Vergina

It's pronounced "A gay" and it's also written several different ways. And I'd never heard of it before. But it's where Phillip of Macedon is buried at the ancient palace area of the Macedonians. Phillip was the father of the famous Alexander the Great. They lived in nearby Pella and we will visit that tomorrow. But it was here where Phillip was assassinated at the old amphitheatre and where his 17 year old son, Alexander became king.

I won't bore you with all the history but I found it all fascinating. Even Deanne, who's not a huge history buff found it very interesting.

Before we got there we stopped in the nearby town of Veria to walk through the old Jewish quarter. There were some really cool houses and an old synagogue. Sadly, the Nazis invaded in world war II and almost all of the Jews were killed.

Nearby there is a shrine to the apostle Paul. He traveled through here and was doing a pretty good job of converting the local Jews until some rabbis from Thessaloniki came to run him out of town. The town was called Berea then.

At Aegae, just south of town, a large museum was built on top of a series of tombs buried under a mound called a tumulus. It was really well done and they found a treasure trove including King Phillip's golden funerary urn (he was cremated) and an absolutely amazing golden wreath.

There was also a tomb that they believe held Alexander the Great's only son. He was born after Alexander died and, like Grandpa Phillip, was assassinated, thus killing off the royal line. He was only a teenager.

Another nearby museum was included with the ticket. It hosted a lot of other artifacts from the era that were not necessarily found in the tomb. It had the most and best preserved Greek pottery I've ever seen.

It rained heavily again, so the outdoor temple site was closed, so hopefully we'll see it in the morning. As we left, we saw an RV with a sign on the side that said "Highway to Helles." That's our new motto!

We opted to stay at a mountain resort out of town. What a nice change of pace. For the first time, we didn't need an air conditioner. Dinner was excellent: lamb chops, a baked aubergine app, and another app of baked cheese with peppers. The breakfast buffet was the best yet, with homemade jams and fruit compotes

Check out the photo album if you want to see all of the relics.

More photos and videos are here.
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