Delphi: A Day Tour at the Navel of the World from Athens

Athens, Greece

Explore one of ancient Greece’s most mesmerizing archaeological sites, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Delphi, on this 10-hour guided day trip from Athens by coach. See highlights of the place where Ancient Greek prophetesses issued oracles, explore the Archaeological Museum, and stop at the pretty mountain village of Arachova. Tour includes entrance fees: upgrade to add a 3-course restaurant lunch.

Expect pickup from your central Athens hotel by 8:30am, when you'll board the coach for the journey to Delphi. Your guide will point out highlights including the Boeotian Plain, an agricultural center since ancient times, the city of Thebes, where King Oedipus was born, and Mount Parnassus, the towering peak above Delphi where the ancient Greek Muses lived.

Around two hours in, you'll break your journey with a short rest stop at the town of Livadia. From here, it's under an hour to Delphi, the UNESCO World Heritage Site known in ancient times as 'the navel of the world', where inspired prophetesses produced oracles that foretold the future.

Your guide will show you the Castalian Spring, where the priestesses used to bathe, and lead you around the archaeological site: you'll have about two and a half hours here, all in all. Admire highlights including the Monument to the Kings of Argos, the Athenian Treasury, the ancient colonnade known as the Stoa of the Athenians, and the polygonal wall, with its artfully crafted masonry. Learn about the Greek god Apollo and his worship at the site as you visit the Temple of Apollo.

Next, see highlights of the Delphi Archaeological Museum, packed with treasures excavated here. Admire the Naxian Sphinx, which once guarded the Temple pf Apollo, the frieze from the Siphnian Treasury, and sculptures including the Statue of Antinous, lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. See the Charioteer of Delphi, one of the masterpieces of ancient Greek bronze artistry, created to commemorate a victory in the Pythian Games, which were held at Delphi to honor Apollo.

If you've selected the option “with lunch”, you'll enjoy a 3-course feast at a local restaurant. If you haven't, you'll have time to buy snacks, eat a packed lunch, or explore Delphi independently before rejoining the coach.

After lunch, it's just 20 minutes to Arachova, a picturesque mountain village on the slopes of Parnassus. You'll have a short stop here to see some of its hand-woven carpets, rugs, and blankets, and perhaps buy some local wine or cheese as souvenir.

From here it's around 2.5 hours’ drive back to Athens, where you'll return to your hotel around 6:30pm.

USD $85.00

Review by:   gabriela_figuero,    August 2018
Our tour guide I can't remember her name was simply wonderful!

Review by:   DIANA G,    August 2018
Excellent tour. It well guided by the tour guide. Awesome food with family house. Highly recommended.

Review by:   elanablinder,    August 2018
Everything on the tour ran smoothly and exactly as advertised. Yiouli was an incredible guide, providing just the right amount of information with the perfect pacing. Nikos was a great driver and the bus was very comfortable. So happy we decided to do this tour.

Review by:   Thomas K,    June 2018
Good tour, tour description mentioned about stop in village but it was solely for restaurant stop. If you opted for the lunch inclusion we saw huge portions being served, you may just want to skip that and order a la carte.

Review by:   Rushad,    June 2018
Excellent adventure! The drive is very long - 3 hours each way and so it makes for a long day. Delphi and especially its archaelogical museum is a masterpiece which was always on my bucket list. The lunch stop on the tour is very average and not worth it. I would recommend choosing the tour without lunch as you basically get to choose from the ala-carte menu at the same restaurant instead of having your meal pre-chosen. A short stop enroute to Delphi is the picturesque village of ski village of Arachova with its narrow winding streets and exotic hill-station like charm. I wish we had a longer stop here and were able to walk around a bit later in the evening or so.

Review by:   Rogue K,    April 2018
Tour was great! Our tour guide was fantastic, funny and knowledgeable. The food was alright, nothing really special but I didn't really care about that considering we had so many other things to do that day! Bus had issues but it didn't really impact the experience, everyone was quite professional about it. All in all I would definitely recommend the tour.

Review by:   Simon A,    January 2018
Rocky start with confusion over pick up point however the tour as a whole was amazing. The tour guide was fantastic with her knowledge as well as ability to interact with the group.

Review by:   Susan W,    January 2018
Loved this tour. Our tour guide was excellent and very informative. Would definitely recommend.

Review by:   Divya B,    January 2018
It was a good trip. Lots of history and our guide was spoke good English and could answer curiosity questions as she shared the history about the monuments and the site. We had a great time. The views from top were also very beautiful. We had booked with lunch option and were hoping authentic Greek menu. Although the starter seemed Greek main course was pasta and chicken and chocolate cake was desert. We shared the lunch table with others and luckily the people on our table made small talk and were great to get to know.

