16 November 2017 –– Athens,
Greece
We arrived at the port city of Piraeus, the largest port of
Greece and the 3rd largest in Europe. Busy, busy, busy, with commercial, private,
cruise ships ,and ferries coming and going.
We started our day under partially cloudy skies, but to the
west were storm clouds. We arrived at
the Acropolis in Athens early under just an intermittent mist, but before we
reached the top, the rain arrived.
Being soaked like drowned rats despite our rain gear, we continued on, determined not to miss anything. We had waited a long time to see this and we weren’t going to let a little rain deter us. Thank goodness the temperature was mild in the high 60s or it could have been worse. We were soaked to the bones after our tour on the Acropolis, but saw the sights, read and learned about them through our guide, and enjoyed our time there.
As we returned to the ship, we experienced a few sights of
Athens, including some of the government buildings, the site of the 1st
modern day Olympics held in 1896 in a stadium made entirely of marble.
As our guide said, Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning, was angry today, thus the rain. But we know that is only myth! Let’s hope for some dryer weather. The flags of Greece were at half-staff today to remember the 15 people killed in the mountains from torrential rains during the past 15 days. Some sunshine would be welcome at least for us!
We head further east to Rhodes and drier weather, we hope!
Sorry about the rain. :( Hope you had a warm bath when you got back to your room.
ReplyDeleteDid you see Mars Hill outside the Acropolis? It’s where St Paul addressed the religious idolatry of the Greeks who even had an altar to the “Unknown God.” His comments are in Acts 17: 16-34. The guest speaker on my trip, Darrell Huckaby, gathered us just below where Paul preached and read the Scripture, kind of like an echo of Paul’s own words. It was very moving!
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