Day 4 of our cruise - third port call in three days - really excited to see Athens for the first time.
While clearly a tourist town, Athen's place in history is undisputed and thus somewhere we had to visit. After docking at Pireaus, we walked out of the terminal looking for a way we could get to the streets outside the terminal to negotiate with a taxi driver for our short tour of Athens' highlights.
First though, we talked with the taxi drivers inside the terminal area to find out what their prices were ($125 Euros for 5 hour tour). Once we knew this, we went hunting outside the terminal, but on the way there, Valerie chatted up another driver who was sitting having a coffee. When we told him what we wanted, he told us he would meet our offering price - 80 Euros - but that he'd need to meet us outside the terminal area. So we set off walking to left, past the big tour buses until we passed through the terminal area out into the bustling streets of Pireaus. Guess it isn't that hard to pick 4 Americans out among the Greeks when one is silver haired and 6' 2" and the two ladies are 5' 9'' blondes. Jorge (his name) picked us up and off we went towards Athens, taking side streets and getting to know Jorge and his story.
Jorge had been a taxi driver for 20 years. His English was perfect and his patter along the way was both informative and witty. Turns out he had also done several years aboard a cruise ship so he had a very good idea of packaging the limited time we had ashore to show us the highlights his ancient city has to offer.
On the way to our first stop - the Acropolis - we saw some of the venues created for the 2004 Olympics. Jorge dropped us off at the bottom of the Acropolis hill in the bus/taxi stand and said he'd be back in 90 minutes to pick us up.
So we walked up the hill a couple of hundred yards on a left diagonal to stay away from the hordes of people congregating on the right side of the hill. Turns out we needed to buy tickets to enter the attraction; fortunately, the ticket office turned out to be on the left hand side so we had headed in the right direction.
The line though was another story -- there were at least 50 people in line and it was moving really slowly. After checking to make sure that this was the line we needed to be in, we figured we'd be waiting for a while -- until a young lady with an official looking card walked up and offered to take us on a guided tour -- oh, and she had someone in line who would buy us tickets - 30 Euros per person (the tickets alone were 20 Euros) so the additional fee for our own guide was only 10 Euros per person.
As an aside, this -- guides offering to sell you tickets as a shortcut to long ticket lines at popular attractions are not unusual (the Vatican for example) -- but make sure you know how much the tickets are beforehand so you can figure out how much you are paying for your guide and spend a minute or two talking to them to make sure you can communicate with each other. The other thing you may be able to do ahead of time is to buy them on-line - Museu d' Orsay is a perfect example - to short cut the line. Unfortunately, you can not buy Acropolis tickets on-line so you either buy them at the Acropolis ticket office, or you buy the "Special Package Ticket" for 30 Euros that gives you the Acropolis and the other highlights of Athens. Here is a link... Athens City Pass
Here are just a few of the 100+ pictures from our visit. Our guide was exceptionally knowledgeable and did a great job explaining both the history and on-going modern restoration efforts.
After the Acropolis, we raced down to see the changing of the guard at the Hellenic Parliament building. Jorge had timed it perfectly - we got there with about 15 minutes to go and got perfect front row positions to watch the preparations. Here's a great link that explains what happens and why - Changing of the Guards - Enough to say that we thought our time spent watching this ceremony was very well spent.
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| Current Guards are in the shade of each small building |
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| Here comes their relief with the Sergeant of the Guard who commands the change over |
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| Statue commemorating Olympic competitors |
On the way down to the Plaka for lunch, we stopped and took a snap of the statue above, perfectly framed by wispy clouds and trees.
Ah, eating in Greece... We had headed for the Plaka for lunch because there are so many restaurants in the area and it is close to the Acropolis and Hellenic Parliament. We had a specific restaurant in mind and thought we'd ask one of the restaurant folks where we could find it. Here is my Trip Advisor report on Arcadia
"We were heading to another restaurant in the Plaka and stopped by Arcadia to ask directions. Tasos patiently explained how to get there and by the time he'd gone through it two times, we knew we'd found the right place to eat. What can you say about a place that's been in the family for three generations and your host guarantees you'll like the food or you eat free. Not long after sitting down we realized we were the only tourists in 7 tables - the rest occupied by one extended family and friends celebrating a birthday - so we ate late lunch with the local Athenians. Great start to our meal; followed immediately by complimentary draft beers. We took Tasos' recommendation of a family recipe cabbage salad (with pomegranate, blueberries, and chopped apple) - excellent - followed by their mixed appetizer plate (yum) one order of stuffed zucchini, one of spinach pie, one grilled squid, and one moussaka. All four of us loved every thing we ate. When we were truly stuffed, Tasos brought us out complimentary after dinner drinks and a small piece of cake to share. Our total bill was 75 Euros - 11 Euros less than we'd paid the previous day for lunch on Corfu - yet we ate more (and better) food, three extra large draft beers, and the aforementioned after dinner drinks and cake. We'll be back on our next visit -- in the meantime, if you are in the area, you should try it."
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| The food was truly excellent |
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| Toasting another fine dining experience |
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| Tasos is in the lime green shirt |
Athens and Mykanos are on back to back port calls - the Royal Caribbean folks have got that right - you are still reflecting on today's wonders when you start thinking about tomorrow's beauty.