Review by:   Michelle S,    January 2018
This was a really nice tour. It's a long bus ride, but there's nothing you can do about that. When we arrived to Delphi, our tour guide made a few stops up the hill to give us some info about what we were seeing, and then gave us plenty of time to take pictures. Then we went through the museum which was really cool because it had a lot of original pieces, more than I expected to see. We chose the without lunch and just ordered at the restaurant which probably ended up cheaper and we had more options._br/_ Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining. _br/_ Overall, I definitely recommend this tour.

Review by:   rosa t,    January 2018
As a BA in Philosophy, this trip was one of the highlights of the week I spent in Greece. It was all well-organised, we managed to visit both, the archeological sites and the museum and even had a short stop to take pictures of the snowed mountains in Arachova, a beautiful village near Delphi.

Review by:   Melissa M,    January 2018
Wonderful! I hate tours and this was my favorite tours i ever went on. My tour guide was awesome and answered all my questions in detail even while we were walking. The only thing i thought is we should have got a closer view of 2nd temple. We only viewed it from a high point.

Review by:   josephheffington,    December 2017
Breathtaking and definitely one of the highlights of our trip! I learned a lot about the site and ancient Greece. It was definitely a full day but the view is amazing and it will make you ponder how this beautiful city was made.

Review by:   josephheffington,    December 2017
Amazing and a must do!

Review by:   Georsadd G,    December 2017
It was great.

Review by:   Cheryl-Ann F,    November 2017
The setting of Delphi is very beautiful and the tour was excellent. The guide was very informative and there is a lot of fascinating information to learn about the site and its background. Very worthwhile to see a different part of Greece and an extremely important part of its past.

Review by:   Catherine D,    November 2017
once we got there it was good, but we were over 3 hours on bus going and same comping back.. too much time in a but, had i known the journey was so long i would have probably not taken this tour, but once there it was good..

Review by:   Amy R,    November 2017
The tour guide talked so much at certain spots along the walk up that it left zero time to make it all the way up to the stadium at the top if you didnt want to be huffing and puffing. I finally left and continued on my own. The only problem is, you dont know what time youre supposed to be at the museum. Grr.

Review by:   epoch,    November 2017
Great trip. Would be hard to do on ones own. Very knowledgeable tour guide Katherina. Theo our bus driver also very good. The Delphi museum not to be missed. Very lovely artifacts. A must do trip

Review by:   GABRIELLE M R,    November 2017
A great trip! Enjoyed meeting people from other countries and the way this tour facilitated that. I loved all the useful trivia and getting more insight on Greek mythology and literature. Evangelos was a great tour guide.

Review by:   Matthew Warner,    November 2017
Certainly worth the day trip from Athens!

Review by:   Sayema E,    November 2017
The Delphi tour is a must do when in Athens.

Review by:   Anica V,    November 2017
Delphi was amazing, our tour guide was very informative.The bus trip to Delphi was spectacular. We did not include the lunch but when it was time for lunch we had no choice but to eat at the same restaurant, which was a bit disappointing. You will only have 3 options for lunch: pay for it as part of the tour, pay on the day food options limited or bring your own lunch. No other options. But it did not ruin the tour.

Review by:   Ariel G,    October 2017
Our tour guide sorry if I forgot your name is very good knows a lot of things and well informed about the tour.Although time is just not enough though. The only thing is the meals that is included you never mentioned that it well be a pre-selected meal cause I'm looking forward of choosing my meal that day and that chicken is a bit dry and not that soo good.Maybe you can look for another restaurant better than the other one.

Review by:   Natallia R,    October 2017
Everything was great, our guide and the driver were pleasant and knowledgeable. I wish we had a little more time at the museum. Pre-paid lunch was average and I felt like we overpaid, however, they take you to a taverna that is a bit isolated and you don't have much of an alternative but to eat there, either pre- paid or a la cart. Drinks were not included, we had to pay extra 28 euros for a party of 4 for a couple of beers and coffees.

Review by:   Gillian G,    October 2017
Great tour! Delphi is a must-see.

Review by:   lkhess71,    October 2017
Tour was smoothly run. Our guide was knowledgable in Delphi history and very personable. Bus was very clean.

Review by:   Alan R,    October 2017
A really good trip, our guide Marianna was a constant flow of interesting and relevant information throughout the journey. If i were to suggest changes it would be around the transit and particular the stops. The first on the way to Delphi felt rushed particularly when there are several other coach parties at the same stop and the lunch meal didn't feel good value in comparison to restaurants in Athens. The journey back was done in one hit which made it a long journey without a break. The coach driver deserves a special mention as negotiating the small villages around Delphi in a large coach was to say the least a challenge. The site of Delphi itself is fascinating and again our guide Marianne demonstrated her knowledge with interesting facts about the site._br/_ This is a worthwhile trip and the views alone make it a must.

