Day 4 - Itea - Delphi and Visiting the Olive Grove

Delphi guided tour, Delphi Museum, Olive Grove Visit and Olive tasting, New Year's Eve dinner/celebration in Itea.

Today we had a three hour journey by bus to visit Delphi. Along the way we saw beautiful scenery aka, “Oh my God views!”, miles and miles of Olive Groves, small quaint villages nestled into the side of mountains. We stopped for a quick group photo at #Arachova and enjoyed a leisurely sit down lunch of fried cheese, bread with olive oil, salad, rooster and potatoes, stuffed peppers, sautéed greens with lemons, gelato and cake at roadside “tavern”, Taverna Omfalos. It was νόστιμο (nóstimo) aka delicious. Our next stop was Delphi! If that sounds at all familiar, you may remember learning about the Oracle at Delphi. It was fascinating to hear about how the priest and Oracle partnered to deliver the prophecies people wanted/needed. It was truly fail safe. Remnants of the many treasuries where offerings were kept at Delphi reminded us of the US Treasury back home. Coincidence? Definitely not. The museum helped us to understand the grandness of some of the more prominent sculptures and works of art.

Next, we visited an Olive Grove for an olive and olive oil tasting. Every family in Itea owns a portion of this Grove of 1.2 million trees which has existed for 30,000 years! They use nets and big sticks to harvest the olives. With two harvesting seasons annually and no machines, it takes a lot of hands to get the job done. As a result, our host made sure that we learned about what makes an olive and olive oil great and the plethora of uses for this tiny fruit. We wrapped up the day checking into Hotel Nafsika Palace which is nestled alongside the Gulf of Corinth. We enjoyed a nice traditional Greek dinner, enjoyed a walk on the pier, shared our one sentence that most captured our 2022, before greeting 2023 as a group. The Greek culture has a history of spending their evening with family, so the fireworks didn’t begin until 12:30am. Part of the group headed out to dance the night away. The rest tucked in for a quiet start to the year. Ευτυχισμένο το νέο έτος! Happy New Year!