Athens, Greece – July 22, 23, 2024
July 22, 2024
Last updated on August 19th, 2024 at 04:02 pm
[This is a rough draft to get started. We’ve done a lot of traveling so far, and are behind in sleep, so we’ll keep this updated as we have a chance. When this isn’t here anymore, you’ll know that we’re finished with the page!]
Day 0 and Day 1 – July 20-22
Saturday afternoon – Bags are packed and weighed, plants watered, pet sitter ready to step in. We decided to stay overnight with Alan’s brother, Brian since our plane is scheduled to leave at 10:10 am. Joyce takes seriously the recommendation of arriving at the airport 3 hours prior to an international flight.
We arrived at Brian’s about 5:30 pm and were pleasantly surprised to learn our nephew, Zach, was joining us for dinner. Beth had left on a sister weekend earlier in the day. We ate at Siam Thai. Alan enjoyed his usual Yellow Curry and Joyce tried Mango Curry. Both were very tasty. Joyce also splurged for Thai iced tea, which she thoroughly enjoyed with the added bonus of the coconut milk helping to tone down the spiciness of the dish. Afterward, it was back to Brian’s for tasty desserts baked by Brian and conversation.
We awoke Sunday morning to texts notifying us our first plane was delayed 2 hours due to the need to swap out the plane. We weren’t too surprised, considering the disruptions caused a couple days earlier by a software glitch. We had a three hour wait in Toronto between flights, so were hopeful we could still make our flight to Montreal. Brian got us to the airport and we stood in line to check our baggage for about 45 minutes. Air Canada only had one desk agent working. Once we got to the desk, checking our bags went smoothly. There was a line at security, but it moved steadily, with neither of our bags singled out for further security checks. We arrived at the gate about 2 hours before the plane was scheduled to leave, giving Alan plenty of time the text his brother “I told you so,” so he wouldn’t say it to Joyce. Minor little delays were made up in the air, so we arrived in Toronto around 2 pm. Our next flight was scheduled to depart at 3 pm. Joyce had a few tense moments as we walked from concourse F to concourse D and went through a passport check. All was well as we arrived at our next gate a few moments before they began boarding. Due to a full flight, we needed to check our carry on bags. We sorted through the bags keeping what we could get in our backpacks and boarded plane #2. Then, sat an extra 15 minutes while a hydraulic fluid spill was cleaned up a ways from the plane but close enough to matter, I guess. We were soon on our way to Montreal, arriving less than 10 minutes late.
We arrived at the gate for our flight from Montreal to Athens about a half an hour before boarding began. The gate area was very crowded with few places to sit. While checking in 24 hours before our first flight, Alan noticed the flight from Montreal to Athens had several center rows of 4 seats that were unclaimed about a dozen rows behind our assigned seats. We decided to change our seats to one of those rows, leaving a seat between us in the hope those would remain empty and we would stretch out a little to sleep on the long flight. Our gamble did not pay off. The flight was completely full, with a nice young woman from Montreal seated between us. She graciously agreed to swap seats with Joyce so we could sit together.
As Joyce writes this blog entry, we are about 5 hours from Athens. She is hopeful she is now sleepy enough to get some sleep.
Joyce did get some sleep and we arrived in Athens without incident. Due to a shortage of gate space, we deplaned through an outside stairway onto the tarmac taking a shuttle bus to the terminal. As we waited for the shuttle bus we had a chance to marvel at the huge size of the one of our plane’s engines. Our trip through customs was quick and our luggage was waiting for us in baggage claim. Viking representatives were easily identified and we followed one to our bus and were on our way to Piraeus to board the Viking Sea.
Embarkation was quick and easy. We had checked in while still at home, so we just showed our passports and the check in QR code. Thinking back over our years of cruising, the embarkation process has improved significantly in the digital age.
We ate lunch in the World Café. Our first Viking Ocean cruise was in December 2021, during the Omicron Covid surge, so due to the combination of quiet season and Covid the ship sailed at less than half capacity. This time we can already tell will be very different with a full capacity of 930 passengers.
After lunch, we walked around the ship, took a tour of the spa and fitness areas, then sat in the atrium area, waiting to gain access to our stateroom at 2 pm. The announcement that staterooms were ready came around 30 minutes early. Our luggage was already at our stateroom. We unpacked, met Felix, our stateroom steward, who gave us a short tour of the features of our stateroom. We napped a little, then decided to take advantage of the free shuttle to the city center offered by Viking. We left the ship around 4 pm, with a temperature of 97 degrees. We walked around the port, visited a duty free shop, waiting for the 5 pm shuttle. It took about 40 minutes to reach the city center. We walked around the Plaka district for about 20 minutes, just to reacquaint ourselves with the area, having been here in December, 2021, and returned to the ship on the 6 pm shuttle.
We have a reservation at Manfredi’s this evening, the Italian specialty restaurant. It was a favorite from our earlier cruise. After showering, we headed there for a wonderful meal, as good as we remembered. After our meal we caught the evening’s entertainment, a group of local Greek singers and musicians, playing and singing traditional Greek music, Opa!
