Inter Rail 1987 Day 15
Saturday 13th June 1987
Despite the late night the night before, the alarm was set quite early. We were up, dressed, had coffee and were
on the road by 8.30am to catch the ferry across to Delphi.
The ferry journey was hysterical. All the ferries are ex military landing craft and therefore have only one entrance. No ro-ro here. In order
to make the exit quicker most people reversed on board. Unfortunately there was the usual standard of Greek organisation. There seemed to be
no concept of a queue but somehow everyone seemed to get on board without any crashes.
In order to get as many cars as possible on board, they are parked within millimetres of each other. If you didn't immediately leap out of the
car, you where trapped inside for the whole trip, as a number of people were. Luckily for them the crossing only took around 15 minutes.
Being flat bottomed craft and given the large waves they often get, the ferry regularly doesn't run. According to Dinos, the company running
the ferry has sufficient political clout to prevent the building of a bridge.
First stopping point was the pretty fishing port of Nafpaxtos. Its harbour seemed to contain a boat made solely out of plastic bags. The drive
to Delphi, in Dinos' Citroen, was along the coast road. Beautiful views of islands, coves, beaches and mountains. We stopped for a coffee at
Galaxidi, a small fishing port past its heyday trying to be kept in the old style.
We got to Delphi by about 11.30am. Jon and I paid to get into the ancient site but Kati and Dinos, as Greek nationals, didn't have to pay.
They only had to show their ID cards. This is the place where the Sybil sat in the temple of Apollo and gave pronouncements in riddles (like
to Claudius). Quite a bit of it is well preserved. The amphitheatre was a bit small and broken but the stadium was the most impressive we'd
seen so far, with almost complete seating rows being present on each side.
A "cultural study group" of Americans were there having group photos taken but once they'd disappeared the atmosphere in the stadium was great.
We tried out the seats which turned out to be very comfy but then I think we were in the equivalent of the royal box.
After a sit in the shade to cool down we headed to the museum. Very cool inside and there wer lots of lovely jewellery and pottery excavated
from the site. There were also examples of Greek statues including, the piece de resistance, The Charioteer. Decided that the
nearby Byzantine monastery wouldn't let us in as we were wearing shorts so we headed off to the beach.
We found ourselves a little cove with a small beach. The water temperature was amazing. The top 4 foot or so was warm, about 70F at least.
Below this there was a thermocline below which the water was cold (at least by Greek standards). Diving down into the cold water and back up
to the warm was an unusual but lovely experience.
There was a little taverna at the beach. A little man lit a fire with olive tree branches in order to cook us lunch which consisted of feta
cheese with black pepper followed by pork chops cut up and grilled on a skewer over the fire with chips and a large beer.
The drive back to the ferry was a bit warm but not too bad. Repeat performance at the ferry departure point. No queueing just organised chaos.
We drove down to the port area to work out where we had to drop off the car and to buy our boat tickets. We paid 3,500 drachs or about £17
for deck class tickets to Brindisi.
I drove back to the house. I much prefer town driving which Jon hates. We had a little contest at a set of traffic lights with a rather large
lorry through which Jon sat and cringed a lot. The journey ended with Hanu Mikola style driving along the rutted path to the house.
Athina, Dinos and Kati's daughter had arrived from Athens. We spent the evening sitting around and doing some reading. Kati and Dinos went out
to a party so we ate the remaining vegetables from the night before. The temperature was still very warm. During the day it was 90F inside the
house and up to 110F outside in the sun.
The local cafe was hosting the party which had live outside gypsy music, if you can call it music. It apparently went on until 3.00am. I fell
asleep listening to it as it was so repetitive and all sounded the same.
 NafPaxtos |
 Galaxidi |
 Jon Delphi |
 Delphi |
 Gods Navel |
 Delphi Ferry |
The ferry journey was hysterical. All the ferries are ex military landing craft and therefore have only one entrance. No ro-ro here. In order
to make the exit quicker most people reversed on board. Unfortunately there was the usual standard of Greek organisation. There seemed to be
no concept of a queue but somehow everyone seemed to get on board without any crashes.
We found ourselves a little cove with a small beach. The water temperature was amazing. The top 4 foot or so was warm, about 70F at least.
Below this there was a thermocline below which the water was cold (at least by Greek standards). Diving down into the cold water and back up
to the warm was an unusual but lovely experience.
