Classes, Visitors, and a Party

We have had five consecutive days of class since Monday, and everyone has been in the thick of the school routine. Students are working on papers on projects, and things are proceeding much like they did last week. There have been more soccer games, and a group went to see one of the professional matches a couple of nights ago (at a cost of 50 euros per ticket—too rich for my blood!).

Jonathan Edwards's brother (Brandon) and his wife joined us here in the hotel this week and will be here until the first part of next week. They have a three-week-old baby named Charlotte who has been turning heads throughout the hotel. Our son Richard is no longer the youngest person here! Brandon and his wife are missionaries in Sicily, and they are here for a sort of vacation and also to get their daughter a U.S. passport. I had not seen Brandon for many years, so it has been a treat to talk to him. I discovered that he and I lived in the same city in China at different times, and that has given us a lot to talk about.

I have been busy in the afternoons. On Tuesday my family drove into Arezzo for some sightseeing, and we managed to see the cathedral and the church of San Francesco, which contains an important fresco cycle by Piero della Francesca telling the story of the Legend of the True Cross. Wednesday afternoon I went back into Arezzo with a couple of Faulkner students to see the Medici fortress and the remains of the Roman amphitheater, as well as Petrarch's house, which was inexplicably closed. On Thursday I drove my family up into the Casentino region north of Arezzo to see the birthplace of Michelangelo, which is in a little hill town called Caprese. The weather is changing here and getting quite cold, windy, and rainy. We were on the verge of getting uncomfortable on top of that hill.

Thursday was also Birthday #6 for our oldest son, Edward. Vickie made a big cookie for him with a candle that he blew out at supper last night. All the students sang to him, and he enjoyed it.

This evening we are having a "Harvest Party" here in the hotel, which I understand is supposed to be followed by an excursion to a cemetery to tell ghost stories. Students are dressing up in costumes; Kevin Cline and Elizabeth Nabors are going as me and Vickie. I'm sure that will be interesting.

Citta della Domenica

This past Sunday, as I noted earlier, was another free day for the students. Many were still traveling on their weekend trips which had begun Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. My family drove down to Perugia to visit Citta della Domenica, a combination zoo and amusement park, for the kids' benefit. It took some doing to find the place; our directions were unclear, and we had to stop to ask for help once or twice. We finally located it on top of a hill opposite from the main body of the city, and spent about four hours there. Edward and William both got to ride ponies and drive go-carts around a track, and there was a train to ride and a big slide to go down as well as lots of animals to see. It wasn't up to the standards of most theme parks in the states, but the price was much cheaper; we all got in for less than $50.

We got back to Citerna around 4:00, and I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the sermon I was to deliver at the worship service that evening. By 7:00, when the service began, I think everyone in our group had returned except for Dr. Gardner, who had flown to Philadelphia to attend a Monday board meeting for an energy company he works with. After the service we had our usual Sunday evening pizza and began to gear up for another week of nonstop classes.

Urbino

We deviated somewhat from our original schedule this weekend. We had planned to have a free day on Saturday, during which students would be free to travel somewhere within a reasonable distance, and then a group trip into Florence on Sunday. In the middle of the week the decision was made to cancel the group trip and give the students the entire weekend off, with a group worship service here at the hotel Sunday evening. As a result, a number of students left the hotel Friday evening, and more left Saturday morning for trips to Venice and other places in Italy. Others took day trips into Florence on the weekend.

My family took advantage of the free day Saturday to drive to Urbino, a hill town to the northeast of Citerna that played a significant role in the Renaissance. Urbino's ruler in the fifteenth century was Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, a soldier of fortune who managed to take over the city and legitimize his rule through military victories and subsequent patronage of the arts. Urbino is also the hometown of the painter Raphael. The place is not very accessible; we had to drive about 90 minutes on some very winding roads to get there. However, the drive was worth it. The town is very picturesque; the ducal palace (built by Federigo) dominates it, but there are numerous other sites of note.

For a mere six euros each, Vickie and I got discounted combination tickets that gave us admission into most of the town's significant sites, including the palace, which houses a museum with some important Renaissance works in it, including a couple of Raphaels and Piero della Francesca's Flagellation; Raphael's birthplace; two oratories with interesting interiors, including a mock grotto; and series of chapels under the cathedral. We spent about four or five hours in the town visiting these sites, with breaks for a picnic lunch at the fortress atop the hill and a cup of gelato at the end of our tour.

