Delphi

Temple of Athena

Greece was an absolutely amazing trip.  It's going to take me a little while to get through it all, but hopefully it's worth it!  I took way too many pictures, and will probably be posting more than is really necessary, but part of my experience is also your vicarious experience, so I will just post pictures to my hearts content.  If you get bored, come back another time!

The day we arrived in Greece, Chris met Arvay and I at the airport because he had flown in a day earlier.  We picked up our rental car, grabbed a map, and were off! That's right, we drove through a foreign country with a map.  Chris had printed out directions from Google for all of our drives, however, road names written in Greek are not always easy to quickly find, and that's if they're actually posted out in the countryside.  We managed just fine with the map and following brown signs pointing the way to historic sites.  At least those were also in English most of the time...

Our first day we headed to Delphi.  The Temple of Athena was a huge draw for me...okay, the entire country was a huge draw for me!  I love mythology, and seeing the places where the gods were worshiped was a lovely experience.  Truly though, Athena's temple was one of my favorite things to see on the trip, and I got to see it the day we arrived!  We also saw an athletic stadium that is still at the sight the night of arrival before we wandered around Delphi looking for dinner.

A VERY old athletic stadium!

The view from the balcony in our room.

After breakfast the next morning, we wandered back to the ruins and toured the rest of the Roman Agora (the ruins at Delphi).  One of the best parts about being in Greece during the off-season was the lack of people at many of the sights we wanted to see.  Seriously, when we were in Delphi there were 2 other people, a dog, and a stray cat.

Kitty was loving his belly rub

Treasury of the Athenians

Temple of Apollo

The Theatre

 

Sculpture detail from one of the buildings.  Many things that were found on site are now in the museum there.

There were many, many beautiful pieces of pottery in the museums.

Lions!  Lions Everywhere!  I love them!!!!

Bits and pieces that were left from a decorative piece from a trunk.  This particular group made me happy :)

Sphinx!  They were everywhere!  Most people associate them with Egypt, but we saw them pretty much everywhere we went.