This morning we taxi’d outside of the city center to meet our guide for the day, Tolis (short for Apostolis.) It’s record breaking hot in Athens so we were happy to escape the heat for a day trip in an air conditioned van with five others.

After a few hours drive we reached Delphi. Greek’s believe that Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi was the center of the world. There’s various stories as to the origin of the site — Zeus threw a rock and it landed at the site; two eagles let loose in opposite directions and they converged on Delphi, etc. Today it’s a UNESCO heritage site and there’s a decent sized accompanying museum.

Due to the heat, the site was closing at Noon so we had one hour to walk through which was plenty of time. We walked among the ruins, including the treasury, the theater and the Temple of Apollo, which was the sight of the oracle. After exploring the museum and its’ artifacts, Tolis and our driver took us to a town 30 minutes away called Arachova which is a popular resort town in winter as skiing is 30 minutes over the next mountain. Set high on the mountain and overlooking an endless valley of olive trees, it was very picturesque.

We grabbed lunch: spaghetti for Miss M, Greek salad and what I thought was a cheese boereg for me but it ended up being a ham and cheese spring roll thing (bouregkakia), zucchini flowers, pork chops for Paul and a burger stuffed with cheese for D.

Afterwards, we walked a bit, saw the exterior of St. George’s church, and then had milkshakes to help keep ourselves cool from the heat.

Subway back to the hotel and then a rest in the air conditioning.

We did some clothes shopping, which we always like to do when in Europe since the prices are so good, and then went to Tylixto for gyros: an XL pork and chicken combo for Paul, chicken for me, pork no fries for D, pork for Miss M.

We strolled a bit after dinner, D grabbed a trio of semifreddo pops and then we went to 360 Cocktail Bar for drinks with a view of the Acropolis. A great way to end the night!