Category: Greece

Today we went to Crete, arriving at 7 a.m. at Souda Bay.  It is one of the deepest natural harbors in the Mediterranean.  The first thing you see are historic fortifications dating from the Venetian Empire along the mouth of the bay.  We took a 3-hour walking tour of scenic Chania.  I loved our…

From Ephesus, we sailed to the Island of Rhodes.  This was another interesting site.  We arrived at 7:30 a.m., while we were at breakfast.  Our tour today was a Rhodes Town Walk & Palace of the Grand Masters.  The Palace is a remarkable and sprawling fortification in Europe’s largest active medieval town.  The Knights of…

Today was a peaceful day, starting out with time spent circling Mount Athos.  Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece and an important center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. Monks have lived here from at least 800 CE. Today over 2,000 monks from Greece and other countries live an…

Thessaloniki:  Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians comes to mind.  While this is a secular trip, I cannot help reflecting on the early church in these areas. Thessaloniki is Greece’s second largest city and capital of Greek Macedonia (to be distinguished from Northern Macedonia, one of the countries of the former Yugoslavia). It…

This was our day to spend at the Acropolis and Parthenon.  It was the highlight of this part of the tour.  After breakfast, we went to the Acropolis Museum.  It was fascinating.  On the entrance and in the foyer, the floor was see-through, so we could look at some completed excavation as well as…

Today we headed to Delphi.  There are so many literary and mythological references to Delphi that I was really excited.  Zeus proclaimed Delphi the “Navel of the World.”  The Oracle, referenced in excavations at this UNESCO site, reveal that it was first inhabited in the Mycenaean times, about the 15th century BCE. The Temple…

Volos is half-way to Thessaloniki on the Aegean Sea.  It is in the province of Thessaly and lies at the foot of Mt. Pilio (Peleon, the land of the centaurs).  This land was previously thought to be the home of Jason and the Argonauts who sought the golden fleece. We toured  the city…

Today we set out for Ancient Agora and Temple of Hephaestus.  There was a strike today, so our taxi driver tried to take a back way to the Ancient Agora.  He got stuck in some road work and had to back up a long way in rush hour traffic.  It was some trip.  He…

Our first few days were based in Athens, and our first trip out of the city was to the Peloponnesian Peninsula, and our first stop was Corinth which sits on a narrow isthmus that connects the Peninsula with mainland Greece. The canal, which separates the mainland from the Peninsula, was…

We explored the Aegean Sea on a Viking 11-day voyage to important sites of antiquity. We started in Athens, the “birthplace of democracy,” and visited Corinth, Delphi, Thessaloniki, Ephesus (in Turkey), Rhodes, Santorini, and Crete. It was a trip to rememnber.

We arrived in the harbor of Santorini and learned that we could not land because the water was too rough for the tenders to come and take us in.  The captain told us he would take us in as close as possible and circle the island, so we could see as…

Today, the last day in Athens, we saw some more sights around the city.   We started with the Church of St. George, perched on top of Lycabettus Hill, the highest hill in Athens.   It was built in the 18th century on the site of earlier churches and an even earlier Temple to Zeus.  The church…