We made it back to Citerna around 5:00 and ate supper with the students who were here. Piera, the cook, informed us that Italy went off daylight savings time that evening, and that we all needed to set our clocks back an hour before going to bed. For most of us, that was an extra bonus to the free weekend: an extra hour of sleep in addition to two days off!

Four Days of Classes

From Tuesday through Friday of last week we were on a normal class schedule. Students are busy with semester projects in some classes and simply trying to stay on top of regular assignments in others. This has not prevented them from playing soccer regularly with or without Jonathan (who took a trip down to southern Italy this weekend to visit his brother, who has a new baby).

We had a special event on Wednesday afternoon when our group made a trip to Florence to visit Harding University's villa, which houses the Harding University in Florence (HUF) program. The villa is located on the outskirts of Scandicci, a Florence suburb. Because I spent two semesters at HUF—once as a faculty child in 1986, and again as an undergraduate in 1993—this was a homecoming of sorts for me. I had not visited the villa since 1998, and there have been several changes to the grounds since then. I had a reunion with Robby and Mona Shackelford, the onsite directors, and with Renata, the lady who used to do the laundry at the villa and who came out of retirement this year to help in the kitchen.

Our group had dinner in the villa with the HUF students, and afterwards the students loaded up the bus and two vans to go down to the Scandicci soccer field for a match against each other. After dropping them off, Robby took my family and a couple of ladies visiting from Searcy over to Piazzale Michelangelo, which offers a great view of the center of Florence. We got back to Scandicci to see the end of the soccer game (our group won 4-2), but the bus didn't get us back to Citerna until after midnight, so we were all exhausted the next day. However, I think most of the group thought the experience was worth it.

Free Travel #2 (Part 3)

To readers eager for group updates, I apologize for all the details about my family's travels, but members of my family stateside are clamoring for information, so please bear with me. After this post, I'll be back to the group.

Saturday morning, October 18, we checked out of our hostel in Padua, but before leaving town we walked over to the church of St. Anthony, which is the burial site of St. Anthony of Padua and one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Christendom. Anthony was a 13^th-century Franciscan who is supposed to have been one of the most powerful preachers of all time. He was canonized soon after his death, and this church was begun immediately. It is quite large, so even though there was a service underway when we entered, we were fairly unobtrusive. We visited the tomb and the relics chamber before leaving the church, checking out Donatello's Gattamelata (the first full-sized bronze equestrian statue to be cast in a thousand years) in the piazza outside. Then we visited an open-air market to buy some gloves, and left town for the South Tyrol.

The South Tyrol (also called Alto-Adige) is the northeastern part of Italy. From the Middle Ages until 1919 it was Austrian territory, but Italy got it at the end of World War I. The population is still largely German-speaking. Our purpose in going was to visit Europe's largest alpine meadow, the Alpe di Siusi. We stayed in a small town called Castelrotto (Kastelruth), one of the most picturesque mountain towns I have ever seen. We slept in a bed-and-breakfast operated as an appendage to a family farm, and the farmer took the kids into the barn to see their cows (about 30). On our arrival Saturday afternoon we took a chair lift from Castelrotto up to a spot on the lower edge of Alpe di Siusi where there was a hikers' hut, a playground, and a half-dozen goats. We actually got to eat Wienerschnitzel in Italy, and the scenery was beautiful. After coming back down the chair lift, we did some grocery shopping, checked into our B&B on the edge of town, and then walked back into the town center to take a look at things. Most of the buildings are 19^th-century but look as though they are from an earlier period.

Sunday morning we went back into town to see the locals turn out for Mass in traditional clothing (a tip from our guidebook). The church in the town square was completely packed, all the proclamations of the death of religion in Europe notwithstanding. We stayed inside the church for the first few minutes of the service and then left for the cable car in the neighboring town that would take us up to the main part of Alpe di Siusi. The town of Compatsch at the meadow's head is at about 1500 meters elevation. From there we took a chair lift up to a plateau at about 2100 meters and hiked a loop trail for a couple of hours. We had one incredible vista after another, and even though lugging strollers over rocky parts of the trail was not fun, the experience was well worth the effort. In the late afternoon we rode the chair lift and cable car back down to our car and drove back to Castelrotto. We had a nice evening at the farm and were able to have a worship service for our family.

