A city of legend, civilisation and enduring culture, Athens is a majestic and magical urban sprawl. Extraordinary elegance and grace combine with grit and graft in Greece's capital, where highways encase ruins from antiquity, and gleaming museums and galleries stand beside concrete sprayed with edgy street art. These contrasts enhance and elevate the wonders of this 2,500-year-old city, however, which can count notable contributions to philosophy, drama and democracy, among its global legacy.
Piraeus' giant port and naval base welcome you to the edge of the Athens' urban area. From there you plough through heavy traffic to the city centre. The majestic ancient citadel of the Acropolis dominates an elevated platform and is a constant presence as you explore the city. The wonderful remains of the columned temple of the Parthenon - which date back to the 5th century BC - stand here, representing the pinnacle of classical architecture. The nearby Acropolis Museum adds context to your visit and frames the broad views from its giant glass windows.
May 15th. Athens - tour Acropolis of Athens with Lunch
End of the 1st leg of our cruise in Athens. About 80 people got off and 100 new people joined.
We set out from the ship to get to the Acropolis and passed the marble horseshoe of the Old Olympic Stadium, where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896. At the Acropolis, we have never seen so many tourists; we queued to get in, shuffled slowly around and queued to get out!!. I suppose that we are lucky, in that most places we go are not on the mass tourism circuit, so it was a shock to come face to face with the crowds in Athens. To shuffle 10 abreast all the way through the site was a sobering reflection on modern tourism - wall to wall people. Anyway this will be the abiding memory of the Acropolis that I carry away from this visit to Athens
The other "incident" was when I took a photo of a bear, Somerville actually - with the Acropolis as background, and it turned out to be a very fine photo. No sooner had I taken the shot, that I was attacked verbally and viciously by some sort of Guardian, who wanted me to erase the photo. Although there were no notices, apparently the authorities forbid photos of bears in the Acropolis - strange but true, and confirmed by our guide. The resultant spat between me and the Guardian, lasted a few minutes, until, shuffling along in the crowd, I passed away from their orbit of responsibility. So now Somerville;s photo remains, and the Boys have another tale to tell their friends. It was not just me, searching on Google gives lots of examples of other attacks "When I took this photo of Garth (her bear) ,all of a sudden, an exceedingly grumpy member of staff came running up to us, waving his arms in the air, and shouting hysterically at us;" And another one "When I tried to take a picture of Fred on the pole behind me in the picture. All of a sudden a lady comes running out of the guard shack on the right of the picture yelling at us in Greek. My mom and I are both looking at her really confused and then she says something about the pole. I figured we just weren’t allowed to touch the pole so we’re like “Ok sorry we’ll just hold him then.” But she keeps yelling at us. “No pictures of monkey! No toys allowed!” And " My 6 year old daughter had brought her school teddy bear mascot all the way from England so she could show her class pictures of it at the Acropolis. We put the teddy on a stone and took a photo with the Parthenon in the background, and an angry employee charged over, snatched the teddy, shouted “respect the archeology, respect the archeology!!!” and insisted that my wife delete the photo. My daughter was quite upset because she was looking forward to showing her class mates photos of their teddy at the Parthenon and she hates feeling like she is in trouble.
Somerville enjoying the view after avoiding the crowds and the gauleiters. I don't know how he manages it
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We then had 20 minutes walking past the new museum and around the only old area of Athens.
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This was followed by lunch at Dionysus Restaurant which had fantastic views of the Parthenon. And the food was good. We shared a table with 2 Grand Voyagers, or bi-polars, Eric and Eva.
When we came to return to the ship there was no coach!; so 8 of us plus Jessica has a 30 minute wait, sitting down on the restaurant terrace, whilst a minibus was arranged. Jess wrote a fantastic poem about our adventure,
The Stranded Eight – an origin poem by Jessica
There we were,
stranded in Athens
Greece’s harsh sun
beating down at us
The buses had left
while we were sipping on coffee
Maybe in hindsight
the guide had been a tad too carefree
I guess there are worse places to be stranded
than the base of the city's acropolis
So we sat our butts back down
and looked at the view on top of us
Stranded in Athens
with two stuffed bears in tow
It was a bloody balmy day
I’ll have you know
But we’d drunk our wine
and eaten good food
The company was decent
that much is true
Finally, we were rescued
by a young man in a minivan
Our little group closer friends
than when the tour first began
Back with our beloved air-con
and comfy seats for eight
Maybe it wasn’t so bad
to be left behind to wait.
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Back aboard a swim, a siesta and then read on the back deck before bumping into Neill and Lynda, birders who we had last met between Halifax and Southampton in 2022. Spent the evening on the back deck with canapes and the Terraza. Was fascinated watching the AB ants lifting the gangway after the pilot came aboard dead on 10 - pilots, I discovered, are never early