A few weeks before we left for Greece, we received an email from the planning committee about the excursions we could opt to take on our one free day during the conference.
Option #1: A tour of Athens. Seeing as I was planning two days of vacation there before the conference, I opted out of option #1.
Option #2: A tour of Corinth, of biblical fame.
Option #3: A cruise of three Greek islands. We had to meet the bus at 5:45am, and wouldn't return until after 10pm. And the three Greek islands were not Santorini, Rhodes, Patmos, or Hydra...which are the only islands I've ever heard of.
Option #4: Going to the beach at a cove near our resort. This was the cheaper option, as it only cost 5 euros. Once I looked at pictures of the cove, though, I figured it looked just like the Calanques here in Marseille.
Option #5: Stay at the resort and go to the pool.
How I teetered back and forth between Corinth and getting to be on a Big White Boat for a day. Y'all know I love me some boat rides. But after much deliberation, I opted to go to Corinth for the day...and take a real Greek Island cruise that goes to the big name islands some other summer. Confession: I did not read the two books of Corinthians before going. I know I should have, but I didn't. I was still stuck in Acts 17 from my time in Athens.
We boarded the bus and then lost a good 20 minutes of our tour time over some confusion about a man's name on the passenger list who was not on the bus. We weren't sure if someone had played a joke (apparently his name was listed on every list for the whole week of the conference, and they'd never been able to figure out who or where he was), or if it was just a confusion of names. But that bus driver refused to leave until the man showed up, despite all our efforts to persuade him to leave without the non-existing man. We finally left.
And proceeded to get into a bus accident.
Memories of Portugal and my transportation curse came to mind and how, if I was on a form of transport, something, anything, would go wrong. What happened here...our bus pulled into a round-a-bout, and then waited for the light to change before pulling out of the round-a-bout. Another bus pulled up beside us, I suppose in our blind spot. As the light changed and our driver pulled forward, his back end took out the other bus's front end.
We lost another 45 minutes or so of our tour as we sat and waited while the police sorted it all out. While we were waiting, someone on the bus quipped, "Now I know why Paul wrote letters to Corinth. He knew it'd be quicker than trying to actually travel there..."
The lost time from searching for the non-existing man and then the bus accident was not tacked on to the end of our tour, and so we were rushed through the rest of the afternoon, which is a bit of a bummer. But I still had a great day nonetheless.
While in Athens, I had seen postcards of the Corinth Canal, and didn't know if we were going to get to see it or not. I was so thrilled when our tour guide began telling us about it, and then had my breath taken away as we were very suddenly driving right over it! They stopped the bus to let us get out for a few minutes and walk on the bridge to take a look and a few photos.
The canal was began in the 1st century by Emperor Nero, and then abandoned...and not finished until in the 19th century! It is four miles long and only 70 feet wide, so it's almost unusable today for modern ships.
Some of you may not know, but I have a fear of heights. I try not to let it keep me from doing things I want to do, such as walk out on that bridge. I held it together for a good while, but after about 5 minutes, I was ready to be on solid ground. Here I am pretending to look like I'm not completely freaked out by the drop behind me.
Me, Creedance, and the camelridingcowgirl. Such sweet, fun friends.
On solid ground, I found a map that showed where we were, and in relation to Corinth.
Back on the bus, we headed towards the ruins of ancient Corinth, which is about 4 miles from modern Corinth (which is right on the water), as seen below:
A stone excavated from the synagogue. That was cool to me. The synagogue isn't there anymore.
I liked this pillar because it reminded me of Art Nouveau with all it's curvy lines that look like ivy growing on it. Even though Art Nouveau came about 1900 years later...
The tiles never cease to amaze me. They're so beautiful! I can't even imagine what Roman cities would have looked like in their day with everything having amazingly colored tiles everywhere.
These were Roman-era Barbie dolls!!! How cool is that! The arms and legs MOVE! I'm just fascinated. Big tall columns = boring. Ancient dolls = wowzah!
This mosaic is amazing. As a quilter, I know how hard it is to piece small fragments together to create a larger picture. At least in quilting, I can cut the fabric. I can't imagine chiseling a stone (much less a gazillion) to get them to line up right so that you make a larger picture...that is so geometrically perfect. Wow.
I zoomed in to see the pattern and tiles.
And then an even closer-up to see all the different colors. Wow. Just so impressed.
