Day 14 - Departing Rome and Headed Home!

                                                            Finally! I got my gelato!

What a trip! Our group did so well! We have made some new friends and got to see some friends we love experience Gods Word expand through Europe.  Already looking forward to the next one! But first to get home and begin sorting through over 2300 photos that we took!  Hoping you enjoyed our blog.  Praying this inspires you to read the passages of the day and some of the pictures assist in visualizing the words you read. 

Day 13 - Rome, Italy Passages: Acts 28; Romans

We finished the day with visiting the Pantheon, Colosseum and the Roman Forum.  This was a full day and we are all over loaded on sites and details.  What an adventure.  We will head back to our hotel to enjoy a final meal together as a group and prepare for our flight home tomorrow.

Day 13 St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican

The worlds largest church.  St. Peter's Basilica is shaped like a cross. It measures three soccer fields wide and six soccer fields long.  In my pictures, I attempted to have people in the photos to give you depth and scale on how large this building is.  The tomb of Apostle Peter is below the main floor (1st picture), Above in the church, there is four spires with a roof.  Peters tomb is below this.  The ornate architecture and detail of this church left us all speechless.

Day 13 Vatican City

This morning we toured the Vatican.  The immense size of the buildings, sculptures and art is hard to describe and the pictures do not do it justice.  Collections from Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael fill the halls.  It is overwhelming.  We spent four hours here though I feel you could spend at least a week.  We toured some of the Vatican's museums as well as St. Peters Square and the Sistine Chapel. Photos were not allowed in the Sistine Chapel and we honored that.  Our guide did an excellent job with all the information and prepared us well for the detail of the paintings and the stories behind them.

Day 12 - Evening in Rome, Italy

Celebrity did a great job with our disembarkation, we were on the bus quickly and through the airport in Athens without too many delays.  Arriving in Rome, we traveled to the Hilton and settled in.  It didn't take but an hour for some of the adventure seekers to gather and head out in the evening to get a few bonus sights in!  We took the subway into the city and followed a few faithful leaders up stairs, escalators, down dirt paths and roads to arrive downtown.  We made it to the Spanish Steps which gave us great views and had a photo at the base of the steps.  Our other main destination we seeked was the Trevi Fountain.  The statues and work on this was so detailed.  It was amazing to see.  We continued to have a great time walking through the city and stopping for dinner.  We made it safely back to the hotel preparing for tomorrow. Oh and yes.... the cars are that small.

Days 10 & 11 - A day at sea and Nafplio, Greece

All we can say is Wow! Our day at sea was relaxing and Nafplio was amazing!  We didn't make the 2000 steps up to the castle but we did end up with 11,000 walking through and around the city.  Took a nice city tour and bumped around a few shops with Jim and Kathy.  After lunch we ventured up in the cliffs for great views of the sea and the city. This was a beautiful stop and the food was amazing.  Thankful for the gentleman at Stavropoulos, guiding us and warning us that one order will feed two!  Tomorrow we will disembark in Athens and our group will fly to Rome, Italy for our final step as we follow Paul. 

  

Day 9 - Tour Thessaloniki, Greece Passages: Acts 16; 1 and 2 Thessalonians

Today we were in Thessalonica.  The second largest city in Greece, the city has built on and around much of its history.  Much of it was buried, burnt or built upon but our tour was detailed and very informative.  We toured 5^th and 6^th century churches, St. Demetrius’ Basilica, Church of Agia Sofia and the Rotonda.

We stopped at the White Tower and viewed the ruins laying at the foot of apartments and business offices downtown.    After our tour, a few of us went back into the city to experience the culture, explore the city and grab some local fare.  The Aristoteles Square was pretty amazing and seemed to be the center for shopping, food, groceries and services.  It did feel that the million plus people living in the metro all used what it had to offer.  Tomorrow is a much needed day at see and then port at Nafpilo, Greece for a vacation day on our own.

Day 8 - Philippi, Greece Passages: Acts16; Philippians

Today we ported at Kavala, Greece.  We boarded our bus as a group and traveled to Philippi.  Our first stop was at the Lion Monument.  The funerary monument was from the 4^th century and had a long history of being discovered and unearthed.  First discovered in 1912 and then more parts found during WWI and years after.  Final assembly was where it was discovered.  After a group photo we went to the Archeological Museum of Amphipolis.  Paul and Silas passed through this area on their way to Thessalonica. 

Arriving in Philippi we had a great lunch at the welcome center and then toured the area.  Philippi was a sprawling area.  The Apostle Paul spent about three months in Philippi during his second missionary journey. Paul arrived in Philippi with Silas, Timothy, and Luke.  It was humbling for me to sit in the forum and think this is where Paul and Silas were dragged into, stripped and flogged.  Joe shared scripture with us here. We were able to view the jail where he was held after the flogging and imagined Paul and Silas singing hymns as they were chained to the floor. This jail was where Paul converted a jailer to Christianity after an earthquake. The octagon Church on the site was built on top of the foundation from a Church dedicated to Paul in the 4^th Century.

Ending our day, we traveled to Lydia’s Church. This church was built beside the River Zygaktis where it’s believed that Paul and Silas met with the early believers and Lydia was baptized. There was a beautiful area set by the river where services and baptisms are held today.  Tomorrow we travel to Thessaloniki.