Delphi and Meteora

Thursday morning began with the unfortunate realization that neither of us had slept particularly well. I'd spent much of the night feeling uncomfortably hot, waking up repeatedly and never quite getting the rest I'd hoped for. Considering how much walking we'd done over the previous two days, another good night's sleep would have been welcome, but we had an ambitious itinerary ahead of us and weren't about to let a little fatigue interfere with it. We got up, enjoyed one last breakfast at Conrad Athens, and checked out, ready to leave the city behind and explore a different part of Greece. We'd spent the first two days discovering Athens and its surrounding coastline, but today we were heading into the mountains, first to Delphi and then farther north to Meteora.

We left the hotel around 8:30 in the morning, expecting the drive to Delphi to take approximately two and a half hours. Unfortunately, we hadn't fully accounted for Athens rush-hour traffic, which seemed determined to keep us in the city for as long as possible. Getting out of the metropolitan area was painfully slow, and it felt like an eternity before the buildings and congestion finally began giving way to more open roads. By the time we reached Delphi, it was somewhere around 11:15, considerably later than we'd planned. The landscape, however, had become increasingly beautiful as we approached the mountains, and the frustrating departure from Athens was soon forgotten.

Delphi sits on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, overlooking a vast valley surrounded by mountains, and the setting alone makes it worth visiting. We parked along the roadside near the archaeological area, where we could already see ancient foundations spread across the hillside below us. These were part of the Gymnasium, where athletes once trained for the Pythian Games, although we didn't fully appreciate the significance of the complex at first. From the road, the ruins appeared as a series of rectangular stone outlines arranged on terraces descending into the valley. It was fascinating to imagine an athletic training facility occupying such an extraordinary location, especially when even getting to the site involved navigating the steep mountain terrain.

We walked toward the main archaeological entrance and purchased our tickets for €20 each, which by then seemed to be the going rate for just about every historical attraction we'd visited in Greece. Rather than spend our limited time inside the museum, we decided to concentrate on the outdoor sanctuary, where the ancient structures were spread across the mountainside. Almost immediately, I was struck by how different Delphi felt from the archaeological sites we'd visited in Athens. There, the ancient monuments were surrounded by a modern city, with traffic and apartment buildings never very far away. At Delphi, the mountains seemed to be part of the experience itself, creating a setting that felt naturally removed from everyday life. Everywhere we looked, enormous slopes rose around us, while the valley below stretched far into the distance.

We began following the Sacred Way uphill toward the Temple of Apollo, passing the remains of buildings and monuments that once lined the route. I'd known that Delphi was famous for its Oracle, but I hadn't fully understood how influential the sanctuary had been in the ancient Greek world. People traveled here from across the Mediterranean to consult the Pythia, the priestess believed to communicate Apollo's guidance. These weren't necessarily trivial questions about individual fortunes. Rulers and entire city-states sought advice about wars, political decisions, colonization, and other matters with potentially enormous consequences. The Oracle's responses could be ambiguous, leaving considerable room for interpretation, but that didn't diminish the sanctuary's influence. It's remarkable to think that a place tucked into a mountainside could become such an important center of decision-making in the ancient world.

The Temple of Apollo was one of the highlights of our visit. Only a handful of its enormous Doric columns remain standing today, but even those surviving elements give a sense of the building's original scale. We took plenty of photographs, although once again, the pictures struggled to convey what it felt like to stand there with the ancient columns rising in front of us and the mountains stretching out behind them. We seemed to have encountered this problem repeatedly throughout the trip: something would look extraordinary in person, and then we'd look at the photograph and wonder why it appeared so much smaller and less impressive. There are certain landscapes where the sense of scale is inseparable from the experience, and Delphi was definitely one of them.

Something else that caught my attention was learning about two famous sayings traditionally associated with the Temple of Apollo: "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess." They're surprisingly simple principles for a place with such an elaborate religious history, but the more I thought about them, the more interesting they became. The first encourages a person to recognize their own nature and limitations, while the second cautions against excess and the arrogance that can accompany it. There's something fitting about the idea that people arriving at Delphi to seek guidance about their future would first encounter reminders to examine themselves and exercise moderation. We talked about what the sayings meant as we explored, and I found myself appreciating how ideas expressed thousands of years ago could still feel relevant without requiring much reinterpretation.

I stood near the surviving columns of the Temple of Apollo with the cliffs rising immediately behind them. The scale of the mountain made even the sanctuary's largest remains feel vulnerable.

