Weekend in Delphi

Updated: Apr 10, 2022

So this weekend was the Delphi trip, which was our first field trip with CYA of the semester. I was expecting an isolated (and, honestly, boring) town that was just covered in old stuff. Instead, we were greeted by a thousand-year-old monastery, ruins on the mountainside, a small ski town, and a surprisingly good time.

On our way up, we saw the Hosios Loukas monastery which was built in 994. It was raining but not too awful, even by my standards. It was mostly made of red brick with golden mosaics and large archways. The rain made the whole site pretty slippery, but the area felt very ancient and very calm. My biggest regret was not buying some of the honey or wine that the monks make in the monastery.

The town of Delphi was also surprisingly fun. There was a very beautiful view once the rain cleared, and I'm sure it is gorgeous in the summer. We had dinner in the hotel and my friend Tom got the lucky coin in the New Year’s cake. Later that night, we went into the town to a small cafe.

The next morning we woke up early to check out Delphi. My group started at the museum. The artifacts represented many Greek myths. There was a lot about Apollo because the Delphi temple primarily honored him. Everything was very well preserved despite the temple being 1,000 years old, ransacked, and burned. My personal favorite was the sculpture that represented the Trojan War because.

We drank from a fresh spring on our way to the ruins. The water here is said to have been blessed by the gods. The ruins were definitely a hike, but they were massive and beautiful. I’ll drop some pics here, but even those can’t truly capture how beautiful everything was.

On our way back, we stopped at a quaint mountain town called Arachova, which reminded me of Assisi in Italy. After some souvlaki, we walked around, ate some gelato and sweets, and checked out a few of the shops. They call Arachova the “Aspen of Athens” and it had a lot of fur clothing and ski accessories. If you're visiting in the winter, there's a very unique opportunity to hit the slopes in Greece!

The highlight of Arachova was the view at the top of the mountain. It took over 15 floors of steps but was definitely worth it. Playing the Rocky theme song and stopping in the middle to play on the seesaw definitely helped. The church at the top was beautiful, but it was hard to focus on it when we saw the panoramic view. The whole town had the same orange tile rooftops and you could see the snow at the top of the surrounding mountains.