I forgot to point out yesterday on the lack of crowds. Remember the mass of people in Italy? Greece is very quiet and crowd free. The only other group with us in Olympia was a group of Japanese tourists. It's funny how the Japanese tour groups keep trying to take Chris along with them.
Anyway, where were we? That's right! On the way to Delphi! We drove up a long winding road up the mountain to Delphi. A tour guide met us there an gave us a very long explaination of the Delphi oracle and the history of the site. BTW, Delphi was built on the side of a mountain so there were lots of steep slopes and stairs. Some of the ladies got scared of all the steps and decided not to enter the site. That's too bad, because not all of the tour was steep.
Did you notice that there is no one else here but our group. Here we are all standing in what little shade we can find. It was so HOT!
After the guide finished the tour, she let us climb up to the stadium and explore the rest of the site. Here's me in front of the Temple of Apollo:
Here is the belly button of the world. The story is that Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world.
Here's a couple more photos of around the site.
From here we walked to the top of the site where the stadium is. It's all blocked off, so we couldn't run here...
Did you ever see "My Life in Ruins"? The stone with the whole in it was in the movie. Our guide hates that movie, because the oracle did not talk out of the hole.
We were told the the water here is good to drink. Does this look good to drink to you? lol! It actually was cold and refreshing!
Hey, look! Cheryl's on stage!
Cheryl saw a 3 column structure in the distance. She and Jim set out to go see it. Can you see it out there?
Chris and I headed to the museum. We saw most of our group sittingin the shade drinking slushies. Did I mention how hot it was? We decided skip the slushies and go straight to the museum. We were the only ones in there. A strange thing about the museums in Greece is that they allow photos (no flash) but they don't allow posing with the artifacts. I know that is weird. It became a game for us to try and get photos of ourselves with objects in the museum.
After Chris and I came out of the museum, we looked for our group and they were GONE! Uh, Oh! We hoped they were somewhere in the museum and hadn't left without us. They were! Whew!
In the meantime, here is where Jim and Cheryl ended up.
By the time Cheryl and Jim got back from their adventure. They also thought the group left without them. They were not looking forward to walking all the way back to town after all the walking they just did! But thankfully, the group was just finishing up in the museum. We all met up and took the bus back to the hotel.
In Italy, we had 4-5-6 course sit down dinners. In Greece, all of our dinners have been buffets. We had another GREAT buffet dinner tonight
After dinner we walked downtown... yep, even more walking! Cheryl picked up a Greek cookbook. She going to make us a Greek meal when we get home!
Oh, and today is our 26th Anniversary! Happy Anniversary to US!
Story of the Day: An Italian saying, "Mother of Stupids!" translated to English is "Oh my Gosh! How dumb can you be?" A Greek variation is, "Mother of Stupids was also pregnant in Greece!" LOL!
Well, I'll leave today with a crafty post. This card is for a friend who is recovering from chemo. I this cute stamp and saying from Unity Stamp Company always makes me smile. 
I hosted bunco last night and have taken this whole week to get ready for it. Look for the trip recap to resume next week!
Our guide gave us a VERY thorough overview of the site and the first Olympic games (very thorough as in, "Is she ever going to stop talking so we can look around?!")
Doesn't this look like an important place? Like where they would light the Olympic torch?
Nope! That is a fountain. Right in front of the fountain is Hera's Alter where they light the torch every Olympics. It's certainly not much to look at.
Here's the Olympic stadium!
Cheryl and I raced through the Olympic stadium. I think she jumped the gun...
Chris took that picture of us starting, then he took off after us (wearing flip-flops) and passed me before we reached the other end of the stadium. He almost passed Cheryl too. Yeah, Cheryl beat me. But I beat her back! Long distance running has it's advantages!
We never said we were racing up AND back, but that just makes sense, right?... I declare myself the winner! hehehe...
The museum was very nice. We saw the famous statues of Nike and Hermes:
The museum was full of other statue pieces and nick-nacks.
Chris was fascinated with all the little toys:
Now, it's back on the bus to Delphi. And a long ride it is! We have to leave the peninsula and head to mainland Greece.
We stopped a couple of times on the way to Delphi. Our first stop was a fort where the battle of Lupanto was fought. This major battle kept the muslims from entering Europe.
It really is a beautiful spot!
Our next stop was for lunch in Itea. It's at the foot of the Delphi mountain.The food in Greece is wonderful. Cheryl and I shared a Greek salad and stuffed tomato.
We had some time after lunch to mess around. Here we are trying to remember how to play checkers. It's Jim and me against Cheryl and Chris. We were doing all right until Jim had to jump Cheryl, hahaha! Too bad you can't see the older couple from New Zealand sitting on a bench laughing at us, lol!
We even had time to get our feet wet before climbing back on the bus.
I'm going to stop the commentary here and continue with Delphi in another post. This is already a HUGE post and the day isn't over YET!
This is for Cheryl to drive to Cal Poly when she starts at the end of next month... The mini-van is gone. Chris really liked driving the mini-van, even though it wouldn't start sometimes. Anyway, Chris will be driving Cheryl's old car to Saddleback.
