One of the day trips that wasn’t too far from Athens was the ruins of the ancient city of Delphi. After winding through the mountainous countryside, you stumble upon the town laid out amongst the hillsides. The immense size and scale of the ruins is truly a site to see.
One of the first things that are noticeable from the ruins is the incredible views that you get at each level of the complex. The rolling mountains populating the valley provide an immensity that is quite rarely matched in daily life. You feel as if you’re a lilliputian looking up at Gulliver.
As for the site itself, it’s famed for housing the Oracle of Delphi. The oracle was a woman who was said to have the capabilities to speak to the Gods and foretell prophecies for the people who came to visit her. She garnered attention from all around Greece and the surrounding nations for the accuracy and impact she had.
The ruins have many levels, each with a centerpiece structure within it. There is a former Athenian treasury, a theatre, a town square/hall, and a stadium. The interesting aspect of the stadium was that it was at the top of the site, not at the bottom. It easily spanned the size of a football field and was over 200 feet higher than the base of the ruins. It makes you marvel at the building expertise and ingenuity to build such an impressive structure with more modest tools than we have today. It also makes you realize how old the world really is as you see pottery, structures, and paths that were created and touched by people who lived thousands of years before you. It helps to put “history” into perspective as opposed to just reading a book or learning about it in a class.
