43010GRE
Suggested timetable for the day:
In the unlikely event you are travelling without a touring guide, you will meet the Delphi guide at the entrance to the site next to the Ticket Office. Call the night before to arrange a time and discuss program. The guide will know how busy the site is and so may suggest visiting the museum first.
It is also possible (but rare), in very busy times, that you will have been staying in Nafpaktos instead of Delphi proper, meaning that you will need to calculate extra driving time this morning to get to the site of Delphi.
Customarily, the group visit the site first and then the museum. However, in busy times this can be reversed. There are toilets available outside the museum, next to the café, as well as on the site itself
8.30am Load up coach and leave (if staying in Delphi. Adjust time if staying in Nafpaktos).
9.00am Enter Site. The guide will walk the group up the sacred way past the treasury sites to the Temple of Apollo, stopping and guiding along the way. The guide will then give the group free time. The more fit of the group might want to ascend past the theatre up to the stadium. Be aware this is a quite strenuous walk/climb and you will need to ensure that you give the group adequate time (30 mins minimum).
10.30am Meet at entrance to site (exit/entrance are the same) to walk to Museum (alternatively arrange to meet by the museum itself, if they have already disembarked there) – opportunity to use the toilets.
10.50am Enter Museum. The tour inside will last about 45 minutes. It should include: the Sphinx and the Treasury of the Sifnians, the gold and ivory treasures, twin kouros statues, the Antinoous, the Dancers of Delphi and the Charioteer.
11.45am Free time for Museum Shop (if open).
12.00 midday Board coach and head to lunch. In the interest of time, we usually arrange for groups to eat lunch all together rather than giving them free time in Delphi. There are a number of places which can accommodate. Speak with your guide about this in the morning pre-visit, as it is best to call in advance. You, the guide and driver eat gratis if you take the whole group someplace.
2.00/2.30pm Depart for Kalambaka. This is another long drive. Roughly 4 hours. There is really only one place to stop. After about two hours. The “Best Station” just before Lamia on the Lamia-Athens National Highway. It is about ten minutes from Thermopylae so, if you want to save time on the following day, you can do the Thermopylae stop today before the toilet break.
6.00/6.30pm Arrive in hotel in Kalambaka (or rarely, in Kastraki – about 15 minutes further on). Group may want to swim in hotel pool, if available, before dinner. Ring hotel in advance to see if this is possible.
Dinner is usually at a local restaurant in the center of Kalambaka.