Initially going to Delphi didn't seem like a fun drive, just going to Olympia was already a fair trek, but I didn't originally factor it as a day trip from Athens with a tour bus (to avoid the 4H+ of driving). But due to limited time, I picked from getyourguide, which offered 2 tours, one that stopped 2H at Arachova and said pretty much nothing about what Arachova was or why it was a good idea to stop there.
As a result of the very poor getyourguide site (and you had one job), I picked what they called the "most popular" day trip which was indeed to Delphi only. Once on the trip, driving through Arachova and realizing how beautiful it was and why it was on the other tour that I didn't pick because I had no idea, now I had deep regret. Thankfully I was able to work something out to rescue to the day, do both Delphi and Arachova (With 2H in Arachova), and still catch the bus back to Athens.
Let's start with Delphi, though. It was another one of those pretty impressive places back in the day, of which there is only so much left today, so you have to read the descriptions and use your imagination along with the audioguide:
found a beautiful and probably poisonous spider on the way ;)
For comparison, thi is what the site used to look like back in the day:
The highlight was the top forum that is still in good shape:
From there, the rest higher up was apparently closed, but I managed to miss that and went to the top:
the top arena was not well maintained and probably hadn't been for a while
From there, I felt I saw all that could be seen, so I went to check out the museum which had a decent collection:
Once done with the museum, took a cab to nearby beautiful Arachova:
super colorful church
Lots of yummy and cheap shopping:
Cute little museum inside town:
The town was full of friendly cats
and after about 2H in town, walked to the bus pickup area, for the IG crowd ;)
and then, longish ride back to Athens, but so happy I didn't have to drive :)