Sept. 6

Photo: Temple of Apollo at Delfi as seen from the theater

Day 10 September 6

We spent most of the day on the bus. We were supposed to have stayed last night in Olympia, but because of the damage by the fires we stayed an extra night in Sparta. Along the way to Delfi [or Delphi] we stopped by the Trikoupis Bridge which is one of the biggest cable bridges in the world. Don’t ask me what that means, but our architecture majors were really impressed. Delfi itself is a very small town that seemed to have more tourists than residents. The Delfi museum is second only to the National Museum according to Prof. It is very big and very well explained. Some of the statues and monuments that were housed there are huge. Since Delfi was thought to be the center of the world, a lot of different cultures sent great gifts to the temple there. The temple itself is very big, but their theater is average sized from what I’ve seen. Sports were considered an art back in Ancient Greece and included in the large competitions that Delfi held every four years in the Pythian Games. Four cities rotated these games every year: Delfi, Athens, Corinth, and Olympia. Somehow along the way the poetry and theater got dropped and we are left with the Olympics as we know them. It was a long climb up to the top of the stadium, and when we got there we couldn't even get into the seats! We just had to walk around on the main level. Understandable because it's so old, but it still would have been nice to sit down after the climb.