Sunday 9 June 2019 – Galaxidhi

Despite staying in one place it has been a busy day.  We were up early and Richard picked up the car at 9am.  The problem was that they supplied no map.  We have no idea where we are going.  Richard had difficulty even finding his way out of the town to get on a main road.  We eventually made it.  We stopped at the first petrol station we came to and tried to buy a map, without success.  The petrol station attendant suggested we try a Shell station along the road which does have maps.  So we did that, but not much use was it.  It was a large scale map of the whole of Greece!  Luckily Delphi was well sign posted so we made it to the town with no trouble.

However, when we got there two problems arose.  The first was that the whole town was invaded by literally hundreds of bike riders all in proper gear and obviously started a major race.   There was nowhere to go to get away from them.  The second problem was that we had no idea where the entrance to the archeological site was.  So when we found a gap in all the cars we just stopped to ask people.  Then a policeman came to move us on as we were in a coach stop. But he was lovely.  In the end he directed us to a free parking spot just opposite the entrance to the site and even took us up there!

The Delphic site was large and was an uphill walk.  Although we got there before 11 am, it was still getting very hot.  We had been complaining about the cold, but now it is the heat - over 30C.  We managed to walk the whole site and remembered a fair bit when we were here in 1972! 

 The biggest problem was a lack of water.  I assumed they would sell it on the site, but there was nothing.  Later when we got to the museum there were machines selling water, but one was empty and the other was out of order!  So we struggled on.  The museum had some spectacular things in it. 

Finally when we left a lady had opened the broken water machine and was selling bottles, so our desperate thirst was quenched.

After we had done the museum it was lunch time.  We couldn’t find anywhere to stop in Delphi, so we went on to Itea, the other port from which to visit Delphi.  We stopped on the front assuming we would find lots of restaurants, but we only found cafes which were not serving much for lunch.  In the end we were directed to a proper restaurant and had a bite. Itea is nowhere near as charming as Galaxidi, so I am pleased we came here.

Finally back to the boat to find that the temperature below was 34C!  We just flaked out in the heat.   But first we took the lines from a French boat that was mooring next to us. We think we may have made buddies for life they were so grateful we helped them.  They said no one ever helps them.  They gave us a present of tinned preserved fish from Brittany!

By about 6pm I was so hot I couldn’t take it any more and went below to take a cold shower.  While I was at that all hell broke loose.  The wind suddenly got up to a 5 gusting 6 and was coming straight at us.  The boat was rocking around like crazy and the passarelle was banging on the quay. I doubted we would ever get off to go to dinner.  This lasted for just under an hour.  It was still fairly lively when we went to eat, but we could get off without incident. As the evening drew on the wind subsided and we are now more or less back to normal.  We need to sort out electricity and water in the morning before we can leave.