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.