It’s finally time to depart on our two-week family trip to Italy, Greece, and Turkey that we’ve been planning for months. The itinerary begins with three nights in Rome before boarding Voyager of the Seas for a 7-Day Mediterranean Cruise. During the cruise we will visit the Amalfi Coast, Sicily, Santorini, Kusadasi (Turkey), Mykonos, and then disembark near Athens. Our plan is to then spend two additional nights in Athens before flying home.
During this voyage we are hoping to see several significant biblical sites including Ephesus, Miletus, Corinth, Cenchrae, and Athens. This is one of the main goals for our travels this year since we were forced to cancel our trip to Israel last summer. Being able to visit biblical sites provides so much additional context that can be applied to the study and teaching of scripture.
Our travel day started off with an Uber to the airport around 6am. After checking our bags, and getting through security, we had a leisurely breakfast at 8&R in Terminal C while waiting for our flight (BTW – 8&R is my favorite coffee in Nashville, even at the airport).
Our initial flight to DFW departed on-time at 8:45am. The flight itself was uneventful and we landed at 10:45am.
The flight from DFW to Rome was delayed by two hours, so we ended up with an over five hour layover. This gave us plenty time to eat lunch at TX/MX, which was delicious! I was also able to get a lot of work done preparing and scheduling content for my Deep in the Bible podcast while we are away.
We finally boarded the plane just after 4pm and pushed back from the gate around 4:35pm to depart for Rome!! This is scheduled to be a 9-hour flight which will put our arrival just before 10am.
Thinking about the trip. This will the first time in Europe for Olivia, Kate, and Sara, but none of us have ever been to these three countries. My one other time in Europe was a tour of the Baltic countries back in 2016 with my dad and sister. During that trip we travelled to Denmark, Norway, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Russia (Saint Petersburg). I’m guessing this will be a much WARMER experience!
Our flight to Rome has been relatively uneventful as I’m writing this. Dinner was served around 6pm, and was surprisingly good. I’m hoping to get some sleep on the flight before arrival so we can hit the ground running. With that I’ll sign off for tonight and pick back up with a new post tomorrow.