When in Greece, Rome!

What an incredible 10 day adventure I just had! I returned from Greece and Italy yesterday (Sunday). Here are some details of our trip!

This was our first group travel. We left Verviers, Belgium on February 24 and headed to Athens, Greece. Our flight was about 3 hours and we arrived in Athens around 8:30PM. I had my first gyro that night in the Plaka. It was really good! Inside of it was chicken, onions, tomatoes, and a yogurt cucumber sauce. I ended up having 2 or 3 gyros during our stay in Athens. :) They were very cheap and a great afternoon snack!

We toured many places during our Grecian stay. Everyday had things planned, from morning till night. On the first day we went to Delphi and that was a beautiful and scenic day. We drove up through the mountains and the view was incredible. There were snow capped mountains and small towns huddled together on the ends of cliffs. We rode up to Delphi on a coach tour bus and as we were climbing the mountains on curvy roads, we were going back and forth from one side of the bus to the other in order to capture every scenic sight with our cameras. Our tour guide Vicki knew so much information about all the Grecian sights we went to. At Delphi she took us around to different ruins, stopping and giving a history of what happened and why those ruins where there.

On the second day we went to Corinth. We stopped at the Corinth Canal first. WOW! The water in the canal was so crystal blue. I've never seen water that blue before. After our stop there we headed on to Corinth. That was an incredible experience. We walked all around Corinth getting to see the marketplace where Paul would have walked and evangelized. It was such a humbling opportunity that everyone should experience. After Corinth we went to Mycenae where king Agamemnon lived. We climbed to the top where we could see a breathtaking view of the countryside.

On the third day we went to the Mars Hill and the Acropolis. Mars Hill was our first stop. We took the stairs to the top of the hill and that was a beautiful view. Once we had our pictures made on Mars Hill, we gathered around our tour guide and she told us information about the hill and the surrounding area. Then Mr. Cliff, one of our chaperones, read the passage that Paul read while on Mars Hill. Then we sang "How Great Thou Art." That brought tears to my eyes. This was another moment that was so humbling and that I will always cherish. Next we headed up to the Acropolis and boy was it cold and windy!!! It was very cloudy which made it even colder! It was very hard to truly enjoy the monuments of the Acropolis with it being so cold, but it was great getting to see what I had heard so much about! We were able to see the Parthenon, which was huge. They were doing work on it, trying to reconstruct. After our tour of the Acropolis we went to the New Acropolis Museum, which was really neat. It was modern but had touches of Greek architecture.

After our tours each day, we were treated to traditional Greek foods. Overall they were very delicious. To my surprise, they serve French Fries with every meal we received for lunch. Also, almost everyone spoke English. It made things so much easier! At night after our tours, we had free time to go do whatever! Majority of the time we went to the Plaka and shopped! :)

Greece was great! So glad we were blessed with this opportunity! Since this is getting slightly long, I will write another post soon continuing with details about Italy!!!