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April 2000

Sterea Ellada

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 20:38:29

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supposed to purify oneself before entering the sanctuary. It's very cold so we only purified our hands. Unfortunately this isn't good enough as we were denied admission to the temple of Apollo and were unable to ask the oracle anything. (Actually, they mysteriously close at 2:15 on certain days.) In reality, no one can, as the actual location of the oracle is unknown these days. It was theoretically located somewhere inside the temple of Apollo (shown here) (2). In the background is more of Mt. Parnassus, home of the muses. We tried to find ourselves a muse but this was also unsuccessful. We did meet another dog, whom we started calling the Delphic Dog. Perhaps he was in fact a dog muse sent by the oracle based on our intent to ask a question, but alas, we don't speak dog so we'll never know. Leaving Delphi we travelled around to the back of Mt. Parnassus which was still covered in snow. There are a couple of ski resorts higher up the mountain though neither of them seemed to be running while we were in town.

Not far away is the Monastery of Holy Luke (3). Luke was a 9th century hermit who was later canonized for his healing abilities. The Byzantine style monastery grew around that with the first church appearing in the 10th century. The inside is fabulously decorated primarily with icon paintings surrounded by gold. We were considerably surprised to discover that the body of Luke himself is viewable inside of a glass coffin in an alcove of the main church. Dressed in a black robe and mask, only his skeletal hands are directly visible.

The monastery sits on a small ridge in a larger valley and from the pleasant courtyard area you can see out over the surrounding farms and olive groves. After leaving the monastery we drove back towards Athens passing through Thiva (Thebes). Presumably since we were just passing through we did not have to face the sphinx. Later we ate dinner at an AutoGrille (see the Italy pages for more info on that). We also discovered curious sinks in the public bathrooms there where you had to stand on a sensitive panel in order to make the water come on. A nice idea but next time they should place the panels a bit closer to the sink. We arrived back in Athens in time to get lost in the night time traffic in Piraeus. After an hour or so of unintentional sightseeing, we made it back to Glyfada (the airport area) where we found a hotel. Our flight back the next day proceeded more or less uninterestingly.

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