Monday morning we went into town one more time, primarily to check out a woodcarver's shop we had noticed Saturday and a museum dedicated to the town's claim to fame, a folk-music band called Kasteruth-Spatzer. Apparently these guys are the hottest thing since sliced bread in the German-speaking world, having put out best-selling albums for 25 years or more. One reason we took an interest in them is that their annual hometown festival/concert (which had occurred the week before our visit) takes place at the farm where we stayed, and we had seen lots of photographs of them already. Our hostess had told us at breakfast that this most recent festival had drawn 50,000 people over three days! After visiting the museum—yes, we bought some music—we got back in the car and spent about five hours driving back to Citerna.

Free Travel #2 (Part 2)

My family spent Friday, October 17, in Venice. Rather than attempting to drive from Padua, we planned on riding a commuter train that takes about 35 minutes to reach the island part of Venice. Thursday afternoon we learned that a train strike had been planned for Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., so we made sure we made it to the train station around 8:00 in order to get on a train that would reach Venice before the strike was scheduled to begin. Our plan worked without any hitches, and at 9:00 we were in the Venice train station. However, we learned when we got out to the Grand Canal that the strike included the vaporetto boats that function as buses, and service was irregular, with no boats going all the way to St. Mark's square.

So we decided to walk to St. Mark's. This turned out to be a mistake, because the kids (especially William) had their hearts set on riding a boat, so whenever we crossed a canal between the train station and St. Mark's, William almost threw a fit. We took our time getting to the piazza, not arriving until after 11:00. We waited in line to go into the church, and once we were inside we paid to go upstairs into the gallery and museum. The morning had been cloudy, but the sun came out while we were inside and lit up the mosaics brilliantly. After leaving the church we fed pigeons in the piazza and got some funny pictures. The kids thought that was the best thing ever.

Then we went into the Doge's Palace and spent more than an hour there. The kids weren't too impressed by most of the rooms, but they really enjoyed the armory, which was about what I had expected. We snacked in the café and then went back to the Rialto Bridge, which we had passed on the way to St. Mark's. There we waited in line for a vaporetto heading back for the train station so that the kids would get their boat experience. Fortunately, they enjoyed the ride immensely, despite its relative brevity of about 5-10 minutes. We disembarked at about 4:00 p.m., an hour before the train strike was scheduled to end, and we spent most of our waiting time in a cafeteria called Brek that was recommended by Rick Steves. Our return trip to Padua was uneventful, and we made it back to the hostel around 6:15, early enough so that we felt justified in going out to dinner at another pizzeria. We got back to the hostel around 8:30 and turned in to prepare for another day of travel on Saturday.

Free Travel #2 (Part 1)

Students began leaving late in the morning of Wednesday, October 15, for the second free travel period. From what I've heard, it seems that nearly every group found itself in Switzerland at some point, but various groups made trips to Germany, Austria, northern Italy, France, and Belgium as well.

Once again, my family remained in Italy. On Wednesday we drove north from Citerna before lunch and made it to Ravenna around 1:00. We spent between three and four hours there enjoying Byzantine mosaics in 1,500-year-old churches (San Vitale, the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and Sant'Apollinare Nuovo), seeing Dante's tomb, and visiting the small diocesan museum containing, among other things, a 6^th-century throne made entirely of ivory. We bought a little mosaic kit for the kids so they could make a picture according to a pre-made design once we get back to the states.

Late in the afternoon we drove another two hours or more to Padua, which was to be our home base for the next few days. We did not have good directions to the hostel where we were staying, and we ended up meandering through the center of town for at least thirty minutes trying to find it. I had to stop the car and ask for directions in pidgin Italian twice, but we finally arrived and even found a place to park the car on the crowded streets surrounding the hostel. We hiked to a pizzeria in the next neighborhood for supper (it was nearly 8:00 by this point), and everyone was ready for bed when we got back.

Thursday morning we were up early and fought our way northwards in the car through a maze of one-way streets to the Padua train station, where we parked. We walked down to the Scrovegni Chapel, which is home to one of the most famous cycles of frescoes in Europe: Giotto's story of the life of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. I had visited the chapel in 1998, but the process is much more complex now; we had had to reserve (and prepay for) tickets online in advance, and show up an hour before the assigned time slot for our visit. We took advantage of our hour-long wait to see the art museum adjacent to the chapel; it contained a number of very nice pieces from the medieval and Renaissance periods. After seeing the chapel we took about an hour to do a walking tour of central Padua, visiting the market (where I bought a pair of socks because most of the pairs I brought to Italy with me have since walked off from the hotel's laundry room) and the Duomo. We encountered some oddly-clad people in one piazza who were apparently university students involved in something strange. It may have been graduation festivities; Padua's university graduates a constant trickle of students throughout the year, so there is always a party somewhere.

