As I prepare to write and experience a new travel journal, I thought it might be fun to look back at the other travel journals I’ve done here on GSB.
If you’ve not followed GSB through one of these trips this will give you an idea of what to expect as we prepare to head to the Rhone River and Geneva.
I will list the journeys here in chronological order from the first to the most recent.
1. Israel Travel Journal—February 2010 (posted June 2011). This trip was taken a few months before Gregory Scott Blog was launched, but I blogged through our church’s website, and I posted it the following year here. This trip was a life-changing experience for me. We visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, Masada, Caesarea Philippi, Caesarea, Joppa, Mount Carmel, and more. Our tour was led by Arie Bar-David, a messianic Jew and without a doubt the finest Christian tour guide in Israel.
2. Byzantine Travel Journal—August 2010. This was the first “live” travel journal at GSB, where posts went up at the close of each day on the trip. We explored early Church and Byzantine history via a Black Sea cruise. We visited Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus, Athens, and the Crimean coast.
3. Israel Travel Journal II—March 2012. This was the reprise of of the original Israel trip, or as my friend and tour leader Ji Yun called it, the “Advanced Tour.” We visited many of the same places we had visited the first time but some new ones as well, including the Valley of Elah and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was as disappointing as Ji and Arie said it would be, except that we were fortunate enough to get access to the room that housed Godfrey de Bouillon’s sword.
4. Carolingian & Crusader Travel Journal—August 2012. This trip took us to France, Belgium and then to the location of the palace of Charlemagne in Aachen, Germany. We focused on the Carolingian Renaissance, a true Christian renaissance that occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries and changed the course of history, and two of my favorite crusaders, Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) and Godfrey de Bouillon. In between, we drank much good wine.
Now, in just two days we will head off on our fifth such journey, this time focusing on early Church history along the Rhone River and the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland.
I hope you will come along. GS