"Out of Athens" or "Two Ignoring Thebes"

I couldn't decide upon a single title.  Anyway, as the titles suggest, we left Athens today in our rental car (as luck would have it, a VW Passat, the same car I drive at home) and headed out on Hwy 1 towards Lamia.  We did in fact pass by Thebes (note to the would-be cognoscenti -- in Greek the 'b' is really more of a 'v' sound, although not precisely) but decided not to visit, as we were hip to get to Thermopylae, which is about 10 km outside of Lamia. One of my "can't miss" spots was the plaque with Simonides famous epigram:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

Ō ksein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tēide

keimetha, tois keinōn rhēmasi peithomenoi.

"Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, 

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie" 

And, as you can see, we made it there.  There is a whole 'nother story about the site and the newly-constructed Thermopylae museum, but I'll leave that for another post.  I learned an interesting fact about the battle, which I had always thought took place in a mountain pass. Actually the pass was simply the narrow strip of land between the water and some seriously high mountains.  The final battle took place on a relatively low hill (Kolonos Hill) which sits between the mountains and the water.  The plaque seen in the photo is on top of the hill, perhaps 30 meters up.  After that we headed off for Delphi, a great trip that led up and over those fairly impressive mountains....more on that later.