Thursday, August 31
We slept in until 7:40 (even after the alarm rang at 7 am) and had
just enough time to grab some wonderful poached eggs Florentine in
the Da Vinci dining area and then meet our tour at 8:45. We were on
a tour for the Acropolis and then a few hours of time on our own.
Our bus did a short drive around Piraeus, which is the port for
Athens. We basically just drove around the port looking at the
expensive yachts parked there. The bus then took us for a drive
around Athens. Our first stop was the 19th century Olympic stadium,
which was the first Olympic stadium of modern times. It is a long
oval shape and the entire stadium is made of marble. This is where
the Olympic torch begins and ends for each of the games. Each
location for the modern Olympics was carved into the marble at the
front of the stadium.
The all-marble Olympic
stadium
We then drove around some other sights like the ruins for the
temple of Zeus, and then made our way to the Acropolis (it means top
of the city). To say it was crowded is a gross understatement. It
was an absolute madhouse of tour busses and people complaining about
the climb they were about to face. Luckily we had wonderful clear
weather.
The Acropolis
The climb up wasn't as bad as expected although the marble steps
had the potential to be very slippery. Our guide's name was
Aphrodite (no kidding) and she did a good 30 min story telling
session on top of the Acropolis. We learned all about the current
structures and the destruction that had taken place on the Parthenon.
We had a while to walk around and take pictures. The Parthenon is
truly amazing in construction, design and longevity. There are not
straight lines used in the construction of the Parthenon. It appears
as though the columns are straight but the slight curvature actually
makes up for the natural distortion from our eyes. They were pretty
smart. Picture taking was difficult because of the number of people
on the Acropolis. We were thankful to have the digital camera with
the video display as well as the wide-angle lens so we could fit more
in the pictures.
Parthenon
Theater, still used for
concerts
Jill and Parthenon with wide
angle
This picture doesn't even show how
crowded it was
Kind of a typical shot of Athens :
temple of Zeus, city around it and mountains in the background,
hidden by smog
These are the famous columns made to
look like women
The main entrance to the
Acropolis
Back on the bus we drove around some more while Aphrodite pointed
out the university, which is all neo classic Roman style in
architecture. We were finally dropped at the Plaka, which is what we
were looking forward to. The Plaka is an area of streets that have
vendors, restaurants and more. It's where you go to see and be seen.
We navigated the Plaka using our internet guide Matt (we had found a
great guide to Athens on the internet). We had lunch for about $13
each with Greek Beer, Greek salad, mousakka (Greek shepherds pie of
sorts), and souvlaki (lamb skewers). It was all good but too much
food. We met another couple from the cruise that was sitting next
to our table at lunch. They had done this exact same cruise last
year except in the opposite direction (Spain to Turkey.)
Lunch in the Plaka
We then found Brettos just down the street. This place is the
oldest distillery and makes what is supposed to be some of the best
Ouzo in Athens (think Greek Sambucca). Since neither of us like
licorice, we found it a bit hard to choke down. Keith ended up
drinking both of the small shot size glasses while Jill drank both
complimentary glasses of water to dull the taste of the tiny sip she
had. Keith was spacey the rest of the afternoon. We bought a small
bottle of Ouzo to bring home for the novelty of it (anyone visiting
us is welcome to have as much as they want!!), as well as a bottle of
Greek olive oil.
Brettos
Thankfully, the Greek vendors were nothing like the pushy Turkish
vendors so walking the streets and browsing was a pleasant
experience. We found Byzantino, a jewelry store recommended by our
internet guide Matt. They have some truly amazing museum quality
jewelry in Greek styles. We were surprised to see the couple that we
had just met from lunch. The wife had bought a necklace here last
year and had to come back for a bracelet to match. The museum
quality handmade items being way beyond our price threshold, Jill
found two rings with the "Greek key" style. One ring is plain gold
and the other is gold with white sapphires. Of course we also had to
buy a pair of earrings to match.
With not much time left, we walked the streets some more and
bought some natural sponges, more olive oil, and a tin of olives.
Back at the passenger terminal we spent what we had left in drachma
on a bottle of Greek wine and a phone card to call Chris and check on
the dogs at home alone. Back on ship, we changed into swimsuits and
found some deck chairs. The pool being too cold, we opted for the
hot tub and then read books on deck. The sail-away from Piraeus was
impressive since the port looked tiny and the ship huge. We sailed
past other cruise ships and ferrys on our way out of port.
Sail-away from Piraeus
This nights dinner was a Greek theme with baklava for dessert. We
ended the night with a hypnotist show but only a couple of the people
on stage ended up hypnotized so it wasn't terribly exciting.
Day At Sea, Friday, Sept 1
We slept until 9 am and were happy not to have a tour to catch,
and then read in bed until almost 11 am with a gentle rocking from
the 4-8 foot seas. We got up for lunch and ended up at a table with
Carol (one of our dinner table companions) and another couple
(mid/late 30's) that had done a lot of cruising. They had some
amusing stories to tell so it was a nice lunch and a good change of
pace from the usual boring people we got seated by for lunch. (Your
lunch table is a potluck of people depending on who walks in the
dining room at the same time as you). We shared a bottle of wine
with Carol over lunch and had the excellent linguine with seafood.
Following lunch we went to the art auction for free champagne and
to check out some of the art for sale. Following the art auction we
went to a wine tasting in the Botticelli dining room. Are you getting
the idea here??? Needless to say it was nap city after that. We
both slept about 2 hours, waking just in time to shower and dress for
dinner and the second formal night. Jill wore her tailor made blue/green
silk dress (Keith was tuxing it again).
Jill in the Thai silk dress
The picture taking lines were long so we were slightly late for
dinner. We both had veal cordon blue as a main course. Gravlax for
starters and salmon pasta (excellent as usual) for the first course.
After dinner we went to the Billy Vader comedy show in the Princess
Theater. It was fun watching him make fun of the annoying cruise
director Keith Cox. |
