Monday
18th June I got out to the Delphic site just after it
opened at 8.00. The first thing I went to, just before the Roman Agora, was a
sewerage drain or some such that I think went under the flagstones of the Agora.
Anyway, it had a bend in it and was big enough to crawl through.
Then up the Sacred Way, past all the ruined treasure houses to the
Treasury of the Athenians, which is restored. There are inscriptions and
wreaths of laurel leaves engraved upon the walls; other inscriptions on the
Supporting Polygonal Wall below the Temple of Apollo, and behind the Portico
(or Stoa) of the Athenians, and on other walls. An area of stone blocks was
smoothed before the inscription was inscribed. I saw a block by itself with
Or
something similar carved on it. Also, down in the Roman Agora, were quite a few
representations of crosses [as far as I can Google-tell, many of them are Order of
Christ crosses].
Just below the wall of the T. of A. are a few steps. The down steps lead
to another little tunnel which was the site of a spring, apparently. I had a
little explore of this, of course, though not much to see.
I
went round the Temple and back to the Grand Altar where I sat for a little
while with American Tim, who was drawing one of the columns. Then up to the
Portico of Attalos, which is just off the main site and is where few people go –
it’s very overgrown. There’s a lot more below it that is overgrown but it is
outside the sanctuary. From there I was on my way up to the theatre when I
joined Ken and Chris, tow Americans at the hostel, so we went up together. The
theatre looks smaller than I remember it [from 1970], but it is roped off and the holes
in the floor have been patched up with small blocks of different coloured
marble.
We
went up to the Stadium. Ho-hum. It is more impressive than the Olympian one,
mainly because it has over half of its original seats. Then down again, to the
Western Portico, which is also off the main site. Near there are a couple of
railway tracks and lots of stone blocks in rows (these are also on the site,
these stone row arrangements. I don’t know what they’re going to do with them.)
After going over the Best Site in Greece, we went down to the Museum,
where everything is labelled in Greek and French because it was the French who
did the excavating here. But it’s still interesting, though the building looks
quite new. There are fragments of a large silver bull, and a statue of a bloke
in bronze with bits of flattened bronze spaghetti in his hand. [Yeah, okay, it
was the famous Charioteer of Delphi.]
Back in Delphi village we had ham and cheese rolls for lunch then did
nothing at the hostel for a few hours. Then at 3 or 4 o’clock, we climbed out
of the village and up right above the end of the Stadium, among pine trees that
grow there, to the beginning of a good stone path that snakes its way up the
side of the mountain. You can’t see this path from below.
Going up, and coming down this path, we saw three tortoises (I had seen
one down at the Treasure House of Boeotia earlier in the day), lemon yellow
butterflies with big gold yellow spots on their forewings (these are on Ithaca
too) (not the gold yellow spots, the butterflies), bright green lizards, and
probably the same seagulls that I saw on my walk yesterday when they were just
soaring around calling to each other, happy to be flying. Plant life on the
whole was of the low shrub variety and wildflowers. A few green chicken wire
examples, a shrub with holly leaf-type leaves, other bushes of the lacerating
kind (if you had to walk through them and weren’t very, very careful).
Along the route are opportunities to clamber onto rocks that jut out
over ancient Delphi, affording a spectacular view of the site and the valley.
The theatre was partly obscured by some rocks below on the first point we went
to, so I went over to one a little bit higher and to the left (or right). What
better way to see Delphi than looking down on it from such a height? It’s
something none of the tour groups get to do. (Sucks to them.)
 |
| Looking down on the ruins of Delphi (scan of a big print I made.) |
Anyway, we left our lofty perch and climbed right to the top, where it
considerably flattens out (but not completely), the grass is greener and there
are pine trees. We walked through a gully that probably used to be where the
waters of the Castalian spring once flowed (there’s a pipe running above and
underground down the mountain). There is quite a good dirt road above that
leads to the edge of the cliff. We met two mules on their way to their daily
dust bath. We saw a house, car and a couple of people and turned back and
noticed Mt Parnassus, with a streak of unmelted snow.
On
the way down we got onto a higher rocky point, which was easier to get to than
we first thought, and a superb view. Ken shouted out “Hello” – a strong echo
right next to us, softer echoings in the next little (big) ‘indentation in the
mountain wall’, and once or twice a faint echo from the other side of the
valley.
After lingering for a while, we went back down to the hostel. A very
good three or four hour walk, exceptionally well-worth doing. After having a
shower, I went perusing the souvenir shops and bought a porous stone owl and a
few little clay tortoises. That night, a very strong wind.
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