Ancient Delphi

and its mysterious all-seeing oracle

By Where's Herr Gruber?

December 10^th, 2020

Kalispera!

Last time you heard from us we told you all about our relaxed stay on Lefkada Island and all the chilling that was involved in that. Must sound like a great way to spend your days to you guys back home. However, we were getting a bit too relaxed, starting to wondering what the purpose of life was and in that moment we knew we should maybe leave the island behind. Before doing absolutely nothing would drive us insane, basically. Please don't judge, we are millennials after all. So... we left Lefkada in search of broader horizons, looking for some very interesting ancient stones.

Delphi

And what is a visit to Greece without a visit to Delphi, one of the most famous ancient stone collections of all times? According to the old Greek myths it is the navel of the earth, a sacred place where human beings could directly communicate with the gods themselves. According to the Lonely Planet, its one of the highlights of Greece, resulting in a heavily day-tripped place with hoards of tourists. Well, LP, not in corona times it is.

So, on a sunny afternoon, we found ourselves driving Herr Gruber up some very windy roads and arriving in the village of Delphi. While Simon was doing the daily bakery stop (cheese pie anyone?), Herr Gruber gathered some Greek fans around him. "Nice car! You can going everywhere? Nice, nice! You sleeping inside? Nice, nice, nice!" After a nice conversation with these lovely Greeks, we drove a tiny bit more and parked directly at the entrance to the beautifully situated and serene Ancient Delphi. We will not bore you too much with tales of our visit to and the history of the site, but we will enlighten you a bit about the oracle of Delphi.

The Oracle of Delphi

In the ancient Greek world Delphi was not only the center of the world, but also a very important sacred site and home to the Sanctuary of Apollo. People would come from all over to consult their god in making important life decisions. Apollo obviously did not feel like talking to common people himself, so he used the oracle of Delphi as a tool for communication. The oracle was often an older woman, giving people a glimpse of the future and thereby guiding them in making important life decisions. You could call her a witch, a fortune teller, a priestess or just very high on forbidden substances, but the fact remains that her guidance was in high demand. Even though her prophecies were sometimes very vague and could be interpreted one way or the other...

Violetta's Bella Vista

The best thing about sightseeing all day, was that we could just jump in Herr Gruber and return to Violetta. Who is Violetta you might ask? The owner of Bella Vista and the maker of delicious food. Also very kind and friendly. On our way to Delphi we parked up next to Violetta's seaside taverna and asked if we could have dinner and later sleep next to the taverna as well. To which she replied: "no problem, stay one week, two weeks, two months!" We stayed two nights and both evenings we ate delicious food, played cards, watched Greek tv and chatted with the village elderly since the restaurant also doubled as the village hang out spot. Each morning Violetta would put on some piano music and make us a cappuccino. While enjoying the morning sun, drinking our coffee, looking out over the Gulf of Corinth, life was just about perfect. Efharistó polí, Violetta!

That was it for now, expect more stories on ancient stones and rocks in future updates! Lockdown in Greece just got extended until the 7th of January. We are very happy and grateful that we can stay at the farm for the time being and to celebrate the holidays here. We hope everyone back home is doing well and all is good!