We returned to the train station and drove east to see the Brenta Canal, which runs between Padua and Venice. Beginning in the 15^th century, when Venice began to expand its empire inland from the coast, the Venetian nobility built numerous villas on either side of the canal's banks. We did not drive the canal's entire length but saw quite a few impressive structures nonetheless. We stopped at one of the largest, the Villa Pisani, and paid to go into the house and grounds. The house was nice and had a Tiepolo ceiling painting, but the grounds were the big hit with the kids because there was a labyrinth on one side. Around 4:00 we left the villa and drove to Vicenza, on the other side of Padua. We parked outside the town and took a free shuttle bus into the center. By this time, obviously, all the attractions were closing up, but we took a couple of hours to walk around and enjoy the Palladian architecture. Around 7:30, we took the shuttle back to the car and returned to the hostel in Padua. Another long day.

Return from Greece; Classes

Everyone (including my family) returned safely from our second free-travel period last night, and we are settling down into our class routine again. I will try to bring the blog up to date in the next few days.

Our group set out from Athens on the morning of October 9 for the port of Patras. After a drive of about three hours, we arrived and boarded our ferry, which was identical in most respects to the first one we rode, for the return trip to Italy. The ship departed in the afternoon, and we had an overnight journey that was for the most part uneventful. I actually got some work done because I was able to claim a corner of one of the lounges where I was able to plug in the computer and edit some book reviews.

The ferry docked in Ancona late Friday morning. Giorgio was there waiting for us with the bus, and we spent the next few hours driving back to Citerna, with a stop for lunch at a roadside station along the way. Once back, we had about an hour to unpack before classes began. I think we started around 3:45 and went until after 7:00. It was a grueling day.

From Friday until the following Wednesday we had class every day. Because this stretch marked the mid-point of our class schedule for the semester, many of the classes (including my own) had their mid-term exams. I still have several tests to grade from one of my classes. There were many late-night study sessions and frantic attempts to write and submit papers over the six-day period. We worshipped here in Citerna on Sunday the 12^th, and the male students began a weekly discussion group to explore spiritual questions (the girls have had periodic devotionals since the beginning of the semester).

I don't recall any other noteworthy events from those six days. Of course, the students had to plan their second free-travel period which began Wednesday afternoon, but I'll discuss that in the next post.

Greece Trip Days #7-8

On October 7 we had the morning free; I think most people slept in after the constant activities of the previous week. We had a group tour of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens scheduled for 1:00 p.m. A tour bus came to pick up the group at 12:30, but my family walked the distance from the hotel so we could see more of the city. There were several pedestrian-only streets in the neighborhoods near our hotel, and we were able to walk about half the distance to the museum without fear of the getting run over by Greek drivers, who are just as zealous as Italian drivers.

We had a good museum tour that lasted about an hour. There were a number of artifacts discovered at places our group had already visited, and I think the students got more out of the experience with that in mind. The group got back on the tour bus for a trip back to the hotel afterwards and a free afternoon, but my family once again walked back the entire distance stopping to eat lunch in a Goody's (in Greece, Goody's sells hamburgers, not clothing) and to buy some supplies in a supermarket. After returning to the hotel and resting a while we ventured out once more into the Plaka and found a little tram-like train which gave 40-minute tours around the Acropolis and old city. It was only 10 euros for the whole family, and the kids really liked it. When the ride was over, we made our way back to the hotel and turned in for the evening.

The next morning (Wednesday), we had a group excursion to Cape Sounion, the site of a dramatically-situated temple to Poseidon. There wasn't much academic value to be derived from this visit, but the setting is beautiful, and I did speak to the students for a few minutes about Poseidon's role in Greek mythology and Greek religion in general. We spent a little over an hour there (it took us almost two hours to get there) and then went back toward Athens, stopping in Glyfada for lunch. The attraction of Glyfada is its beach and (to me) that it was the site of the semester in Greece I spent in 1994. I was able to go back to the hotel where my group stayed and take pictures and enjoy many memories. We boarded the bus again at 3:00 p.m. and got back to our hotel about an hour later. Once more, the evening was free.

