Athens in a Day

Knowing today was going to be a big walking day, a few of us were up early so we could grab coffee at "hole in the wall" Foyer's Espresso Bar, one of the best places for coffee in Athens!

I loved making a memory with these ladies before starting our day!

Condensing this day into a readable blog post feels almost impossible! A stroll through the fish and meat market on our way towards Monastiraki Square and our first teaching place of the day, could have been a blog post in and of itself!

But here we are in the gardens just below the Acropolis, ready for the morning's teaching with Dave

Here Dave taught on "The Gospel and Philosophy", since we are in the shadow of one of the greatest places of philosophical thought!

He read quotes from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle before moving into his Bible passage of the day: Acts 17 when Paul was waiting in...Athens! He talked about how Paul knew the value of philosophy as it got people asking the right questions about life.

But while the philosophers looked inward to man to find those answers, Paul made a brilliant move and introduced a much better way of looking for answers: starting with God! Paul didn't try to prove the existence of God, but rather started with the assumption that God IS, and worked out from there to what HIS answers are!

It was such a good introduction to our day around Athens as we walked and talked.

After a walk through the grounds beneath the Acropolis, we came up to Mars Hill where Paul preached his famous sermon recorded in Acts 17:

“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands....”

The winds in Athens today were fierce so it was a bit scary standing up here at the edge of this precipice, but so cool at the same time!

As we stood in line waiting to go up to the Acropolis, Claire noticed something funny about the backside of our ticket stubs to get in.

Just a month ago Dave finished a series on Idolatry at our JV Spring conference, and had just showed pictures of what some of the gods looked like long ago...and this was one of them! 🤣It was a good reminder of what Paul faced when he preached here...a lot of idolatry, worship of other gods.

Twelve years ago we were up here at the Acropolis in 109 degree weather. Today it wasn't as hot (only 90!), but it was windy up here too. But what an incredible sight it is!

I'm not sure how far we'd walked at this point in the day, but when the three of us saw a bench, we took a moment to sit and rest our tired feet!

A lunch break back down in town was much needed refreshment after being out in heat and wind of Athens today.

Next stop was the incredible Acropolis Museum.

Finished in just 2007, it is an impressive display of artifacts excavated and recovered from the Acropolis, which began in 1886. There is a great video and explanation on their website if you want to read and watch more about it.

One of the most spectacular things about it? It was built in sight of the Acropolis, matching its dimensions and displaying reliefs and statues that were once up there, and are now safe in the museum.

If you ever happen to be in Athens, this is definitely something you don't want to miss (and be sure to go to the third floor to see it!)

This was seriously one of the coolest museums I've ever been to, and my fellow museum goers would probably say the same thing!

I'll admit though, we were all feeling a little weary by this time.

So even though the sights of the museum continued to be impressive...

...we were all ready for another break!

Gelato hit the spot for everyone, and gave us the needed energy to keep going.

We walked back to the hotel, picked up our luggage and then took a bus ride to the ferry port.

And from there, boarded the ferry for a seven hour ride!

The ship left at 6 PM and wasn't due in to our next port until 1:20 AM...

But in reality it didn't land until 2 AM! So it was a long and beautiful ride to our next destination!