We continued climbing until we reached the ancient theater, built into the hillside above the Temple of Apollo. At first, we weren't entirely sure whether the rows of stone seating we could see belonged to the theater or the athletic stadium, since we knew that sporting competitions had also taken place here. As it turned out, Delphi wasn't exclusively a religious destination; it also hosted the Pythian Games, one of the major festivals of ancient Greece. Unlike our modern tendency to separate sporting events from artistic competitions, the Pythian Games included music and poetry alongside athletics, reflecting Apollo's associations with music, prophecy, and the arts. The theater was used for performances, while the athletic competitions took place farther uphill at the stadium. I found that combination particularly interesting, especially after we'd visited the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens just two days earlier. We'd now seen places where ancient Greeks competed not only in physical ability but also in artistic expression, with both forms of achievement celebrated as part of the same festival.

The view from the theater was spectacular. We could see the sanctuary spread out below us, with the surrounding mountains framing the valley and the landscape stretching far beyond the archaeological site. We kept stopping to take pictures, turning around to capture different perspectives, and occasionally getting distracted by something as simple as a wildflower growing among the rocks. There was also remarkably little wind, something we'd already noticed in Athens and along the coast. Standing on an exposed mountainside, I would have expected at least a steady breeze, but the air was almost completely still. Combined with the mild temperature and sunshine, it made the climb surprisingly pleasant despite our less-than-ideal sleep the night before.

The ancient theatre is built directly into the hillside above the Temple of Apollo. From its stone seating, the sanctuary, valley, and mountains become one composition; it was easy to understand why we spent so long looking from almost the same spot.

Eventually, we decided to continue toward the ancient stadium, which meant climbing even farther uphill. At one point, we could see people standing on a terrace well above us, and realizing that we were supposed to walk all the way up there was a little discouraging. But we'd already come this far, and curiosity got the better of us. When we finally reached the stadium area, I have to admit that it was somewhat underwhelming compared with the Panathenaic Stadium we'd visited in Athens. It was much smaller than we'd imagined, with a relatively narrow running track and stone seating arranged along the hillside. Some of the access was restricted, so we couldn't explore the entire structure, but we could still appreciate its layout and imagine athletes competing there during the Pythian Games. After all that climbing, though, I couldn't help thinking that the athletes must have been exhausted before their competitions even began.

There were also plenty of little openings, passages, and partially enclosed spaces among the ruins, which naturally made us think about how the girls would have reacted if they'd been there with us. We could easily imagine Ella trying to climb into every interesting opening she encountered, with Charlie following close behind, probably bumping her head because she still hasn't quite figured out that her head extends above her eyes. We joked that, in Charlie's understanding of the world, if her eyes can fit underneath something, the rest of her head should be able to follow. It was one of several moments during the trip when we found ourselves imagining the girls exploring these places, even though we'd deliberately planned this vacation as time for just the two of us.

Before leaving Delphi, we walked along the road to look more closely at the lower archaeological complex we'd noticed when we arrived. Part of the area, including the ancient Gymnasium, was closed for conservation and safety reasons, so we couldn't explore it from inside. But from our elevated position along the road, we had an excellent view of the foundations and terraces below. In some ways, I actually preferred seeing the ruins from above. When you're standing directly among ancient foundations, it's often difficult to understand what you're looking at because everything appears to be a collection of scattered stones. From a higher vantage point, however, the layout becomes much clearer. You can begin to distinguish the outlines of rooms, courtyards, and other structures, making it easier to imagine how the complex might once have functioned. It reminded me of something I'd been thinking about since our visit to the Ancient Agora: archaeological sites are fascinating, but without a little contextual information or a visual reconstruction, it can be surprisingly difficult to connect what remains today with the activities that once took place there.

Small yellow wildflowers appeared beside the path during the final climb. Their ordinary brightness was a welcome interruption among all the grey stone and archaeological grandeur.

By the time we'd finished exploring, it was shortly after one o'clock, and we still had another long drive ahead of us. We got back into the car and continued north toward Kastraki, the small village at the base of the Meteora rock formations. The first part of the drive involved winding mountain roads with frequent turns and changes in elevation, which demanded considerably more attention than the relatively straightforward highways we'd been expecting. Eventually, though, the terrain became flatter, the roads opened up, and driving became much easier. We settled into the journey, enjoying the changing scenery and occasionally stopping to admire something that caught our attention.

