Day Six - Athens/Rome

The airport in Athens is one of the newest major airports in the world, built for the 2004 Olympic Games held here. As a new airport, it also has great new technology, like free internet access! So today's post comes from the airport in Athens, where we are waiting for our early evening flight to Rome.

This morning, our cruise ship docked at Pireaus, the port of Athens. After a fairly lengthy disembarkation process, we met our transfer assistant, Valerie, and our bus to be tranferred to the center of Athens for the day. We had four stops on our agenda.

First, we visited the Cathedral of St. Dionysius, the Roman Catholic cathedral of Athens. St. Dionysius was the first person St. Paul converted and baptized in Athens, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. He was later martyred and is the patron of Athens. We celebrated Mass at the side altar of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral, honoring two other couples celebratng significant wedding anniversaries this year: Sparky and Dolores Sparks, celebrating 45 years, and Frank and Joyce Roberts, celebrating 50 years.

From there, we traveled by bus to the foot of the Acropolis, where we walked on foot to the Areos Pagos, or Hill of Ares. At the time of St. Paul, this hill housed the courts of the city. It was here that St. Paul preached his famous sermon to the Athenians as recorded in Acts. While at the base of the hill, we read Paul's sermon, in the very place it was first proclaimed. Today, the hill is a large rocky area with a great view of both the Acropolis and the city of Athens.

Next we stopped at Mitropoli, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Athens, where we briefly toured the church and learned about Orthodox art and architecture.

Following the tour, we had a little over an hour and a half for lunch on our own. The group split into several smaller groups and went to many of the sidewalk cafes or restaurants in the Plaka, a historic center of the city not far from Mitropoli. The group I was with ate at Exopinis, a great little Greek restaurant. After lunch we took the bus to the airport, and now we are off on the next leg of the pilgrimage. God willing, the next blog post will be from the Eternal City - Rome!