After breakfast in your seaside hotel, you will travel by bus to the first city on Paul’s Macedonian journey, Philippi. Here you’ll peel back the layers of Paul’s visit to the city, seeing the port where he arrived, learn about the commerce of the city and see the site of Lydia’s baptism by Paul. While reading from both Acts and Paul’s letter to the Philippians a comparison of the Greek and English will provide a deeper understanding of the context in which the gospel was shared. 

You’ll return to Thessalonica in the late afternoon in time for a free evening in the city where Paul and Silas were imprisoned and rather than escape during the earthquake, comforted their fellow prisoners with song, and subsequently saved the jail-keeper. 

Walking: moderate

This morning after breakfast, your journey will continue to Veria, where Paul shared the gospel after being chased from Thessalonica where they were accused of turning the world upside down. Here you will visit the Jewish quarter, one of only completely renovated to its pre-world war II conditions in Europe. Very likely the still active synagogue stands in the same place as the one where Paul preached. 

Following lunch, your journey’s next stop will be the tomb of Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The archeological museum here is one of the best in Greece and provides insight to the development of hellenism and its subsequent readiness for Christianity. 

In the late afternoon you’ll arrive in the town of Kalambaka which, although Paul himself never visited, is at the base of the monasteries of Meteora, one of the holiest places in all of Greece.

Walking: moderate

Bus: ~3.5 hrs

This morning your pilgrimage will continue towards the five still active monasteries built on top of the rocks both in defiance of the ottoman occupiers and in affirmation of the monastic life of contemplation and the monk’s desire to be oriented heavenward. Your first stop this morning will be the monastery of St. Nickolas whose frescoes were painted by the famous Cretan painter, Theophanes Strelitzas, the teacher of El Greco. In this sixteenth century chapel you will see Adam naming the animals, along with scenes from the life and the second coming of Christ. 

Throughout the rest of the morning you’ll visit those remaining monasteries that time and energy permit, including the monastery of the great Meteoran, Varlaam, the female monastery of Holy Barbara, and the magnificent look out points from above the rocks. 

Walking: strenuous

Departing from Kalambaka after breakfast, your pilgrimage will bring you to Athens, the city Paul visited next after Veria, and the city famous for its philosophers, polytheism, and sophists. Arriving in the early afternoon, after checking into the hotel and an orientation to the city, you’ll be free to explore on your own, visit the Byzantine Museum, or the thousand year old church of Panagia Kapnikarea.

Walking: light

Bus: ~5 hrs

Perhaps nowhere else in antiquity was there a city so focused as Athens on humanity and the representation of humanity as divine. Paul observes this and ‘his spirit is stirred within him’ because of the idolatry and he disputes in the synagogue of the city. With this (familiar) human focused culture, your pilgrimage leader will take you to the site of Paul’s disputes with the philosophers on the areopagus hill across and the Acropolis. Here you’ll see the misguided human aspiration towards the divine in the things of the world, made by man and for man. 

Walking: moderate

Departing after breakfast, the next stop on your pilgrimage will be a day trip to Corinth. Paul journeyed here after Athens and preached to the Jews, being told by the Lord, “Be not afraid, but speak… I am with thee.” 

Here, with the historical context of first century Corinth and Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, you’ll learn about the year and a half Paul spent here as he shared the gospel and worked as a tentmaker. Under the guidance of your pilgrimage leader, you will witness the sites of Acts 18 including the port, acrocorinth, and the archaeological site of the city. 

Tonight after returning to Athens you’ll 

In the first century AD Corinth was a center of commerce between east and west countries of the mediterranean

Walking: strenuous

Bus: ~2.5 hrs

This morning the main part of your journey will draw to an end. For those interested in an continuing to Samos and Patmos to visit the beloved apostle’s cave of the revelation, an extension will soon be added.

There will be no other structured activities this day. Your guide will be available throughout breakfast to help with continuing travel arrangements or to provide suggestions for the next step on your pilgrimage.