Monday, November 17, 2008

Delph-a-licious

This past weekend I took one of my last field trips with CYA. We spent Saturday and Sunday in the area known as Delphi, which is about 2 hours Northwest of Athens. I was with my Athletics class because Delphi is the last of the four sites of the Panathenic festivals. We stopped in the ski town of Arachava for a quick snack and some sightseeing. The town reminds me of small New England ski towns, very picturesque and one main street. The stores were mostly bakeries and fur stores, which sold David Crockett like hats. Priceless.

We drove about 30 minutes to the site of Delphi and spent about an 2 hours at the ancient gymnasium and temples. The gym in ancient athletics was used more as a warm up and cool down area then as a place of heavy lifting. Anyway, after we checked in to our hotel which looked out in the Arcadia mountains, I met up with my professor to go on his voluntary hike.

The EU has put together a hiking trail that connects all the countries of the EU. In essences you should be able to walk the entire EU on these trails. So, we took one of the trails up to the base of the mountain to get a good look over the valley and the archaeological site. It was just nice to be breathing clean air and not have the sounds of blaring car horns filling your ears. Plus the view was spectacular.

The town of Delphi is nothing more then a two street tourist town so there is not much to do in terms of exploring. We had dinner at a local taverna and got hot chocolate afterward. On our way back to the hotel we passed by some traditional Greek dancing in one of the local tavernas so we stopped and watched that for a little.

The next day we spent on site from about 8:30-1:00. We started at the stadium, where we were bombarded by Asian tourists who ended up video taping one of my classmates as they were giving their presentations. Weird. Anyway, we got to see the ancient stadium, theater, treasury, and temples. We also visited the museum and saw a charioteer figure.

The trip was enjoyable and probably my favorite of all of the athletic sites we visited. Olympia was just too big with not a lot of the structures preserved. It was cold at Delphi but thats ok.. I know I soon will be back in my Florida sunshine!

Rome in 3 days...!

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