There were lots of statues in the museum...most of them didn't have heads. (Apparently, the manufactoreurs would make loads of headless statues. The buyer would choose which one he wanted, and then just his head would have to be sculpted to look like a replica of him, and placed on the already made body. Kinda funny.) Anyway, this statue was holding an owl. I've never seen a Roman statue holding much of anything before, much less an animal. I like owls.
Really pretty blue painted pottery. I like blue painted pottery. Maybe I would have liked to live in Corinth. Oh wait...I have read the letters to the Corinthians...maybe I wouldn't have liked living there. But I wouldn't mind having a vase like that one!
Emperor Cesar August. You know...of Christmastime fame, who called for a census. So now, this Christmas, when you read Luke chapter 2, you have a face to put with a name.
Emperor Nero. You know, the guy who set Rome on fire. And quite possibly the guy who executed Paul, and maybe even Peter. It just sort of took me by surprise to see his head on a block in Corinth...
The Temple of Apollo. Those are some old columns there, people. Old columns.
And those are some old stones that were once part of a building. Probably a house or a store. Old stones. Since we were so rushed through the site, I missed the part where there was a plaque about Paul. Someone told me about it later. I was slightly bummed about that. I would have liked to have a newer plaque over old stones.
Okay, so this part was a little more interesting than just being old stones. Corinth was an important city--bigger than Athens. Being at the crossroads that it was between the two bodies of water (hence the need for that canal), and that the Isthmian Games (almost as important at the Olympic games) were held there, it brought in plenty of travelers. Since people didn't have big old RV's for camping out in when traveling to the games like we do nowadays, they stayed in...tents. Like the tents that Paul and Priscilla and Acquilla would make. Standing there amongst all those old stones, I could just see Paul making tents in the day time, and talking to all the travelers he would sell them to about Jesus.
Roman road:
On top of that mountain is an acropolis that is supposed to be pretty cool. First a temple to Aphrodite, then a Christian church, then a mosque, and now one of Greece's most well-preserved medieval castles. I would have liked to gone up there to see that.
We had about an hour to find a place to eat lunch and pick up souvenirs. Seeing how we'd lost a good hour or more in the morning, we decided to take some of that time back during the free time. We figured the bus wouldn't leave a whole major group of us. (With my luck and transport, that was not a good 'figurin' to make. Don't worry...the bus didn't leave us.)
We found a neat little shop where the owner was more than willing to help us spend our money there. I'd found a bell for my mom (I try to buy her one in most of my travels. Yes...she has alot.) I picked out one with an owl, thinking she'd think it was cute. Then someone told me that the owl represented one of the many greek gods. Oh. I put that one back and picked out one with a boat, and didn't show it to anyone. That way no one could tell me the boat represented a god. I just want it to be what it is: a boat. And she knows I like boats. And Paul came to Greece on a boat.
When I handed the boat bell to the owner, he asked if I'd seen his own hand made bells, and maybe I'd like them better than the boat bell. He went to get me one and explained that he was the artist. He pulled out a magazine to show me the article written about him (with photos of him at his workshop) throwing his pottery on the wheel and then hand painting each piece. I couldn't afford the bell, but figured...why not buy a small urn? A grecian urn seems like the most logical souvenir to buy in Greece, for a reader like me. (Ode to a Grecian Urn, get it?) I snapped a quick photo of the man's workshop before heading off to the bus. I suppose I could write my own poem called, "Ode to a broken Grecian Urn," since it broke in the transport back to France. It would be a sad poem.
A bunch of us climbed on to the bus a good 25 minutes late and saw everyone staring at us slightly grumpily. Oops. They took a head count and found that we were still missing one, and it was not the notorious missing non-existing man from the morning. As we were trying to figure out who was missing, I looked out the window and saw the Bodybuilder running as fast as those big muscled legs would carry him towards the bus. I'm not sure why, but that image is engrained in my head and makes me laugh every time.
We made it back to the resort in time to head straight to the pool for a good while before heading to dinner. Not too shabby of a day, if you ask me. As I floated in the salt-water pool in a glow from having seen where the apostle Paul had made tents and used toilets, I couldn't help smile at the thought that I still had three whole more days in Greece.
1 comment:
wow....so amazing!!! Those Romans had some brains about them. And some amazing artisanship, and a lot of time on their hands!
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