This week’s dream:

Religious travel has gone commercial and can even appeal to non-churchgoers like me, said Toni Salama in the Chicago Tribune. Recently, I signed up for one of the most popular of these itineraries. The nine-night tour followed in the footsteps of St. Paul, as described in the Book of Acts—though logistics prevented us from duplicating the exact order of the apostle’s journey.

We started out in Athens, where on an outcropping known as Mars Hill Paul spoke to the crowds. The surrounding panorama includes the Temple of Athena Nike and the Temple of Hephaestus, both of which were already “a good 400 years old when B.C. changed to A.D.” When Paul told the onlookers that “God does not live in temples built by hands,” these are the structures he was referring to. Next stop was Corinth, renowned in ancient times for its temple prostitutes. Paul arrived here around A.D. 51 or 52. Among its more fascinating surviving attractions are public toilets—keyhole-shaped stone seats, arranged around a rectangular courtyard, which were “not at all private.” Set just off the agora, or marketplace, this was where everyone socialized.

The next morning we boarded the 364-cabin cruise ship Orient Queen for a voyage to the island of Mykonos, famed for its white windmills. This stopover “had no connection to Paul,” but was a welcome shopping break. Later we visited the island of Patmos. Its main attraction is the Cave of the Apocalypse, where, according to legend, Saint John the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation. After docking in Turkey, we took a half-hour bus ride to Ephesus. In ancient times this was the “hometown of the cult of Artemis, or Diana,” but Paul’s preaching here “put such a dent in the idol business” that a riot broke out. Our many other stops included the Greek heartland, “where saffron is picked by hand in the Plain of Kozani, and goatherds coax their flocks.” The trip concluded with a visit to the monestaries of Meteora. There, sheer rock walls are honeycombed with caves that, for 900 years, monks have called home.

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Contact: Globusjourneys.com/faith