Delphi
Delphi is over-day-tripped. The standard Athens itinerary buses guests in at eleven, runs them around the sanctuary at the worst possible hour, and buses them out by three. The site deserves better. Drive up the evening before, sleep in Arachova or in the small village of Delphi above the site, and arrive at opening — eight in summer, on a fresh morning when the only sound is wind and the cicadas in the cypresses. The transformation is total.
The ancients called Delphi the omphalos, the navel of the world, marked by a sacred stone in the inner sanctuary. The Pythia, priestess of Apollo, delivered prophecies from a chamber above a fissure in the rock from which fumes rose; modern geological analysis has identified ethylene and methane vapours in the spring water beneath the temple, which would account for the priestess's reportedly altered state. Whether or not the vapours are the explanation, no significant decision in the ancient Greek world was made without first consulting the oracle.
The Sacred Way switchbacks up through the sanctuary, lined with the foundations of treasuries (small marble strongrooms in which rival city-states displayed their offerings), past the Temple of Apollo with its inscribed maxims, to the theatre and the stadium higher up the slope. Allow two hours on the site itself. The Charioteer of Delphi, a near-perfect bronze of the early classical period rescued from a fifth-century BC chariot dedication, is in the museum at the entrance, and is one of the very few surviving original ancient Greek bronzes (most we know in marble Roman copies). Do not skip the museum.
The Castalian Spring runs at the foot of the Phaedriades cliffs above the site; ancient pilgrims washed here before consulting the oracle. The water has been redirected away from the original fountain, but the gorge is dramatic and worth the short walk. Stay one night, possibly two if you want to walk the trails up to the Korykian cave or the village of Kastri.
House Notes
The address
Santa Marina Arachova, on the slope above the village — 20 suites and two villas (Villa Delphi, Villa Eniochos), with the Ōsme Spa under the same roof. The mountain sibling of Santa Marina Mykonos, built by Elias Papageorgiou on a property facing Mount Parnassos. The pedigree address for a client arriving the night before the site.
The olive grove
The plain below Delphi holds the Amphissa olive grove — 5,500 hectares from Amphissa down to the Corinthian Gulf, between the villages of Erateini and Kirra, approximately 1,200,000 trees, 70% over 150 years old. The ancient path to the sanctuary ran through it; the modern road still does. Time the descent for the late-afternoon light.
The Tholos
Below the main sanctuary, in the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia — the gateway to Delphi for ancient pilgrims. The Tholos, the small circular building Theodorus of Phocaea raised in 380–370 BC, originally carried 20 Doric columns on the exterior and 10 Corinthian semi-columns within; three reconstructed Doric columns remain standing today. Many day-trip groups skip the short walk down.
The Sphinx
The Sphinx of the Naxians, around 560 BC — a colossal marble figure on a column of six drums crowned with one of the earliest Ionian capitals at the sanctuary, the monument standing 12.45 metres in its original height. The Naxians dedicated it to Apollo at the peak of their archaic wealth. It is now displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi; fragments first surfaced in 1860, the rest in 1893.
The European Cultural Centre
The European Cultural Centre of Delphi, founded in 1977 by Konstantinos Karamanlis under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The grounds run to 100 acres on the slope below the village — a conference centre, a guesthouse, a sculpture park of contemporary European works, and an open-air theatre seating 1,000. The International Meetings on Ancient Drama have run from 1985 onwards.
The Athenian Treasury
On the first turn of the Sacred Way below the Temple of Apollo, the Athenian Treasury — the earliest Doric treasury built entirely of Parian marble, raised by the Athenians after 490 BC in thanks for Marathon. The metopes on the building are reproductions; the originals are in the museum at the gate. It is the one strongroom on the climb to read closely before the temple.
Hosios Loukas
The Byzantine detour east of Delphi, near Distomo on the slopes of Mount Helikon. Hosios Loukas was founded in the mid-tenth century by the hermit Loucas Stereiotis; the smaller Theotokos church is the earliest known four-column cross-in-square in Greece, and the larger Katholikon, dated 1011–12, is the earliest extant domed-octagon and holds the best preserved mosaics of the Macedonian Renaissance. UNESCO-listed since 1990.
Galaxidi
Galaxidi, the eighteenth-century merchant marine town on the Corinthian Gulf south-west of Delphi. Its Nautical & Historical Museum, Greece's oldest of the kind, occupies the 1870 town hall on Mouseiou & Stavrou Niarchou Street — 5,000 years of the local naval life and the largest assemblage of Greek sailing-ship paintings in the country. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 to 15:00. Dinner on the harbour after.
The kitchen
Dasargyris, on Delfon 56 in the heart of Arachova — close to a century of the same kitchen, the address for ribs, kokoretsi, kontosouvli, and the slow-cooked casseroles the mountain village makes its winter on. Service is at a single rustic hall beside the fireplace; the menu does not stretch beyond meat done well. Book ahead in February through April; the Athenians come up for skiing.
The Stadium
At the highest point of the sanctuary, above the theatre between the Phaedriades and the hill of Agios Ilias, the Stadium of Delphi — the best preserved in Greece, the track 177 metres long, the seating raised for around 6,500. Most groups turn back at the theatre and never make the last climb; the via sacra carries on up to it. Take it in the early cool, before the heat sits in the gorge.