Following Peter and Paul

Rachel gets to take the week off from the blog. Unfortunately, that means you get me. I am working in Turkey for the next couple of weeks. I went on a few adventures this weekend and wanted to share some things with all the blog readers.

On Saturday I went to Antioch (Antakya), Turkey. Along the way I drove by a few interesting places...

• One of the first places the tour group drove through was the battleground of the Battle of Issus, where Alexander the Great defeated the Persian ruler Darius III.



• Genoese castle and Ottoman caravansary. The picture below is me in front of the castle.

• The very spot (according to the tour guide) where Jonah was vomited by the whale. Today there are just remains of a Roman church built to commemorate the event.



• The Belen Pass in Belen, Turkey. A Pass that Apostles would have gone through while traveling through Asia Minor.

When we reached Antioch (the place where believers first became known as Christians), we got to go into St. Peters. It is actually a cave where early Christians went to worship. The front of the cave was built much later, and it is what I am standing in front of below. Peter, Paul and Barnabas are mentioned in the Bible as having been in Antioch. The cave contained a small passage believed to be used by Christians to make a quick escape from persecutors.

Next, our group went to Daphne, Turkey. It is named for a beautiful young lady chased by Apollo, son of Zeus. When Apollo caught Daphne, she turned into a tree which is today known as the Daphne tree (from which soap is made). We visited a waterfall which is apparently the exact site where the chase took place. The story goes that the waterfall was formed by Daphne's tears. An interesting side note is that a lot of Greeks and Romans lived in Daphne. Greco-Roman wrestling was created in Daphne, not in Greece or Italy.

While in Daphne we stopped and had lunch in a local restaurant. I really enjoyed the fresh bread with such toppings as butter with honey and hummus.

Our final stop was at an archaeological museum. The museum was mostly mosaics that they have uncovered around Antioch. A lot of the mosaics were not completely intact. I'm providing a picture of one mosaic that was completely intact. Be careful, it is rated X for extra revealing.