 600 BC. The things you will find will amaze you. This place, way off the beaten path from anywhere was significantly important to ancient Greeks. Except that apparently, big decisions all required input from the Oracle (who seems to have been a local girl picked to be the big tomatoe) so, what can you expect? Of course, she predicted that Oedipus would murder his father and marry his mother, so she was right some of the time. To mention ole Oedipus, if you look closely, you’ll pass right over where he done ol’ dad in (its on a three-way intersection with a marker on the side) or so they say ( I missed it….too many olive trees in the way).
Well, on our last day we took a road trip out of town to Itea and Glaxidi and they were nice. Not sell your house and move nice, but really picturesque except for all the vacant buildings and empty store fronts. You can really see that Greece’s economic woes really hit home at the local level.
On the good front, we’ve seen lots of construction cranes and new construction projects under way, so hopefully recovery for the country is well in progress. We love this place.