Delphi

Few ancient sites owe as much to their setting as Delphi. The sanctuary climbs the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus beneath the Phaedriades, a wall of sheer grey cliffs, and looks down into the gorge of the Pleistos, filled with olive trees that run on towards the sea at Itea, the harbour on the gulf below. Greeks called the spot the navel of the world, and a carved stone omphalos marked it. In a ravine between the cliffs rises the Castalian Spring, where those who came to consult the god purified themselves first.

They came for the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo, who gave answers from a tripod in the inner room of his temple. Cities sent envoys before founding colonies or going to war, and the gratitude of winners filled the sanctuary with monuments. Climbing the Sacred Way, you pass the bases of offerings and a row of treasuries, small temple-shaped strongrooms that cities built to hold their dedications; the Treasury of the Athenians, raised to commemorate the victory at Marathon in 490 BC and reconstructed in modern times, is the one that still looks complete. Above it stands the platform of the Temple of Apollo, a Doric building rebuilt in the fourth century BC after the earlier temple burned in 548 BC.

Higher still come the theatre, which seated about 4,500 spectators and gives the classic view of the whole sanctuary with the valley behind, and, at the top of the slope, the stadium of the Pythian Games, held every four years from 586 BC; its track is 177 metres long, and it was last remodelled under Herodes Atticus in the second century AD. A separate precinct a short walk down the road, the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, holds the site's most photographed building: the Tholos, a round temple of about 380 to 360 BC, of which three columns of an original twenty have been set back up.

Systematic digging began in 1893, after the village of Kastri, which had grown over the ruins, was damaged by an earthquake and its people were offered a new village in exchange for the old site. The finds are in the Delphi Archaeological Museum beside the site, above all the bronze Charioteer, a figure that has lost his chariot, horses and left arm yet remains the museum's centrepiece. Delphi was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987.

Getting there

The site lies on the edge of the modern village of Delphi, about 33 km from Livadeia, the nearest large town. The closest airport is Nea Anchialos National Airport (VOL), about 86 km away as the crow flies, but most visitors come from Athens, about 150 km by road. KTEL buses run several times a day from the Liosion Street terminal in Athens, taking about three hours; the Delphi bus stop is at the edge of the village, a few minutes' walk from the museum and the site.