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Posts from the ‘Travel’ Category

Oct 3

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Tips for Visiting Delphi, Greece

Delphi was really amazing and should be a priority on any visit to Greece.  A little bit of advice can usually go a long way, so here are some tips to make sure you enjoy your visit.

1) The Delphi Museum Hours Are Variable

Cybele (left) rides a chariot pulled by a lion who is attacking a Giant, from the north frieze (Gigantomachy) of the Siphnian Treasury, on display in the Delphi Museum

I was warned (by a man in Athens no less) that the Delphi museum had odd hours.  This was strangely confirmed when the three recent guidebooks I consulted all listed different hours for the museum.  Once in Greece, I called ahead and found that the museum was closing at 3pm the day we wanted to go.  We had lunch on the run in Thermopylae and made it to Delphi with a hour for the museum.  Since the archaeological site itself is open from ~8am-8pm everyday, we saw bus loads of tourists dropped off just to look at the ruins because the museum was long closed.  I’d have felt a little cheated if I came all that way and didn’t get to see the famous Charioteer statue, the architectural decorations and votive objects in the museum!

2) Pace Yourself

Delphi is a lot bigger than you think it is and built on a steep hill.  If you really want to see most of the site and enjoy the staggering vistas, budget 4 hours at least to see Delphi.  I suppose you could run through it quickly and just see some parts but you wouldn’t have time to start mentally piecing all the ruins together.  It’s hard to approach a large archaeological like Delphi, which contains almost no complete buildings, and immediately grasp the scale.  It’s pretty rewarding to sit at different vantage points and imagine the ancient city.

Reconstruction of Upper Delphi

I was hoping that things would begin to cool in early September but it was still incredibly hot in Delphi.  Since there is very little shade, try to go first thing in the morning or in the afternoon (3-8pm) like we did.  Take breaks, wear a hat and drink lots of water.

3) Stay the Night in Arachova

Arachova – A more authentic and relaxing alternative to staying in Delphi

As you would imagine, the modern city of Delphi is a tourist trap.  The main street is lined with restaurants and cheap hotels each containing some iteration of Oracle, Apollo, Temple or Zeus in their title.  I guessed as much even before I left the US and made alternate arrangements…

Arachova is about 20min east of Delphi and is a lovely town.  What spares Arachova from the cheesy tourist malaise down the road is its status as a top winter destination for skiers who flock to Mt. Parnassos.  Arachova has great hotels and restaurants to serve the influx of mostly Athenians coming up to ski but is empty in the summer months.  Since the city draws Greek sports enthusiasts, you are spared the kitsch seen in Delphi.  Arachova was a beautiful, peaceful town without the crowds and a more authentic place to hang out .

View down the main street in Arachova

There are several nice hotel options; we stayed at Xenonas Iresioni‏.  It is on the edge of town but only a few minutes walk away from the center of things.  The staff was great and the room was comfortable with the biggest double bed we saw in all of Greece.  When I mentioned to the man at the front desk that I was unable to purchase a Delphi catalog because the museum shop had run out of the English version, he gave be an unused one that they had on hand.  Talk about helpful staff!

Sep 22

Street Art – Hermes

Light on the Rooftop  had an awesome post about street art on Freshly Pressed the other day.  She showed that non-conventional and public art can still be very high quality. I haven’t seen that level of street art while in Europe (unless the Bogside murals count) but I did catch an irreverent cartoon version of a classical Greek god.  I thought it was funny, or at least a funny departure from the typical Hermes iconography.

Hermes, as depicted in antiquity:

Terracotta oil flask depicting Hermes ca. 480–470 BC (Photo: Metropolitan Musuem of Art)

Modern Hermes painted above an abandoned building in Nafplion:  (Google Translate tells me that EPMHE is “Hermes” in Greek if the winged helmet weren’t enough.  On the billboard, he was facing an alligator in a Zoot suit which I am not sure how to interpret.)

Graffiti Hermes in Nafplion

Sep 17

Athens at Night

The Acropolis at night as viewed from above Monastiraki Square

On the flight back from Greece, I was getting excited to post about my trip but I have been a lazy girl since I got back.  Normally I get jet-lag for a day at the most, but I have been out by 8pm almost all week!  I’m finally feeling back to normal and am now sorting through my 600 photos.  Greece was so much fun.  It was one of those 10 day vacations which is so relaxing and so filled with sights that it feels like you were gone a month! (Maybe that’s why it took so long to adjust when I returned…)

In the meantime, here is a Acropolis view taken our first night in Athens from a sixth floor bar on Monastiraki Square.  The view was well worth my 9 Euro Metaxa-sangria (which itself was good too)!

Sep 11

Travel, Fear, and the Legacy of 9/11

I just got back from Greece which was amazing!  I have stories and photos to share, but first a little catch up.  Before the trip I was reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and wrote a little something.  I didn’t post it because I would be missing all the national reflection the week before the anniversary and wanted to see what the mood of the remembrance was like.  Given that my flight from Paris to the US today was half full, I think the point I was originally trying to make is still very valid and so here it is.

We always visit my husband’s family for Thanksgiving.  Last years, I found myself chatting with one of their family friends (let’s call her Donna) after church.  She has one son close to my age that we’ll call Adam, so I made small talk by asking how he was doing.  Here is more or less how it went:

Me: So how is Adam doing?  I haven’t seen him in so long.

Donna:  He is doing wonderful, thank you for asking.  He’s studying in Australia and just loves it there.