Somewhere along the way, we came across what turned out to be one of the most beautiful viewpoints of the entire trip. We noticed a roadside turnout where a couple of campers had parked, and something about the location made us curious enough to stop as well. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the parking area itself, but the view beyond it was magnificent. We were partway up a mountainside, looking out across an enormous valley framed by mountains on either side. Below us, agricultural fields stretched across the flatlands in a patchwork of greens and browns, gradually opening toward what appeared to be a broad bay or gulf in the distance. The landscape had an incredible sense of depth, with mountains, farmland, water, and sky all layered together. We hadn't planned to stop there, didn't know the name of the viewpoint, and probably wouldn't have noticed it if those other vehicles hadn't been parked nearby. Yet it became one of the most memorable discoveries of our trip. We took several photographs, none of which quite captured the view, and eventually continued driving, still talking about how beautiful it had been.

We arrived in Kastraki at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon, having booked our hotel while traveling. Fortunately, everything worked out well, and our room was ready when we checked in. The hotel itself was lovely, but what made it particularly memorable was the view from our balcony. We could look out over the village, with its houses and streets nestled beneath enormous rock formations rising almost vertically from the surrounding landscape. We'd seen photographs of Meteora before, but nothing had prepared us for how massive and unusual these formations actually were. Some looked like enormous stone pillars, while others formed broad, rounded towers with steep sides and surprisingly narrow summits. And perched on top of several of them were monasteries that seemed almost impossibly small against the surrounding rocks.

The name Meteora is often translated as "suspended in the air," which seemed particularly appropriate once we saw the monasteries in person. The rock formations themselves were created over immense geological timescales, through the deposition and subsequent erosion of ancient sediments, but what made the landscape truly extraordinary was the way people had adapted to it. Christian hermits began seeking isolation among these rocks centuries ago, and organized monastic communities eventually developed on some of the most inaccessible formations. Looking at the buildings from below, it was difficult to imagine how anyone could have constructed them, much less transported the supplies necessary to sustain daily life. We planned to visit one of the monasteries the following morning, but for now, we were more interested in experiencing the landscape from the outside.

Our first clear roadside view of Meteora stopped us immediately. The rock towers rose behind the fields with proportions so strange that the photograph looked almost invented.

After checking into the hotel, we found a little restaurant in Kastraki and settled in for a late lunch. We ordered moussaka and souvlaki, both of which were excellent. By this point, souvlaki had become something of a recurring feature of our vacation, but we certainly weren't complaining. There was something particularly enjoyable about eating in a small village after several days in Athens, especially with those extraordinary rocks rising above the surrounding buildings. The atmosphere felt quieter and more relaxed, and we were happy to take our time before heading back out to explore.

We then got into the car and began driving the scenic circuit through Meteora, following the winding road that connects the monasteries and panoramic viewpoints. This turned out to be one of the most visually impressive experiences of the entire vacation. Almost every turn revealed another extraordinary perspective, with enormous rock formations rising abruptly from the valley and monasteries perched on top of them. Some buildings seemed to emerge directly from the stone, while others occupied relatively small areas at the summit of towering pillars. We kept pulling over at designated viewpoints to take photographs, and every time we thought we'd found the best view, another appeared around the next bend.

We'd already encountered some remarkable scenery during the drive through central Greece, but Meteora was unlike anything else we'd seen. The contrast between the natural formations and the monasteries was particularly striking. The rocks themselves were impressive enough, but the presence of buildings on top gave them an entirely different sense of scale and made us wonder about the people who had chosen to live in such extraordinary isolation. We could also see why the area had become such a famous destination for photographers. Depending on the angle and the light, the same formation could look completely different, and the surrounding valleys provided an almost endless variety of backgrounds.

Sunlight broke around a narrow rock tower and reduced the landscape to silhouettes. Meteora's formations changed character every few minutes as the clouds moved.

One broad rock became our unofficial portrait studio for the afternoon. Sitting and standing on it made the depth of the valley much more apparent—and reminded us to place our feet rather carefully whenever we stopped admiring the view.

We eventually found a panoramic viewpoint where we could watch the sunset. The evening light gradually softened over the landscape, illuminating the enormous rocks and casting long shadows into the valleys below. After the somewhat disappointing sunset at Cape Sounion the previous evening, where clouds had prevented us from seeing the sun disappear completely, Meteora gave us the kind of scenery we'd been hoping for. We spent a good amount of time taking pictures and simply enjoying the view, although once again, it was difficult to capture the scale of what we were seeing. There was something almost surreal about standing on one enormous rock while looking across at several others, each with its own monastery seemingly suspended above the landscape.

