Portaria, Delphi, and Nafplion

In the morning we awoke completely enamored with our adorable hotel. We loved how cozy and clean it was and how beautiful the views from the window were.

When we went downstairs we had the most beautiful, delicious breakfast of the trip waiting for us. Portaria was a total steal. The breakfast was included even though the hotel was the cheapest of the trip. Next time we are going to plan more days in the Pelion peninsula, which is where our hotel was. We wished we could have gone to the restaurant farm and taken a cooking class and explored the area more. But the food we explored thoroughly and it was soooooo good.

Those baked apples in the back are the best I have had in my life. There is a special type of apple grown in the Pelion that they ship throughout Europe, but they bake it in the Pelion with some special spices and the end products are unbelievable.
In the heated trays are all delicious dishes of eggplants, mushrooms, and eggs. Those spinach pies in front were the best we tasted in Greece.
Our waiter was also the manager. He was our waiter at dinner and breakfast and welcomed us into the hotel. He said Clarissa reminded him of his youngest daughter when she was small.
Abe took a picture of his breakfast.
Hotel Krista from the outside.
The plaza and this tree in particular were lit up beautifully all night long. I loved looking out of our windows at it.
As we drove down the mountain the city of Volos literally sparkled in the morning sun.

Delphi

A view of the gorge beneath Delphi from our restaurant.

I’ll be honest. This was the only stop on our trip that we did because it would have been embarrassing to go to Greece and not see Delphi. But even though we were all very thoroughly brushed up on our Greek myths and Delphi seems to pop up in every other one, I just don’t care about Delphi that much. But we dutifully spent a day driving there, touring the sites, and the driving the almost three more hours to Nafplion.

Waiting for lunch.
We did enjoy the friezes in the excellently curated Delphi museum. This one depicts Apollo and Hercules fighting over the sacred tripod of Delphi.
I was impressed by this opulent offering discovered at the site. Not only is this gift clearly spectacular, but its reconstruction is ingenious and beautiful.
This was a sphinx carved out of marble from Naxos!
Ammon had no idea what Delphi was about, but he just naturally adopted an oracular pose close to Apollo’s temple.
Apollo’s temple.
The older Delphi site.

Because Delphi is out of the way we spent the rest of the day driving to our hotel in Nafplion.

We arrived extremely late because right as we were about to cross the isthmus to the Peloponnese peninsula the toll booths shut completely down. Apparently there was a clash up ahead between the gypsies and the police and they would not let anyone through for an hour. Luckily we had Troy to listen to. We hoped everyone was all right but at the same time felt ever so slightly appreciative of the fact that we were experiencing something that everyone around us seemed to accept as a fact of life in Greece but felt foreign to us. That feeling was probably morally unacceptable, considering the investment and risk going on in both sides of the confrontation. But, to be honest, it was there.