Review by:   Michael D,    October 2017
The tour guide was incredibly good at storytelling... she brought the tour to life! The bus was comfortable (although no bathroom onboard) and the stops to and from Athens were great choices at affordable prices!

Review by:   Robert R,    October 2017
We love viator and take their tours all over the world and recommend them to all our friends and fellow travelers. But they really disappointed us on this one day tour of Delphi out of Athens. It was poorly organized and was more than 2 hours late. We didn't eat lunch until 3 PM and since the tour started early most of us didn't eat breakfast. We were starving by the time we sat down to lunch which was pretty good. _br/_ The tour guide won't use her name was friendly and knowledgable but overloaded us with too much information. I think it was the reason we were over 2 hours late...too much information!. Even she mentioned that she was probably giving us too much information. She has a very soft voice so she needs to use some kind of microphone to project her voice because when we were in the museum, all we could hear was the voices of the other tour guides. _br/_ It was not a fun day. Not up to viator's standards. _br/_ I would recommend that you stay in Athens, see all the sights there and go to the national museum there. Delphi was not that interesting and the museum was a disappoinment. _br/_ We will continue to take Viators tours since they usually do an awesome job. _br/_ I just can't recommend this one!

Review by:   Joe,    October 2017
par excellence -knowledgable,personable, and wise guide to impart historical meanings - bravo!

Review by:   padicha,    October 2017
Very good guide, beautiful scenery, a lot to see

Review by:   Chris V,    June 2017
We were promptly met by our driver at the hotel and taken to a Key Tour agency terminal. After a bit of a delay, our group was driven to Delphi in a comfortable motor coach. The drive took slightly less than three hours from central Athens, with a rest stop at a cafe about an hour from our destination. During the journey, Julie our guide discussed the ancient and modern history of Greece, mythology, and the role of Delphi in Greek history. Once we reached the ruins, we had about 90 min to walk through the archeological site, while Julie stopped to explain each structure and the overall layout. She then provided a guided tour of the small, but very impressive, Delphi museum. We had lunch at a local restaurant Symposium, about 5 min from the site. Lunch was a tasty meal consisting of pasticio, chicken and rice, salad, and fresh apricots. After lunch, we visited the Thollos an impressive ruin near the site, before the nonstop trip to Athens. Julie was an outstanding guide. I highly recommend this tour.

Review by:   G R V,    June 2017
This tour should not be missed if you are visiting Athens! Delphi is quite far from Athens, so it takes almost 10 hours for this trip. Our guide, Alexandra, was very experienced and gave a lot of information in fluent English on Athens, Greece, Greek mythology and the history of the Temple of Apollo and the importance of Delphi on the way. This made the tour even more enjoyable. The temple complex will leave lasting memories, especially if one can imagine the place in its glorious days! There are several steep steps to be climbed, especially to see the ancient stadium well worth the climb!, so please wear sensible walking shoes. Our tour included lunch, which wasn't as exciting as promised not really a typical Greek meal! but it is convenient to opt for lunch because there are not too many dining options in Delphi and you will have to eat in the same restaurant, ala carte. We passed through the pretty village of Arakowa but a stop there, though desirable, wasn't included in the tour!_br/_ A very convenient part of this tour, is the pick up from selected hotels. Even though our hotel wasn't on the list, we received a communication from Viator , well in advance, to be picked up from a nearby hotel.