Me: That’s so great!  I’ve heard Australia is amazing.

Donna: He definitely thinks so.  And he’s got a pretty serious Australian girl-friend that he is head over heels about.

Me: Oh I love it!  That’s great.  Has he brought her home to meet you yet?

Donna: No, he hasn’t been home in about a year and a half.

Me: So have you gone to see him?

Donna: Oh no dear, I don’t fly.

Me: (Laughing) Oh those long flights aren’t so bad.  You fall asleep and in no time you’re there.  You have to go, you’d have so much fun.  He could give you the real insider tour of Australia!

Donna: Oh no, I don’t fly because of the terrorists.

Me: (serious pause to make sure I heard that right)  What?

Donna: After 9/11, it’s just not safe to fly.  I’ll see him whenever he comes back.

Me: You know that security has really been beefed up.  I fly a lot and feel very safe.

Donna: No, no, it’s just too risky to fly.

So what do you say to that?  Maybe she didn’t want to  admit the flights were too expensive or that she couldn’t get off work or maybe, really she was and is afraid of terrorists.  I know she loves her only son and it must have been killing her not to see him.

The definition of terrorism is the “systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”.  The very purpose of the 9/11 attacks was to damage America and make us fearful so that we would change our daily lives.  When people started making jokes again afterward, you often heard the “…then the terrorist win” phrase, as in “If I can’t get into this movie, then the terrorists win.”  The crux of that joke was that we were not going to give up what we wanted to do in spite of a handful of extremest.  The attacks were a tragedy but I have never had the sense that something like that would happen again.  We, as a country, would not let that happen again.  I’ve never actually met someone (especially then when we were over 9 years past the attack) who was so afraid and was thus giving up so much because of that fear.

A Kangaroo in Australia.

Mr. Kangaroo says, Visit Australia because you can (Photo: Wikipedia)

As I drove home after that conversation, I started doing some math.  Let’s pretend that there is only one flight a day from the US to Sydney.  It is either a Airbus A380 or a Boeing 747 so that is approximately 450 passengers per day.  In on year, that’s 164,250 people who flew to Australia.   Last November when this conversation took place, it was 9 years since Sept 11, 2011, which is 1.47 million passengers who have visited Australia.  Sure, this number may be high because some of those people are repeats from year to year (like families), but there are also several daily flights from the US to Australia so maybe the number is actually too low.

My point is this: travel.  So much can be gained by traveling, if you have any desire to see the Taj Mahal, sip Chanti in Italy or even visit your son in Australia, you should go.

Aug 25

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Prehistoric sites of Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth)

On my Irish road trip, I saw a lot of impressive things – jagged mountains, green valleys and wild coastline.  I also saw a lot of historic things – overgrown monastic ruins, abandoned farm houses and the ever present round tower.   But the most impressive and historic sites were Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, three Neolithic mound tombs along the Boyne River and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Newgrange, part of the prehistoric Brú na Bóinne complex

Predating the Egyptian Pyramids, the mounds are passage tombs, meaning they contain one or more stone lined corridors where traces of human remains were found.  Newgrange is the largest and more famous of the three.  It aligns such that on the winter solstice the sunrise illuminates the inner chamber in what must have been a highly potent spiritual moment for its prehistoric builders.  You are allowed to enter the somewhat claustrophobic passage and view a chamber formed by an impressive corbelled ceiling.

While it looks beautiful, the stone exterior of Newgrange is a reconstruction from archaeological guesswork.  The white stone and river stone in the facade can be traced to sites quite a distance away.  It is possible that the stones were brought as offerings and left outside the portal and therefore might never have been part of a collapsed stone wall as the restoration assumes.

Stone carvings at Knowth

I am far more interested in prehistoric carvings and so I enjoyed Knowth a little more.  Both mounds are encircled with meter tall stones but those around Knowth are more extensively decorated.  While it is easy to try an interpret the swirls (everlasting life? rebirth?) and organized dots (there’s 12 on one rock, is this a lunar year reference?), I prefer to enjoy them for their design and to appreciate the ancient conviction that created these deep stone markings.  You cannot go far inside the Knowth passages but you can climb on top of the mound.  The Knowth site was occupied by humans in later periods so in restoring the prehistoric site, archaeologists had to go down through the remains of a Cistercians farm, Norman dwelling and Bronze Age village.

Newgrange as viewed from atop Knowth

The sites are only accessible from the Visitor Center which runs timed tours of 15-20 people by shuttle bus to each tomb.  You can choose just to see just one tomb but you are completely cheating yourself if you don’t visit both Newgrange and Knowth!  (Dowth is closed for posterity with plans to excavate it someday.)  During the obligatory wait before your tour time, the visitor center has a good video about Neolithic religious practices and some interesting exhibits.

Tips for Visiting

While the River Boyne site could be an easy day trip from Dublin, it’s worth spending the night nearby.  (And this way, you can see the carved crosses at Monasterboice before the tour buses show up!)  I found the Scholars Townhouse Hotel in Drogheda about 15 minutes from the UNESCO site.  The hotel is decorated with dark wood paneling and antiques making it feel elegant but very cozy.  When we arrived in the evening, candles lit the reception area and the staff could not have been nicer.  I loved the huge carved Victorian bar and the Cromwell battle ceiling paintings in the breakfast room.  (Disclosure: I am not receiving anything for writing about the hotel.  I just liked it and thought it was a good tip to pass along.)

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