Saturday, September 28

We began our day with a visit to the Olympic stadium in Athens. Located at the site of the ancient stadium where the Pan-Athenian Games were held, the stadium was rebuilt for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. The stadium will also host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics.

Our next stop was the famed Acropolis. We gathered at the base of the Areopagus ("Mars' Hill"), where Rev. Tim did his imitation of St. Paul by giving a devotional on the text of Paul's sermon delivered at the site and recorded in Acts 17. Although both he and Christiana, our guide, tried to warn everyone about the difficulty of the footing going up the Areopagus, most of the group persisted and "came down on their bottoms" -- just as Christiana had said.

We continued on to the top of the Athenian acropolis and visited both the Erechtheion and the Parthenon, temples to Athena. We posed for group pictures with the Parthenon in the background.

The afternoon was spent traveling down to Sounion. There we enjoyed a leisurely lunch in an outdoor cafe overlooking the Aegean coast. On a high hill stood the ancient temple of Poseidon, built 2500 years ago during the same period as the construction of the Parthenon. Christiana related the ancient myths about the competitions between Athena (goddess of wisdom and peace) and Poseidon (god of the sea) as to which would be the patron of the city.

Tomorrow we will make our way up the coast to Thessaloniki for our tour of the northern parts of Greece. Along the way we will pass several sites key to Greek history and indeed to Western Civilization generally. Want to know what they are? Then check in tomorrow!

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