The Baptist is a professor of archaeology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary named Tom Davis. The Earthquake House is a residential area in the Roman town of Kourion on Cyprus that was destroyed by an earthquake around 365 AD. Tom is a friend and former mentor of Kevin, the leader of our tour. He excavated the Earthquake House and discovered several skeletons - mostly human but also one donkey - of those who were apparently killed instantly by the earthquake. He's now working on a different area of the site and he gave us a guided tour of his current excavation as well as the rest of the town. It's really interesting to see an archaeological site together with the person working there! We also visited a Crusader castle today, so it was a great day ... read more

I've fallen a little behind due to very full days, so it's time to catch up. Wednesday we spent much of the day on Santorini, visiting a site on the second-highest peak of the island that was continuously inhabited from about 1400 BC to 1500 AD, when the people there finally decided it was safe to come down from their mountain. In the afternoon we took a fast ferry (50 km/h or so!) to Heraklion in Crete. Thursday we visited Chania, a lovely seaside town in western Crete that was built by the Venetians. They occupied Crete for about 400 years and left their mark in many places. On the way back we stopped at a Renaissance monastery with buildings designed by a pair of Italian brothers. Apart from the icons in the church it felt ... read more

Sadly, I didn't manage to fit in another gelato before leaving Nafplio. We left bright and early to visit Epidaurus, the headquarters of the cult of Asklepios, the god of healing. There was quite a large complex of buildings: besides the one devoted to healing there was a two-storey hotel, a beautiful theatre and several temples so you could worship the god of your choice while you were away from home. We paid a brief visit to the site of ancient Corinth - surprisingly far from the sea, given that it was perhaps the most important port city in ancient Greece. Then a brief flight to Santorini, where we're staying in a very deluxe hotel. There's a strong Italian influence here - as the common name of the island suggests. It also shows up in the ... read more

Today we packed in as many sites in Athens as possible. We started off with the Acropolis. They're just about finished cleaning the Parthenon, and - wow! - it is just gleaming. Then downhill to the Agora, the old civic centre. Here there is one of the best-preserved temples in Greece, the Hephaistion. Fortunately for us temple-lovers it was turned into a Christian church early on, and so remained intact. Then a pair of museums: the Acropolis Museum, which contains all the sculpture found on the Acropolis (except for the tasty bits "borrowed" by Lord Elgin and others), then to the National Archaeological Museum which contains every other Classical masterpiece found in Greece (or so it seems). I kept running into marvellous works I've encountered before in books or lectures. We rushed through both museums; I'll ... read more

Rose, Alan and I walked all over central Copenhagen today. We visited the Ny Carslberg Glyptotek, which has a pretty good collection of Greek and Roman objects including lots of statues. There is a special exhibition on Gauguin as well. We ended up on one of the islands at a place with all sorts of food vendors - and an immense number of Danes hanging out in the brilliant sunshine, eating & quaffing beer. Pulled pork sandwiches - a Danish favourite - and German wheat beer. What could be better?... read more