A sanctuary of ancient Athens dedicated to its patron, the goddess Athena, the Acropolis dominates the center of today's modern city. The Acropolis' fifth century BC monuments--the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena Nike--stand in harmony with their natural setting and offer masterpieces of ancient architecture that reflect the wealth and power of Athens during its greatest peak.
Lying between the twin rocks of the Phaedriades at the foot of Mount Parnassos, Delphi held the most famous oracle of ancient Greece. According to mythology, when Zeus sent out the two eagles from both ends of the universe to find the navel of the world, they met in Delphi, marking it as the center of the world. Greek myths date the history of Delphi to prehistory when the site was sacred to mother earth and was guarded by the bad serpent of Python, who was later killed by Apollo. For many centuries, Delphi was the cultural and religious center of the Hellenic world, and today's site reveals the historic events it endured.
Considered the birthplace of medicine, Epidaurus is the sanctuary of the god-physician Asklepios. Epidaurus monuments provide a testimony to the practice of medicine in antiquity and illustrate the evolution of medicine from the time when healing depended solely on the physician-god to the gradual accumulation of knowledge and experience and the birth of science. The abundance of Epidaurus' mineral springs are a reminder of the more than 200 dependent spas the site is believed to have once had.
