It's a thirty minute twenty-one hundred foot white-knuckle bus ride from the town of Itea on the Gulf of Corinth up to Delphi. You pass through one of the largest olive groves in the world and find yourself struck by the arid climate -- not a drop of water to be seen. Dry creekbeds remind of past rains and the people appear to be inside hiding from the 90 degree heat.
In Delphi, the shops are open because everyone knows there's a cruise ship in port, but the restaurants are empty in early afternoon (Greeks have lunch at 3pm). We step off the bus in town and walk a kilometer to the Oracle, which is hidden behind a bend in the road so that pirates from twenty-seven hundred years ago could not observe it from the sea.