Athens

Our pre trip was over and we flew back to Athens and were met and taken to the Electra Palace Hotel. This hotel was in the old part of the city called the Plaka district. From the top of our hotel you could see the Acropolis (which means the top of the city) and the beautiful Parthenon. The following morning we took a tour to the Acropolis and viewed the Parthenon up close. It is such a magnificant building which is currently being restored enough to prevent furthur losses. There are two other temples in fairly good condition in the same area.

After touring the Acropolis we visited the Benake Museum which has a great collection of ancient to modern Greek artifacts, jewelry and some Egyptian artifacts. We had lunch on the roof of the museum, which was delightful.

The next day we took an optional trip to Corinth and Mycenae. Corinth is the site of a canal that separates the mainland from the Peloponnesian peninsula. Nero, a Roman emperor suggested such a canal, but it was not completed until 1893. It is only wide enough to accomodate one ship in each direction at a time.

St. Paul visited Corinth three times, staying there 1 1/2 years on the Jews and Gentiles. He is still remembered fondly and with reverence to this day in this area. It almost gave me goose bumps to stand and think about Paul preaching in this very spot.

We then went on to visit Mycenae, home of King Agamemnon, who Homer said started the Trojan war over beautiful Helen, who was taken by Paris to Troy. This war lasted ten years and finally ended with the Greeks bringing the Trojan Horse as a gift to Troy with solders hidden inside. At nightfall the hidden Greeks climbed out of the horse and opened the gates to the Greek soldiers, thus ending the Trojan war. In Mycenae we visited the tomb of Agamemnon, which was huge and built in a bee hive shape.

We left Athens by flying to the Island of Rhodes and where we saw the origins of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which was built in 305 BC. This statue only lasted 56 years when it was felled by an earthquake, and the pieces transported to Syria about 800 years later. They did this because the pieces were covered in bronze. In the afternoon we boarded a wonderful ship, The Arethusa, for a seven day excursion through the Greek Dodecanese Islands.