Athens, Greece

From Corfu we sailed first to Katakolon, where we chose to stay on board and just relax and then to Athens where we ventured from the ship, to a shuttle, to the bus, to two trains before we finally arrived at the Acropolis. I was leading the way on this adventure and was glad that I had listened and taken notes to the Port Lecturer on the television in our cabin that morning. Our first glimpse was from far away....

It was already over 100 degrees Fahrenheit which seemed even hotter as we began our climb up the hill.

 As we climbed, we walked by people working on the excavating and restoration of buildings and walls.

Finally we made it to the top, along with what felt like thousands of other people from literally around the world. There were so many different languages spoken(kind of reminded me of the Tower of Babel story in the Bible!!!)

The Parthenon really was the most magnificent structure. Built on the highest spot in the city, we literally had a 360 degree view of the entire city of Athens. The view was spectacular!

But there was still so much more to see so we began our descent down the other side of the hill. It was there that we came to another hill called the Aeropagus, where Paul is said to have preached to the Athenians. It was so amazing to stand on the hill and look back at the Acropolis and to think that we were walking in Paul's footsteps!

As we climbed down it felt like we were walking through history. This little church, The Church of the Holy Apostles, was originally built in the shape of a cross in 1000 AD.

As we continued our trek we headed into downtown Athens where we found this amazing church right in the middle of an intersection, almost like they built first the roads and then the new buildings around it.

Our destination was the Greek Parliament Buildings(and no, we didn't see any protestors) where we had heard that they had an hourly changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We arrived just in time to see the new guards and their escort marching up.

This elite guard is chosen from the tallest and best young soldiers in the Greek military, and is considered the highest honor.(Definitely not for their uniforms....remember it got up to 41 degrees celcius this day). They gave a new definition to the phrase, 'high stepping'!!!

Fortunately for this young soldier, they actually had protection from the hot sun as he spent his hour standing guard. We were thankful to flag down a taxi driver who was fluent in German so I could converse with him all the way back to the port. He even took us by several of the stadiums that had been built for the Olympic Games in Athens so we could see them. As we sailed away that afternoon I couldn't help but smile and think that I truly had walked along the streets of history this day......

Just as Paul had preached to the young believers in Athens and shown them the way, so this Pilot Boat delivered and then picked up the pilot who would guide our ship out of the Athens Harbor and out to Sea again......tomorrow would be another adventure.