Longhorns Revisit Their Honeymoon in Greece

By Erin Griffin in Travel, TXEX on July 30, 2013 at 2:07 pm | 2 Comments

Retracing the exact steps of your honeymoon isn’t something most couples have the opportunity to do. But on a recent Flying Longhorns trip, Sam Horton, MS ’66, and Dalene Horton, BBA ’60, got to travel back in time.

The occasion of their May 5-16 trip to Greece was the perfect time to celebrate their 51st wedding anniversary. The couple had originally intended to visit Greece last year for their 50th anniversary, but the nation’s economic turmoil forced them to wait. It was their son, Scott, BS ’89, who finally picked up a Flying Longhorns brochure and convinced his parents to pack their bags and return to their first days as husband and wife—with Scott by their side this time around.

The couple tied the knot March 7, 1962 in Athens while Sam was serving in the U.S. Air Force. After four more years living abroad for Sam’s service, this time in Libya, the Hortons finally returned to Texas. Dalene’s father wanted to read the marriage certificate, which was written completely in Greek. It had to be taken to a Greek Orthodox church, translated, and finally registered in Travis County.

The Flying Longhorns trip marked the Hortons’ first return to Greece. They scoured the city in hopes of recreating many of the photos they had snapped on their honeymoon. “Our favorite place was the Athenian, up on the Acropolis,” says Sam. “We got a couple pictures from the Acropolis in ’62 and now you can see the additional buildings that had spread out into the hills.”

Since the Hortons’ first visit, the statues of six graceful maidens atop the Erechtheion temple were replaced with replicas. The couple was able to recreate this scene, along with many others such as their hotel balcony, in front of the government building where they registered their marriage and plenty of statue and temple backgrounds. They were even able to get additional copies of their Greek marriage certificate from the original document at City Hall.

In Athens, the pair stayed at the Amalia Hotel, just as they had the night of their wedding. “We were able to get the same room. Fortunately, it had been upgraded,” says Sam.