Day 2 – Jul 23
After a wonderful rest, we are ready to experience Athens! Our included tour is scheduled for this afternoon, so we have the morning to explore on our own. Viking provides a shuttle bus to the city center, so after breakfast we plan to use it. Our goal this morning is the Areopagus. We saw it in December, 2021 from the Acropolis but didn’t visit. Joyce also saw a store in the Plaka shopping district she would like to revisit.
We got a little later start as both of us slept about 9 hours, catching up on what we missed on the plane. We caught the 10 am shuttle, arriving in the Plaka about 10:35 am. The Areopagus is located around and behind the Acropolis. We walked up a wide pedestrian walkway of small square cobblestone. Beyond the stepped path leading up to the Acropolis is a marble stone walkway to the Areopagus. It is HOT! We walked as much in the shade as possible.
The Areopagus is a large stony rock or hill. There are both old stone steps and more modern metal steps leading up. We chose the metal steps – with an almost too hot to touch railing. There was a cement walkway with rocks for the more adventurous to climb on. My guess the rock was marble as it was slippery, even dry. No shade. Alan ventured further up with Joyce staying on the path. We were treated to great view of the city below and the Acropolis above. It was easy to imagine Paul looking toward the Acropolis with it’s many temples, telling those listening of the “unknown God.” Joyce was thankful we had toured the Acropolis in December, 2021. From the Areopagus we could see large numbers of people waiting in cued lines with no shade for entrance to the Acropolis.
Walking down from the Areopagus was easier, but the heat took a toll. We brought two bottles of water with us, drinking one. We headed down and into the Plaka. Joyce saw a shop with bags from Portugal, made of cork in 2021, and we found it again yesterday afternoon. It was a great place to stop. It had a lower level with a fan and every imaginable type of bag, for both men and women. . After extended looking and much trouble deciding, Joyce chose a bag.
We thought the shuttle back to the ship left the city center at 12:30 pm. We returned to the shuttle stop a minute or so after noon in case the bus left at noon, but did not see it. We walked around a bit, then found a shaded spot to sit, drank our other bottle of water and rested. Another couple from the ship came to sit near us. The woman of the couple thought the shuttle left the city center at 1 pm. This presents a problem for us as we had the included tour beginning at 1 pm from the ship. We talked to the Viking representative at the shuttle stop and learned we could remain in the city center joining the tour at the Archeological Museum, taking a taxi from our present position. Did I mention it was HOT? We decided we were tired, had already seen most of the places on the tour, choosing to return to the ship and skip the tour.
We ate lunch, drinking more water than eating food and returned to our stateroom for a nap. After some napping and blogging we went to afternoon tea. On our 2021 ocean cruise we discovered Bombay chai tea through attending afternoon tea. We were delighted it was still available and thoroughly enjoyed it! Our waiter is from India and when we placed to order told us he was from Mumbai. He described streets in Mumbai lined with multiple tea shops offering teas with all the various spices. That sounded delightful to Joyce, potentially moving a visit to India up on her list.
After afternoon tea it was time for the port talk on Santorini. Approximately 12,000 cruise passengers will be on Santorini tomorrow. There is not a port that can accommodate cruise ships, so the ships stay in the caldera with local boats tendering passengers to shore. Again, we are so thankful we were in Santorini in December, 2021 with fewer people. We are taking a tour to a Minoan town buried by a volcanic eruption in 1600’s BC, so will spend less time in the tiny town of Oia with the crowds.
After the port talk we returned to our stateroom for the mandatory safety drill. The ship was scheduled to leave Athens at 6 pm. Joyce enjoys watching the ship leave port. The ship was delayed for some reason, perhaps due to other ships also leaving. Joyce kept an eye out and while waiting we watched the the guest lecture, “Akrotiri: The Pompeii of the Aegean.” This lecture was very interesting, especially since our tour is to the Akrotiri ruins tomorrow. More about that tomorrow. 😊
A few minutes after the lecture we noticed it had become cloudy with some rain drops. We went up to the sun deck to watch the ship leave. With the clouds and a sea breeze the temperature was much more comfortable. It spit a few raindrops, the wind mostly carrying them away. The ship slowly began to move. It looked like a pretty tight space with all the ships, but the captain and navigation team threaded the needle, with the help of a following tugboat, and soon we were through the breakwater.
We hurried back to the stateroom to change for dinner and headed to the restaurant. There were no tables for two so we agreed to share a table. We ate with Connie and Eric originally from Florida now living in Atlanta. They were very pleasant and we enjoyed our dinner with them. Alan and Eric discovered a shared interest in genealogy. Eric is a first generation American, sharing interesting stories about his father’s journey to the US after World War II.
After dinner we enjoyed the musical performance of Behind the Pen, a tribute to the lives of legendary pop, soul, jazz, blues and country songwriters, including Carole King, Billy Joel and Barry Manilow.
We are now back in our stateroom at the end of our second enjoyable day.
Athens has been called the “birthplace of democracy.” Its legacy looms large from atop Acropolis Hill, the pinnacle of ancient Greece. This open air museum is an astonishing repository of once-mighty structures. From its colonnaded Parthenon—more than 2,600 years ago—revered Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle formulated new ideas of government and debated its role in civic life to captivated audiences. Remnants of spiritual life are also here in the several temples to Athena and Zeus.
I am enjoying reading about your adventure!