Delphi

Three hours north-west, on a shelf of Mount Parnassus above a sea of olive trees, is the place the Greeks believed was the centre of the earth — and where, for a thousand years, no one started a war or founded a colony without asking first.

Tour highlights

• The Temple of Apollo and the seat of the Oracle
• The Sacred Way and the treasuries
• The Athenian Treasury
• The theatre and, above it, the stadium
• The Tholos at Athena Pronaia
• The Delphi Archaeological Museum
• The bronze Charioteer of Delphi
• The mountain village of Arachova

About this journey

Myth says Zeus released two eagles from the ends of the earth and they met here; the spot was marked with the omphalos, the navel stone, and you can see it in the museum. The sanctuary lies on the steep lower slopes of Mount Parnassus, about ten kilometres inland from the Gulf of Corinth, and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1987.

From the 6th century BC to Roman times this was the most important religious site in the Greek world. City-states sent embassies to consult the Pythia, the priestess who delivered Apollo’s answers from inside the temple, and they competed to build the most impressive treasury along the zig-zag Sacred Way to house their offerings. The reconstructed Athenian Treasury, put up after Marathon, still stands about halfway up.

Above the temple sits the theatre, and above that the stadium — the best preserved in Greece, where the Pythian Games were held every four years, second in prestige only to Olympia. Below the main sanctuary, on a separate terrace, the circular Tholos of Athena Pronaia is the single most photographed building in Delphi and nobody is entirely sure what it was for.

The museum is not optional. It holds the twin Archaic kouroi, the Sphinx of the Naxians, the Siphnian frieze and above all the Charioteer — a life-size bronze from 478 BC, with eyelashes, copper lips and inlaid eyes, so intact it is difficult to accept he is nearly two and a half thousand years old.

On the way there or back you pass Arachova, stacked up the mountainside at a thousand metres — a good stop for lunch, formaela cheese and a walk along the main street.

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