After sunset, we continued driving along the monastery road and came across an entrance to one of the monasteries that had already closed for the day. We decided to walk a short distance along the approach path anyway and eventually found a large rock that offered another excellent place for photographs. We spent a little more time there, enjoying the quiet and taking advantage of the last remaining daylight before heading back toward Kastraki. By then, we'd driven around much of Meteora and seen the monasteries from several different perspectives, and we were beginning to feel that visiting one or two interiors the following morning would be enough. The landscape itself had already made the journey worthwhile.

A wide panorama gathered the monastery road, darkening rocks, and layered clouds into one frame. Sunset here was not a single event but a slow transformation of the entire valley.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a small local grocery store, which ended up being an unexpectedly interesting part of the evening. It wasn't a tourist attraction or anything particularly remarkable, just a regular village shop where people bought their everyday necessities. But that was precisely what made it appealing. There were fresh vegetables, groceries, household supplies, clothing, and even tools, all packed into a relatively compact space. After spending several days visiting famous monuments and restaurants catering to tourists, it was refreshing to see something that seemed to be part of ordinary village life. We enjoyed looking around and imagining what it might be like to live somewhere like Kastraki, surrounded by such extraordinary scenery but still going about the same everyday routines as people anywhere else.

Back at the hotel, we finally decided to open the bottle of champagne that Conrad Athens had given us on our first day. We'd been carrying it with us, waiting for a good opportunity, and sitting beside the pool with a view of Meteora seemed like an excellent occasion. By then, it was completely dark outside, and the village lights were glowing below us. Some of the enormous rock formations were illuminated near their bases, revealing their silhouettes against the night sky. It was a beautiful scene, and after a long day of driving, hiking, and sightseeing, we were more than happy to sit there together, enjoy the champagne, and appreciate the surroundings without feeling compelled to go anywhere else.

There was something particularly memorable about seeing Meteora at different times of the day. We'd arrived in the afternoon, when the sunlight made the rock formations appear almost golden. We'd watched them change with the sunset, and now, sitting beside the pool, we could see their dark silhouettes towering above the village lights. It was difficult to imagine a more unusual setting, and I found myself thinking that we could easily have spent another day or two here simply enjoying the scenery and exploring the surrounding area at a slower pace.

Unfortunately, the evening wasn't entirely free of practical concerns. We still hadn't finalized our return flights to the United States, and since we needed to be home before returning to work on Monday, we couldn't leave that problem unresolved much longer. I spent a considerable amount of time searching through possible airlines, connections, and departure times, trying to find a reasonable way to get us home on Saturday. Eventually, we settled on United Airlines, purchasing tickets from Athens to Washington Dulles and onward to Hartford for approximately $540 per person. It wasn't particularly cheap, and we still hoped to get onto an earlier connection from Dulles, but at least we finally had a confirmed way home. Knowing that we'd arrive Saturday night and have Sunday to recover, spend time with the girls, and prepare for work made the expense a little easier to accept.

United still offered confirmed routes from Athens through Dulles or Newark. After watching standby numbers change, the certainty of an actual seat began to look increasingly valuable.

By the time we were ready for bed, I kept thinking about how consistently beautiful the scenery had been throughout the trip. We'd started in Athens, surrounded by ancient buildings and modern city life, then driven through mountains, agricultural valleys, and small villages before arriving somewhere as extraordinary as Meteora. Even the places we hadn't planned to visit, like that roadside overlook on the way north, had been memorable. The weather had also been unusually pleasant, with warm sunshine, cool shade, and remarkably little wind, making it comfortable to spend almost the entire day outdoors. We seemed to be repeating the same observation wherever we went: everything was just so beautiful, and often in ways we hadn't expected.

We'd left Athens that morning feeling tired and somewhat frustrated by the traffic, but ended the day sitting beneath the Meteora rocks with champagne, having visited one of the ancient world's most important religious sanctuaries and discovered some extraordinary landscapes along the way. It had been a long day, and certainly not the most relaxing, but it was exactly the kind of experience we'd hoped to have when we decided to venture beyond Athens. Tomorrow, we'd visit the monasteries before making our way back south, but for now, we were content to be in Kastraki, surrounded by those enormous rocks and still a little amazed by everything we'd managed to see.