Sienna, Rome, Athens, Philippi and Thessaloniki!

Ah yes, multiple romantic dinners with the lovely Mrs. Burtness.  What could be better?

But I digress.  Since the last blog post there’s been a whole lotta travel!  We went from Florence to Sienna, which was once the financial capital of Italy.  Amazing place!

Then we went to Rome for a quick night’s sleep, and then on to Athens for the next tour of the Footsteps of Paul!  That began Sunday evening; Monday morning began a 300 mile trek on the bus up to Thessaloniki.  We saw the Church of St. Dimitri, who was a fourth century martyr.  Amazing sights/sites are around every corner!

Once there we took a trip to Philippi, which was totally amazing.  One of the pictures below was the “prison” where Paul and Silas were after they were beaten in the public square for casting the demons out of a sorcerer who then lost her source of income…I won’t go into it now, but it’ll be in a sermon sometime, for sure!

Also at Philippi we visited the place where Lydia is said to have housed Paul and his disciples, and she was the first Christian convert baptized by Paul in Philippi.  There is a shrine dedicated to the place where she was baptized, and it was just an amazing place!

And we end this blog post by another picture of the lovely Mrs. Burtness, cooling her feet in the stream where Lydia was baptized.

We are having a marvelous time!!  It is truly an amazing opportunity and we feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to be here!

Tune in again on Friday, where I hope to post another entry from the cruise ship!