I'm going to make this post more concise for time's sake and let the pictures do most of the talking.
1) Today we toured Thessaloniki a bit, which is a major city (2nd largest in Greece) and full of its own interesting history, although the connection with Paul's missionary journies are what interested us the most.
2) Then we drove to the site of Berea (Acts 17:10) and enjoyed lunch near a modern shrine to commemorate St. Paul's visit. In fact, they host every June a city-wide festival to St. Paul, which unfortunately we seem to have just missed.
3) After lunch we had a special stop at Vergina, one of the special cities in the ancient Macedonian empire and the burial place of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! (yes, this place was great -- the objects of gold and silver found in the tomb are in the museum there and are among the most impressive artifacts I've seen yet on this trip!)
4) On to our destination, a full-blown resort in Leptokarya, literally right at the foot of Mt. Olympus where it descends in full majesty into the sea. Whoah! I have been looking forward to seeing Mt. Olympus for a long time -- the first lecture of my Classical Mythology course (which they don't teach at Wheaton, at least not yet) has a whole bit on Mount Olympus and on ancient people visiting it and how it was just fine in their minds to say that the gods lived there even if they were to go there physically and find no gods on the top, etc. Let's just say that Mt. Olympus beat the hype! (Even better than my other favorite Mt. Olympus... note the shirt I'm wearing in the first pic from yesterday's summary :-)
So, without further ado, here are the pictures from today:
Here we see the Forum at Thessaloniki, surrounded now by modern buildings. There's honestly not too much to see here, but Paul would have come here.
Now in Berea, here enjoy lunch at this shrine to St. Paul. The Greek was fun to try to read.
While waiting for everyone else to finish lunch, some of us invented a new game: No Smiling! You get a group of people in a circle, and when you smile you have to leave the circle; you can't look down or away from other people in the group. I lost pretty much instantly. But look at these two finalists! (Abby is the new no smile queen, awesome skillz there!)
1) Today we toured Thessaloniki a bit, which is a major city (2nd largest in Greece) and full of its own interesting history, although the connection with Paul's missionary journies are what interested us the most.
2) Then we drove to the site of Berea (Acts 17:10) and enjoyed lunch near a modern shrine to commemorate St. Paul's visit. In fact, they host every June a city-wide festival to St. Paul, which unfortunately we seem to have just missed.
3) After lunch we had a special stop at Vergina, one of the special cities in the ancient Macedonian empire and the burial place of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! (yes, this place was great -- the objects of gold and silver found in the tomb are in the museum there and are among the most impressive artifacts I've seen yet on this trip!)
4) On to our destination, a full-blown resort in Leptokarya, literally right at the foot of Mt. Olympus where it descends in full majesty into the sea. Whoah! I have been looking forward to seeing Mt. Olympus for a long time -- the first lecture of my Classical Mythology course (which they don't teach at Wheaton, at least not yet) has a whole bit on Mount Olympus and on ancient people visiting it and how it was just fine in their minds to say that the gods lived there even if they were to go there physically and find no gods on the top, etc. Let's just say that Mt. Olympus beat the hype! (Even better than my other favorite Mt. Olympus... note the shirt I'm wearing in the first pic from yesterday's summary :-)
So, without further ado, here are the pictures from today:
Here we see the Forum at Thessaloniki, surrounded now by modern buildings. There's honestly not too much to see here, but Paul would have come here.
Now in Berea, here enjoy lunch at this shrine to St. Paul. The Greek was fun to try to read.
While waiting for everyone else to finish lunch, some of us invented a new game: No Smiling! You get a group of people in a circle, and when you smile you have to leave the circle; you can't look down or away from other people in the group. I lost pretty much instantly. But look at these two finalists! (Abby is the new no smile queen, awesome skillz there!)
Then we drove to Vergina, site of the burial tomb of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The tomb has been excavated, and below is the entrance. They built it and then covered it with a gigantic mound of dirt, making a hill! Now, the excavated tomb chambers are visible inside along with a whole museum showing the intact artefacts they found there. Lots of beautiful objects, including many of gold and silver. Very impressive!
As were driving to our destination, I kept asking our guide, "Will you tell us when Mt. Olympus comes into view?" And she kept replying, "Oh, don't worry, you'll know." :-) Then I saw it! And she was right, I didn't have to ask.
Over 9,000 feet of awesomeness. The highest peak in the land! It was shrouded partly in cloud in a very numinous, awe-dramatic fashion. One of Zeus's epithets in Homer's Iliad (go read it!) is "Cloud-Gathering Zeus," and now I know exactly why.
Our place for the next two nights is the Olympian Bay Resort, nestled at the base of Mt. Olympus and right on the water. What views! The buffet dinner was fantastic.
After dinner, some of us went strolling along the shoreline for a peaceful moment.
I think we will enjoy this place! We stay for two nights before continuing our eventual journey to Athens. Hope everyone is enjoying the pictures -- I'm sure most of you wish you were here by now! An embarassment of beauty and experiences to be sure. God has given us all many blessings on this study trip, to be sure.
Tomorrow -- ancient Dion and a free afternoon and evening! Sweet!
No comments:
Post a Comment