I haven't caught up the account of our group's travels, but we leave the hotel again tomorrow for another free-travel period. I hope to update the blog again before we leave, but if I'm unable to, it may be Monday before I can get back to it.

Greece Trip Days #5-6

Sunday morning (October 5) we were up early again and off the ship at 7:00 a.m. for a visit to the palace complex at Knossos near the port of Heraklion in Crete. Knossos was the center of the ancient Minoan civilization, which flourished from roughly 2000 B.C. until around 1200 B.C. The site is tremendously important, but I'm afraid many of the students didn't "get it" because of the lack of any Biblical connection with the place. The complex is huge, and our guide spent more than an hour taking us through the ruins, a very small portion of which has been restored. Afterwards we were taken back into Heraklion to a museum containing the most important artifacts from the Knossos excavations, including several famous frescoes and the renowned "snake goddess" figurine. We then had about half an hour to shop for souvenirs before boarding the bus for the trip back to the ship, which sailed at noon for Santorini.

Santorini was the one big disappointment of the cruise because we ran into bad weather and rough seas. We actually had to cut short our afternoon worship service on the ship because a number of students looked like they were on the verge of nausea. The two guys serving communion could barely keep their feet. We sent everyone back to their cabins to rest. We arrived at Santorini around 4:00 p.m. but were unable to go ashore because of the winds and waves, which were preventing the tender boats from the shore from running. So we had to content ourselves with the view from the ship, which was still pretty spectacular. (Santorini, formerly known as Thera, was the site of a massive volcanic explosion in antiquity during which most of the island sank, leaving only a circular rim with a steep drop down to the water, where the crater had been. It may be the source of the Atlantis myth.) I visited the island in 1994, so I didn't feel the loss too keenly, but I know a lot of the students, as well as my family, were very disappointed that they weren't able to ride donkeys up the cliff road or ride the cable car up to the rim. The ship cruised around the island for about an hour before heading back towards Piraeus.

Monday morning we woke up in Piraeus and disembarked. We were delayed in leaving the port because someone from another tour group mistakenly took one of our students' suitcases and left his own. We had to make arrangements for the bag to be delivered to our hotel later in the day. Finally we set out for the drive into Athens for our visit to the Acropolis and Mars Hill. The Acropolis was absolutely packed with people, worse than I have ever seen it. It took us 20-30 minutes simply to make our way from the admissions kiosk up through the Propyleia. Niki, our guide, took us around the site for the better part of an hour. Then we slowly made our way back down to the exit and went over to Mars Hill, where we spent about twenty minutes. Dr. Gardner and I both spoke about Greek religion and philosophy and Paul's response to them. As always, it was a great experience.

We got back on our bus and drove past several important Athens sites such as the Parliament building and the old Olympic stadium. Finally we arrived at our hotel shortly before 1:00 p.m. and checked in. Then we walked a few blocks to a restaurant where we had reservations for a group meal, and everyone had his first Greek kebab. After lunch, Jonathan took the students on an orientation walk; my family trekked to Lycabettis (sp?) Hill, the tallest point in the city. We rode the cable car to the top, thereby softening the sting to the kids of not being able to ride the car on Santorini. It was a clear day, and we had a very nice view of the entire city as well as the Aegean. By the time we walked back to the Plaka near our hotel, it was getting close to 6:00. We got some street food and went back to the hotel to relax for the evening.

Greece Trip Days #3-4

On the morning of October 3, we left our Corinth hotel before 7:00 and drove towards Athens. We stopped for about 15 minutes at the Corinthian Canal to take pictures and wait for someone from our hotel to bring an iPod that one of the students had left in the dining room. Then we proceeded into the greater Athens area, skirting the center and ultimately arriving at the port of Piraeus, where we boarded our cruise ship. It took some doing to get everything situated: we had to go through a security check, check our luggage through to the ship, and turn over our passports to be stored in the ship's safe. In return we received plastic cards that were to be scanned whenever we boarded or disembarked from the ship. They also functioned as credit cards for anything we purchased while on the ship.

We sailed from Athens at 11:00 a.m. and headed for the island of Mykonos, which does not have much to recommend it from a historical standpoint. However, it is very picturesque and is a playground for the Mediterranean upper class. We arrived at 6:30 and had a few hours to wander. My family only stayed ashore for about an hour before returning to the ship for supper and to put the kids to bed. The food on the ship was excellent, and most meals could be taken either in the full-service restaurant or the open-air buffet at the top of the ship. We enjoyed the service at the restaurant but took some meals from the buffet during the cruise to simplify things with the children.

