28.13 Delphi: The Delphi Double, up-and-down two mountains on one hike and some observations of Greece and Athens.
In nearly seven hours on the trail we did not see another hiker nor were we lost at any stage. Mind you, in the two other hikes in the region, we'd barely seen 4 people. We've mentioned quite often before that there's much smoking and coffee drinking on the sidewalks of Greece, a lot less walking. When we arrived in Delphi, the first thing we noticed was the peak across the canyon from the town. The problem was to find someone who could direct us to a trailhead, a trail...anything. Of all the people we asked, nobody could help us but suggest we drive out of town and return via a lower road and park and begin from within the canyon. A couple of restaurant owners did try to encourage us to put up our feet and eat instead. The issue was that we were 1,800 feet above the canyon floor from which we would have to climb a further 2,400 feet. Effectively, it was 4,200 feet up in two tranches. The difficulty seemed to be getting down because the terrain was rough and had large drop...