Domain of the Golden Dragon Crossing the Prime Meridian- Part 3

Traveling Back to the United States 

Going the LONG Way

27 Sep 1965 - 23 Oct 1965

 Part 3

The Cooper family is now leaving the Middle East & on their way to southeastern Europe to Athens, Greece.

My brother, Gib, was on a hunt for postage stamps as we visited each country to add to his collection. My mother was adding to my doll collection that she started when other friends & my father would bring to me after they returned from a foreign country. 

Here is a photo of my collection from 1962. This also included my miniature dog collection. We would also find dolls from each country for Mary on this current trip which I just retrieved from photos waiting to be placed in my travel scrapbook mentioned in a previous post.

Doll of Thailand

Doll from Iran

Thursday, 7 Oct 1965 - 

We depart Tehran, Iran, at 0720 taking Air France to Beirut, Lebanon. We arrive at Beirut at 0810 to depart within the hour to fly to Athens, 

Greece. We land at 1115.

Landing in Beirut this time in daylight. 

View of Beirut from the plane.

After checking into the Astor Hotel, we went out for lunch & walked around the city. We saw the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Syntagma or Constitution Square in front of the Presidential Palace. We shopped for souvenirs including stamps for Gib, dolls for Mary, postcards for Martha & unusual small musical Greek instruments for Stan. We tried to sample the local foods as much as possible. 

We had a beautiful view of the Acropolis Hill with the Parthenon & other ancient buildings from our room at our hotel, especially awe-inspiring at night with floodlights on it.  

Friday, 8 October 1985 - 

We awaken early & have breakfast to walk around this beautiful aged historic city. My mother uses her Kodak Instamatic camera & my father uses his movie camera visualizing our moves. My parents were planning to show these films & slides to the family when we returned to the U. S.

Our first destination was to view the Parthenon at the top of the Acropolis. We are awed with being in a place where early Greek history took place. We were part of a guided tour group of this “high city.”

I remember being amazed by the beautiful women carvings on the Porch of the Caryatids at the Erechtheum temple dedicated to Athena & Poseidon. 

Martha points to Mars Hill located across the city of Athens, Greece, where St. Paul preached the Gospel.

Walking down from the hill, we passed the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a second-century theater & take this photo at the most top area looking down into the theater.

We continue to walk on the south side of the Acropolis to the Dionysus Theater. This theater is in a more ruinous state than the previous one as it was built in the 6th century BC, 800 years earlier. Stan and Mary sit in the High Priest’s marble seat. We continued on to see Ancient Agora which was the central business area.

Saturday, 9 Oct 1965 - 

The next morning, after breakfast, we packed our luggage for departure at 1300 for a three-hour bus trip to the city of Patras on the west coast. In Patras, at 1730, we boarded an overnight steamer to take us across the Mediterranean Sea to Brindisi on the east coast of Italy.