Off to See the Oracle

Our final Greek destination was the town of Preveza, from which we left to see the ancient ruins of the city of Cassope early that morning.

Apparently these ruins are quite unique because usually ancient cities don’t ever cease being cities, meaning that many ancient buildings are not preserved because they’re replaced or built over as the residents live their lives for hundreds of years there.

Cassope differs because its residents moved to a different location as time passed, leaving the existing buildings (or at least their strong foundations) relatively intact.

Here I am standing at the doorway to one of the houses, welcoming you in.

Can I just interrupt this broadcast for a moment to remark on how beautiful all of these places in Greece have been in the springtime? All the sites are littered with wildflowers. It’s so pretty.

We were told that if we walked in a certain direction we would find one of the original arches in the wall to the city. We found the wall, but this was the only thing that resembled an arch in any way.

Because it’s almost invisible if you don’t approach from the right direction, at first we thought it was only a drain, but that didn’t make much sense. So, we have decided that this is the arch.

The woods that we had to walk through to approach Cassope were very pretty.

Next stop on the tour was to the Oracle of the Dead at Nekromanteion.

The church building above was a later addition, not related to the oracle.

This oracle wasn’t like the one at Delphi. Apparently it was a very elaborate fraud, where visitors were fed certain types of foods that encouraged hallucinations over the course of a week or so, and left on their own in dark rooms (you can see the rooms below).

It was apparently a very lucrative operation. Pilgrims were expecting to speak with the souls of the dead to foresee the future, and brought very generous offerings for the privilege. This is one of the treasury rooms.

Going back to how the place operated, once the pilgrims were deemed sufficiently loopy after their solitary confinement and toxic diet, they were led down this opening.

Into this room, which was no doubt much more poorly lit at the time. Apparently they have found pieces of something that they think was a pulley type of apparatus that may have had a human-like figure attached to it to make people (in their very compromised mental state in the dark) think they were witnessing a spirit from the underworld.

Scary.

After our tour, we elected to spend the afternoon enjoying the very pleasant little town of Preveza.

We found a few more sources of amusement.

Yes, that is a pile of old electrical equipment. In a shop window.

This building reminds me of the architecture in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Very Ottoman.

And then we fell back on what is fast becoming our favourite European activity – sitting in a café looking out over the water, sipping something sweet and coffee-ey.

We really are doing it tough over here.

A Stop at Itea

No, that’s not a typo. We didn’t make a stop at Ikea. Our next stop in Greece was in fact a small port called Itea.

We hopped off the boat as usual for a wander through the streets, and honestly… were disappointed. We’ve obviously been very spoilt, since we now expect to be immediately charmed by a place. The locals obviously resent a sudden influx of tourists to their town (which we can’t really blame them for I suppose), and don’t speak very much English, so we didn’t get a particularly friendly reception.

Don’t worry, I still managed to find many things to snap pictures of.

The residential streets were lined with citrus trees, loaded with oranges or lemons.

Apparently the oranges are a bitter type that is not great for eating, but mainly used for making marmalade, which is why the locals don’t strip the trees of their fruit immediately.

This beach may be more popular in the summer season.

Once we’d exhausted the few attractions of the town itself, we created our own amusement by… holding up statues. Not very lucrative by the way, just in case you're considering it.

And trying to imitate the strange signs. Apparently this is supposed to be a pedestrian ‘STOP’ sign. I still don’t get it.

We very eagerly hopped on our tour the next morning to the ancient ruins of Delphi (proximity to which was the reason we docked in Itea).

We’re told that the Greeks favour a fairly romantic style to their ancient ruins. Rather than reconstructing the entire site the way it would have been originally as some countries do, they do just enough to give you a feeling of it, and you use your imagination to create the rest. Of course the other argument is that they don’t have enough funds dedicated to conservation. I like the romantic story best.

The weather wasn’t as kind to us this day as it has been every other day. No major problem.

This is a reconstructed treasury, a place where gifts from the visitors to the ancient Oracle of Delphi would be kept.

In an area that required rebuilding many times because it kept getting hit by earthquakes, this single retaining wall stayed standing, and still is today. Apparently it’s due to its construction – the way the stone blocks are cut to fit exactly together means it can withstand a great deal more pressure than a single brick pattern wall can. Note to self for future retaining wall projects!

It used to be the local noticeboard. Notices were carved into the stone.

This is the stone on which the oracle is supposed to have sat.

The place had the obligatory amphitheatre. Like how I say that so casually? Another amphitheatre, oh how terribly mundane!

We had to go on a bit of a hike to reach the stadium. Because the rest of the site is on such sloping ground, it was difficult to find a piece of flat ground long enough for a stadium.

Tom thought he’d better do some stretches to make sure he was ready for the walk back down again.

We visited the site museum afterward, but didn’t really get to appreciate it much because it was absolutely packed with school children on an excursion, so we escaped as fast as possible to preserve our sanity.

And that was Itea and Delphi! Delphi is certainly worth seeing, and we have to remember that Itea was merely a practical stop for us. We can’t criticise it too much for not being particularly tourist friendly