Review by:   Amanda B,    June 2017
Great guide, but the company was very unorganized. Our tour got off to a bumpy start. We chose the hotel pick-up option, and they arrived a good 15 minutes early to get us so we had to rush out the door, leaving our breakfast behind. The guide who picked us up was entirely unfriendly, didn't even say a word to us other than verifying our names. After an hour of riding around the city picking up others, and waiting sometimes a while at each hotel probably because they were also earlier than the stated pick up times we arrived to the company office. At this point we were told we had to get off the bus because it was for a different tour than the one we were doing. Had we been told this at pick up, it wouldn't have been such a hassle, but since we weren't told this we were already settled in to our seats and unpacked some of our things. After waiting several minutes in the office, our names were called out and we had to load onto a different bus, already packed with people. If we had known how it worked with hotel pick-up, we definitely would have chosen instead to just meet at the tour office and sleep at least a half hour longer!. Once we were off from Athens, things greatly improved. Our guide, Marianna, was extremely friendly and knowledgable. She gave great descriptions of the city and sites along the way, plus stories of the Greek history and mythology. The visit at the site of Delphi and the museum were very informative, as Marianna gave great information, but we would have really liked more time. At the archaeological site we had half an hour of free time, only just enough time to literally run to the top of the hill, snap a few photos and meet the group over at the museum a 15 minute walk cutting into the 30 minutes free time. In the museum, we got a quick tour of a few highlights but there was NO free time afterward to walk around on our own. There were several rooms we didn't even look in, nor did we have any time to even glance in the museum shop. For such a long ride, it was a real shame to spend so little time actually seeing the things we came for. Then we were whisked off to lunch. When we signed up for the tour, there was an option with or without lunch. As several of the reviews I had read said the lunch wasn't great, we opted for without lunch, assuming that means there are other options for finding food and hoping it would mean extra time to walk around on our own as well. No such luck. We went to a restaurant outside of Arachova, so there was literally nothing else in the vicinity. When I asked the guide about other options, she said that previously other people had eaten somewhere in the town and gotten food poisoning so we all had to eat at the same restaurant to be safe. If this is the case, then there shouldn't be an option for lunch, but the tour price should just be more and it automatically included. What ended up was half of the group who had not opted for lunch had to sit on a different side of the restaurant from those who it was included and we had to order off the menu. The restaurant food was okay, but the menu was extremely overpriced compared with much better restaurants we had previously eaten at in Athens. This meant that we ended up paying more money than if we had opted for the lunch, but received less food. Again, not the guide's fault, but definitely poor planning by the tour company. After lunch we made a quick half-hour stop at another part of the Delphi site, the one with the most famous pictures of Delphi. This was nice but again very rushed and we had just enough time to run down to the ruins and snap a few pictures before heading back to the bus. Also, this was NOT listed on the tour description and apparently took the place of the stopover in Arachova which WAS listed in the tour description. So once again, the fault of the tour company for changing the itinerary without any prior notification. We then headed back to Athens and were dropped off in the city center Syntagma square at around 6:00 pm.

Review by:   Michael G,    June 2017
The guide was very knowledgeable and engaging. He talked to us and kept us interested almost the entire way. The bus was also fairly decent. Lunch was tasty, relatively quick, and well coordinated. The only thing I would say is the site itself was slightly underwhelming, but overall worth it. If Delphi is a must see for you, then this trip is well worth the money.

Review by:   windymach,    June 2017
We only choose to book this tour was for the sake of transportation to Delphi. Tour guide had excellent facts, but the tour was a waste of money. The wifi on the tour bus was spotty. Tour had the option of buying lunch. we opted not to. But were forced to eat there for the next restaurant was far.

Review by:   Mary M,    May 2017
We left over 20 minutes late making us rushed everywhere we went. Wifi on bus was not working (one of the responses we choose this tour over others). Tour guide was incredible but everything organized by the tour company seemed disorganized and rushed.

Review by:   Berenice R,    May 2017
The tour was amazing. The tour guide was remarkably excellent. She was very knowledgeable and approachable. I loved this tour!

Review by:   Marjorie B,    May 2017
Lunch was terrible! No choice, set menu, mass produced and rushed ._br/_ Guide did her job well as did the driver .

Review by:   Patricio M,    March 2017
Trip was good! At the beginning there was a little chaos while we were waiting the bus at the tour operator office, two groups gathered at the same time to different places. You might not like the snacks on the road so dont forget to bring yours.

Review by:   Carolyn B,    February 2017
The day trip to Delphi was amazing. Our guide was so informative the whole day. She gave us a guided tour at the Delphi site and in the Museum too, which was wonderful. The who,e day was a delightful day.

Review by:   Anindya G,    October 2016
A very well organized tour with an excellent guide who brought the journey and history alive, rounded off by a great lunch. Had a great trip and will recommend for sure.

Review by:   Christopher O,    August 2016
A bit of a late start didn't help the amount of time actually available at the site where we could have used more to see whole place. Our guide Anastasia was quite good and that helped very much. Food for lunch was fine, you wish these tours would dispense with the quaint local village to buy souveniers from high pressure salesman stop on the way back of which this one was particularly annoying but Delphi is a magical place, worth seeing if you can spare a day in your Athens trip.

Review by:   Ruth W,    July 2016
This trip was great! Our guide was professional, informative and kept our group together during a fairly busy day in Delphi. It was definitely worth the money! Keep in mind if you decide to make the climb to the top, there is little time to dawdle. Fantastic view up there though!

Review by:   Ces G,    June 2016
This is the best tour we did from Athens. The scenery is breathtaking. Even the coffee shop and the restaurant stops were scenic. Lots of uphill walking but it is all worth it!

Review by:   Timothy L,    March 2016
A good if long day out, Delphi itself is well worth the effort, what remains is surprising considering the history of the area. Would have liked a bit more time to spend at the museum, I felt a bit rushed there, didn't really have the time to study the artefacts or take pics as I would have liked. In my opinion the souvenir shop time could have been spent better, there are plenty in Athens