Greece Trip: Athens and Peloponnesus (4.20-21.24)

We booked a week-long stay, through RCI, at the Golden Coast Hotel in Marathon, an hour from downtown Athens.  We were pleasantly surprised with how nice it was--condo trades through RCI are a mixed bag.  We had our own, one bedroom unit with a patio.  The hotel was on the beach, with swimming pools, palm trees, and a dining room that served buffets with foods from Greece and the surrounding Mediterranean.  We ate there every night.

And, yes, the Marathon where our hotel was located was the town that gave the name to the 26 mile race that many members of our family have run.  The runner who ran from Marathon to Athens to report the outcome of a battle fell down dead after he arrived.

We went to church in one of the two LDS wards in Greece.  Before the pandemic, there were fifty ward members, but membership shrank to 15 when the church was shut down for several months. There were thirty or forty people in the congregation when we visited.  However, most of them were visitors, including from cruise ships docked at Athens.  Greece and Bulgaria form one mission, and mission headquarters have been moved to Bulgaria.  This was a struggling ward, but the speakers were great.  Some spoke Greek and others spoke English, with translators for both.  People sang hymns in whichever language they felt comfortable in!

I was impressed that Church publications had been translated into Greek.

We drove into downtown Athens after Church, but the traffic was so horrible that Dave vowed he would have nothing to do with it.  Instead, we made a loop into the Peloponnesus, the peninsula south of Athens.  We crossed the Corinth Canal and spent an hour in Corinth.  The Corinthian Temple of Apollo is pictured above.

Paul preached in Corinth, and he later wrote two letters to the Corinthians, included in the New Testament.  Citizens of Corinth turned Paul over to the Roman proconsul, saying that the words Paul taught were contrary to the law.  The proconsul disagreed, and set Paul free.  

Corinth was under construction when Paul taught there.  One commentator suggested that might have been why Paul used a construction metaphor in this scripture:  "According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 
The commentator said that Paul no doubt visited the market, whose ruins are above.  He may even have worked as a tent maker there.

The Bema, pictured above, was where speakers held forth to audiences who gathered around outside.  This is probably where Paul preached.

Our next stop was Mycenae, an ancient site dating back to 1700 B.C.  Greek mythology says that Mycenae was founded by Perseus, a son of Zeus.  Homer, who wrote the Odyssey, described Mycenae as "rich in gold."  Mycenae was also, according to tradition, the home of Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, whose wife, Helen, was stolen and taken to Troy, in Turkey.  That began the Trojan War.

The ruins were at the top of a cliff.  We walked up and up, with stunning views over the countryside.

We walked beneath the famous "Lion Gate."

Our last stop was the amphitheater of Epidaurus.  It was here that theater was born.  Anciently, Greek plays were performed in this theater.  People still drive from Athens to attend plays on this stage.