Yoni, our Grand Pubah, had a change of plans in the morning, deciding that an hour and a half’s journey to our first stop was too far, especially since we had a specific time booked for George our guide for the tour of Delphi. I applaud his flexibility.

So we had an earlier than planned arrival at Eptalofos, whose claim to fame was the waterfall in the middle of the town. The water flowing through the waterfall was the only thing moving in the entire town, other than an elderly gentleman who seemed to be using the water from the stream in its entirety in order to keep the clean pavements cleaner. It’s a very quaint village which obviously doesn’t see many foreigners as all the signs, business names and posters were in Greek only. It’s not as if Arachova was full of English either, but some businesses or restaurant menus had some English. It was a little strange to us trying to navigate around with zero Latin/English signage. The majority of European countries write in the Latin alphabet, so even if the pronunciation is different, at least you can read the names and signs. We quite liked the experience of having everything in Greek, without English, as it added to the feeling of foreignness that we want when we travel, especially since Greece itself is a European country, not drastically different from other Western countries. It’s a nice little dissonance.

In any case, after seeing the waterfall and walking around the village square, which as sweet as it may be, took exactly 3 minutes, it was coffee time. We peered into one café, which was nowhere near opening and saw another place well and truly shuttered. with a smirk, the elderly gentleman flooding the sidewalks pointed to the only place on the square that wasn’t locked. The waitress seemed genuinely shocked that we dared stumble in at 10 A.M. In fact, when we asked her if it was too early for her, she answered honestly that yes it was. There was no bad temper or anger. Just an honest stating of the fact that 10 was too early for her to wait tables (even if that was her job). “So what time do businesses open here?” we asked innocently. About 7, she said, without irony, as if this was the most normal time in the world for the local hardware store to open its doors for business. Greek country time seems to work on a totally different clock. But the Greek coffee was really good. Phil and Mark were also very pleased with their hot chocolate.

A word about Greek coffee. We were very careful not to order Turkish coffee, which would have had us thrown into the brink and summarily deported. And Greek coffee is in fact a little different from Turkish coffee. And from Arabic coffee in Israel, for that matter. It is never served with cardamom, like in Israel. It’s thick and rich and isn’t as bitter as the Turkish coffee. You can order a single or double, with no sugar, a little bit of sugar, or sweet. It is served sugared according to your sugar preference. There isn’t always sugar on the table to add, if you want it sweeter. It was refreshing going to a European country where espresso isn’t the automatic go-to.

Both Mark and Phil ordering hot chocolate led us to the epiphany that whilst they hadn’t spent a lot of time together over these past 60 years, they were in fact brothers from another mother. Where Yoni, Garry and I are to varying degrees culinarily adventurous, Phil and Mark have plainer palates, both enjoying bland food, ordering sausages whenever possible, washed down by diet coke. Phil doesn’t drink coffee at all, Mark limits himself to one cup a day unless it’s decaf, which correctly, the Greeks view as a crime against humanity. Hot chocolate is their hot drink of choice, whilst neither of them enjoy the wonders of alcohol.

We had a couple more village stops on our way to Delphi. Yoni had read that Vargiani had a well preserved and interesting old town, but after a loop around the picturesque but not astonishingly interesting upper section of the town, we found a square with a very pretty church that Yoni and I explored. Numerous trips to Spain, France and Italy have revealed many Catholic churches, but Orthodox churches were an unknown to me. The church in this obscure village was not ancient, but was quite large and immaculately decorated. It was very interesting seeing an ornate but very different church.

 It was late morning and an hour after our last break. It was time for our first imbibement for the day. I’d taken a liking to the local ouzo. Yoni and Garry were more classical, feeling late morning was a good time for Campari. The culinary twins had diet coke.

Similarly, Chrissos, the next village, was also meant to have a nice centre but it too was nowhere to be found and was even a bit more drab than Vargiani. The mountain views were stunning, the company perfect and it was absolutely irrelevant if any given village was a jewel in the rough or just another dot on the map. We were having maximum enjoyment.

Any trip to this part of Greece must include a visit to Delphi; Ancient centre of the world, home to the temple of Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi. Rather than walking around a collection of rocks and pillars, our Grand Pubah decided that we would have a guide whose job was to explain the meaning and history of said rocks and pillars. And putting cynicism aside, George was a fantastic guide without whom we really would not have understood what we were looking at. This site was central to Greek ancient culture, upon which much of Western culture is based. To our surprise, George explained that the Oracle, the teller of fortunes who was the “loudspeaker” through which the gods communicated with the masses, didn’t come from nobility, or wealth. The person chosen to be the Oracle was usually an ordinary housewife who had no special features other than their purity of soul. Wars were waged, fortunes made, both important and trivial decisions enacted upon, depending on the decree. This place was important, like, centre-of-the-universe important. And the number one was a woman plucked from obscurity. I really think these Ancient Greeks had the right idea and if only we could use the same logic to run the modern world, we may not be in as a terrifying position as we are today.

Upon finishing our fascinating and informative hour and a half with George, he recommended we go to the museum, housing sculptures and artifacts from the temple complex, which was a five minute walk away from the Temple archeological site. I like museums, as do Mark and Yoni. Garry and Phil raced against each other who could get to the exit quicker. I was last to get to the exit, and that was only about 15 minutes after I started. As impressed as we were with George’s guiding, we were as unimpressed with his recommendation. The museum was quite underwhelming.

A number of people had recommended Taverna Vakhos in the township of Delphi. And for good reason. We had enjoyed our meal the night before in Arachova, but this place was a step above that. Fresh salads, traditional pastries and pies filled with leeks, spinach and local cheese, rolled cabbage leaves in lemon sauce, moussaka, white beans and more, while we sat a window overlooking a valley that leads into the bay of Corinth, surrounded by snow covered mountains. Tough life.

We eventually dragged ourselves to the car, where we did about three laps around Delphi before exiting. Yoni the navigator and Garry the driver couldn’t quite understand each enough in order to find the correct way out. It was quite comic the first time round. By the third lap of the town, we thought we might be sentenced to some sort of Kafka-esque, or maybe Seinfeld-esque absurdity where we would spend the next 3 days trapped in a car, circling the tourist trap town of Delphi. Getting to see more of Delphi than we had planned certainly vindicated Yoni’s decision to stay in far more pleasant and authentic Arachova, a mere 8 km away.

We didn’t need a big dinner (any dinner?), so we decided to step out at a later hour to a local apre-ski bar. Replete with comfy sofas, lots of gas heaters, a long drinks menu and short food menu, it sort of made us feel like the Greek ski set. And the cheese and sausage platter, pizza and Greek salad were actually pretty good for a place like this. Sometimes generic, international ski bars that have no pretensions but do everything adequately can be a lot of fun.

And in a way, that sort of sums up our day. Certainly not generic in any way, but not action packed, either. Just five friends travelling together on holiday.