Delphi

It was worth the trouble to get here.  The ancient theater, stadium or temple of Athena individually would be worth the trip.  For all of them together, plus some other ruins, and the incredible setting, it was more than worth it. I think it was my favorite ancient site in Greece.

The ruins are spread over the side of a hill with an ancient path between them and, of course, a magnificent view.  At this time of year, the hill was covered with wildflowers and alive with the buzzing of bees.  (At first this made me nervous -- there seemed to be so many of them -- but the bees don't seem to have any interest in people and after a while I grew to enjoy their low-level buzzing as part of the atmosphere.  It's definitely nicer than the buzzing of tour groups and motors.)

I liked my hotel, and it had a comfy bed, which is the main thing, and I had a nice balcony with a great view.  However, the bathroom, although modern, reasonably-sized and recently (in the last couple of years) renovated, seemed to have been designed by space aliens who technically know about the plumbing fixtures that belong in a bathroom, but no personal familiarity with their function. 

Despite the fact that the bathroom was a reasonable size, the door only opened so far because it smacked right into the sink, and the toilet was practically on top of the tub, which was only about three feet long (but also, for some reason, at least two feet deep, so you had to really step up to get in there).  The single towel rack was for some reason suspended in a position above my head.  Don't ask me why -- there were a million other potential places to put it -- actually, you could have put several towel racks in there. 

The tub had one of those partial glass doors Europeans seem to be so fond of -- the ones that only go about 1/3 of the way along the tub, and leave the rest open.  I've learned to cope with those -- you just make sure that the shower nozzle is positioned so that it blasts straight down instead of out.  However, in this case, that was impossible, because the space aliens had decided to position the shower nozzle holder (it was one of those shower heads on a hose that the Europeans seem to be so fond of) smack in the middle of the tub, aiming out at the open portion of the glass door, right at the toilet.  It was absolutely impossible to adjust it so that it didn't soak the toilet and flood the bathroom.  Trust me, I've adjusted a million of this kind of shower nozzle -- I'm no rookie traveler and I've dealt with all kinds of bathroom fixtures -- and there was no way to do it.

I spent about half an hour trying to do something about this problem, and then just gave up and soaked the bathroom.  You'd think the hotel manager/space aliens would notice that the bathroom is always flooded, and do something about it, but perhaps this is the way they get the floor and toilet clean.  Whatever.  I mopped up a bit afterward, as well as I could, and then left the space aliens to deal with it.

Comments

[Shirley Draeger]

I'm with you, Europeans in general have no idea what good and functional plumbing and electrical amenities are. I base that on the places we have stayed and homes we have visited while traveling. We've stayed at places that had bathrooms as big as a New York apartment and they were totally dysfunctional-no towel bar(s)-no place to put toiletries-toilet paper holder a block away from the toilet-poor lighting-no outlets or very few outlets-mirror up so high you couldn't use it unless you were 6 feet (I'm 5 feet tall) and of course the whole tub/shower thing. I love the hand held but not those that can’t be switched to an above flow so you can actually soap up! And of course I don’t think I have ever been in a European shower that actually had a place for shampoo or soap, much less a razor.