Athens!!

Today we pulled into our port of Piraeus, Greece bright and early in the morning.  Piraeus is about 6 miles from Athens.  When the ship was cleared by customs around 9am I went off to wander around the port area with Kaitlyn and Lauren.  We walked around for a while and realized that there really wasn’t much around the port area – just businesses, apartments, and very few restaurants.  We ended up going back to the ship after about an hour.  We all had the same afternoon tour so we ate on the ship around noon then headed back off the ship for the tour.

The tour was the “Sights of Athens and the Acropolis” tour from SAS.  We rode the bus to Athens with our tour guide pointing out sights along the way.  We drove straight to the Acropolis and climbed up to the top.  Our tour guide seemed really flustered with the crowds around and was not being very informative so Kaitlyn and I explored the area on our own until we had to meet back down at the bus.  We saw and photographed all the main sights like the Parthenon, but it was definitely crowded and hot (apparently it got even more crowded later with tons of SAS tours).  Then we went back on the bus and took a driving tour of the city.  We went by the Olympic stadium (built for the first modern games and also used in 2004), Marathon statue, Temple of Zeus, and Arch of Adrian (spelling?).  We also drove by 3 buildings in a row that demonstrated classic Greek architecture: their Parliament, University, and city library.  It was cool to see them lined up next to each other having subtle differences in architecture.  Then we drove back to Piraeus around 5:00pm.

We got back on the ship and ate dinner then used the rest of the night to hang out and plan our last 2 days in Greece.  We used the travel books at the library and a little bit of internet time to decide to book a hotel on the island of Aegina which is an hour ferry ride from Piraeus.  It is supposedly a weekend getaway spot for Athenian locals.  We have a hotel in Agia Marina which is supposedly the beach side of the island and we were able to get a triple room for 50 Euro at a hotel with complimentary buffet breakfast and a big outdoor pool that is just 100 meters from the beach!  We also booked our ferry ride there so we will be leaving early on Wednesday then getting back to Piraeus around 3:00pm on Thursday.  With our port location it is almost easier to get to islands than to Athens which is why most SAS students are doing island trips for at least a day.

Tomorrow I’m on a full day trip to Delphi that leaves really early in the morning so I’m heading to bed early tonight.  I can’t wait to see Delphi and then spend a relaxing day and a half in Aegina!!