Our ship sailed around 11:00 p.m. from Mykonos, and the following morning we woke up in the Turkish port of Kusadasi. We disembarked at 7:00 and boarded a couple of tour buses that took us about ten miles to the site of ancient Ephesus. Our tour through Ephesus lasted over an hour and culminated with a short devotional in the theater where the mob gathered in opposition to Paul's ministry, as recorded in Acts 19. Dr. Gardner and I both spoke to the group there about the significance of Ephesus and its place in early Christianity. Many of the students were clearly overwhelmed by the setting. I later heard compliments about our group's singing from other people on the cruise ship who overheard us in the theater that morning.

After leaving Ephesus, the buses took us back to Kusadasi and dumped us at a carpet workshop where we received a mandatory demonstration and sales pitch. The two buses actually separated our group and took us to different places. A couple of students did buy small carpets to take home. A persistent salesman took my family into a room by ourselves and tried to sell us something. The carpets were all very nice, but we ultimately succeeded in resisting the pitch. I heard later that a student from the other bus narrowly avoided spending most of his money for the semester on a leather jacket.

Everyone eventually made it back to the ship, which sailed in the afternoon to Patmos, the site of the writing of Revelation. Our tour bus took us to the cave where, according to church tradition, John received the revelation from God and composed the book. After our visit there, the bus took us up to the top of the ridge to visit an Orthodox monastery founded in the 11^th century. The monastery's museum contained a number of important manuscripts, including one of the oldest known copies of Mark's Gospel. The chapels of the monastery also contain important frescoes that have been brilliantly restored in recent years.

Our bus took us back to the port. Most of the students (and my wife) took advantage of some free time to do some souvenir shopping. I took the kids back onto the ship to play in the children's area. We sailed for Crete around 8:00 p.m.

Greece Trip, Days #1-2

We are finally back in Citerna after ten days of travel that began October 1. Everyone is tired, especially since we had classes after our return to campus in the middle of the day today. We should be in the Hotel Sobaria until Wednesday of next week, and I hope to give an adequate account of our Greece trip in that time.

We left Sobaria bright and early (shortly after 7:00 a.m.) on October 1 on a chartered bus driven by Giorgio, who has taken our group all over Italy. The trip to the port of Ancona on Italy's eastern coast took a little more than three hours. Upon our arrival, Jonathan picked up and distributed our tickets for the overnight ferry to Greece. We boarded the ship around noon and sailed at 1:30 p.m. The ship was large and comfortable, although the cabins were a bit cramped. Most people took advantage of the ship's cafeteria facilities despite their priciness; for breakfast, I had my first eggs in over a month, so I thought the expense was justified. The one big frustration for me was that the ship's internet connection, like the one at the Sobaria, was insufficiently fast for us to send to Ed Hicks the file of the video for Faulkner's Benefit Dinner that Kevin Cline and I had spent the better part of two days shooting and compiling. Ed told me we would be able to post the video online upon our return to the states, so hopefully our work will not have been a complete waste of time, especially since Kevin did such a good job with the editing.

We arrived in the Greek port of Patras between 11:00 a.m. and noon on October 2. After getting drenched in a sudden downpour while trying to find a restroom in the port area, we boarded our tour bus from Aristotle Travel (with tour guide Niki) for our trip to Mycenae and Corinth. It was nearly 3:00 p.m. when we arrived in Mycenae. Before going up to the citadel, we ate lunch in the restaurant at the bottom of the hill (our first taste of lamb and souvlaki), so we did not get up to the top until after 4:00. We spent about 30-40 minutes in the citadel and then less than ten minutes in the "beehive" tomb further down the hill. Then we spent about 30-40 minutes driving to ancient Corinth.

We had about an hour in Corinth. After our guide's introduction to the history of the city, Dr. Gardner and I spent some time talking to the students about Corinth in Paul's day and the relevance of the setting to his epistles to the Corinthians. One of the students later told me that being in that place was one of the most thrilling experiences of her life. It was after 7:00 p.m. when we left the ancient city and drove another 30 minutes or so to our hotel (in the more modern area of Corinth), where a buffet supper was waiting for us. Everyone was exhausted, and the hotel was oddly warm for October, but we slept well that night.