The photo above is the Athena Pronaia Temple near Delphi. Tom took it. He’s really improving his photo skills and it’s so much fun to watch happen!
Today was the 1 of 2 scary things we will do. We picked up a rental car in Athens. The second scary thing is when we return the rental car in Athens. They back the car off the sidewalk and have you jump in. You have 0.05 seconds before someone honks because you aren’t moving. Then you have a series of one way streets (Where someone else happened to be driving the wrong way. Which happens very often.) until you make it to a highway. And then you breathe. And then you pass through your first toll booth and you breathe a second time, because now it feels normal again. And there are bugs splattering your windshield and grain elevators and you swear you are in Texas in the springtime.
Tom hopped up this morning and walked to the Agora that we missed yesterday. I took the time to finish up my laundry. It had to be laid out all over the apartment because while the AirBnB offered ”Private laundry facilities” it turned out that washing/drying combo was just a washer. So I cheated like a cranky old lady, closed all the doors on one room, and cranked up the electric heater with fan. Our clothes were mostly dry by the time I packed them.
And here’s your first real instruction with AirBnB, you don’t mess with that. You pop off your perfect ratings, because it was mostly perfect, and you gently describe ”your mistake” in the comments. I had a brief exchange with the owner last night that indicated she had no intentions of owning it. And I really didn’t care. We have clean clothes. She has the electric bill from hell. We’re even.
Two hours later we’re in Delphi. To my surprise, it’s kind of a ski town. The town about 20 kilometers up the road certainly fits that description. There’s still snow on some mountains. But, Delphi also has a lovely view of the Gulf of Corinth, which we will drive around tomorrow on our way to Olympia. After a series of hairpin turns down the mountain, we’ll be at sea level.
Our surprise for today, offered without any apology from our hotel front desk, is that the museum workers for the UNESCO site of Dephi are on strike today. So by golly have a good day, but don’t do what you came to do. Fortunately there are a couple of non-charge sites to visit, and we sort of did. Tom hiked down to the temple for Athena, but I hung out above. There were butterflies to catch, which I did. One rode in my hand for part of a walk. There was a very nice spring to watch gurgle. But I know better than to put in big hikes two days in a row. And tomorrow we’ll go to the archeological museum and then likely Tom will hike the hill alone to see four columns, which look like all the other columns, and maybe even further to a theater.
So this is where I confess that if you’ve seen one column, you’ve seen them all. It’s kind of like doing the churches in Europe. Yes, each one is awesome, but for the most part they all look alike. When traveling as a couple it’s really a good idea to remember that you are two separate people who have two separate sets of abilities and two unique ideas of how to make a trip great. For the most part we do it by over communicating. Parts of our day sound like we’re a couple of five-year-olds trying to decide on the red popsicle or the orange one. In the end we realize that I can have red, and he can enjoy orange. And it works.
(Someday you’ll get to hear about our navigation strategies. Ooooh, there’s a story.)
So we’re in Delphi. We ate. We hiked. We ate again. I wrote to catch you all up. And now it’s bedtime. The room is not great, but it’s about 75E for one night, and it is clean. I would definitely pick out something else next time and will provide all that in a summary after the trip. But I’m safe, and I swore at the heater long enough that it started working, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
PS – Tom reads everything before it posts. He’s saved you from a few extra typos. 😀
PPS – Tom did not read the PS post until the next day, and of course, he found a typo, which has been fixed.
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