Port of Piraeus (Athens)

By Senior Travel Planner Meghan Umlauf

My family and I took a Royal Caribbean cruise of the Greek Isles that left from Civitavecchia, Italy. Athens was our third stop, after Mykonos and Santorini!  I have shared more about our pre-stay in Rome in my post “Rome in a Day and a Half”,our day in Santorini in my post “Santorini Port of Call” and our stop in Mykonos in "Mykonos Port of Call"

With so much to see in Athens, we decided to sign up for a Royal Caribbean Excursion to make sure we saw it all!

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We had from 6:30a-6:30p in this port and out excursion began bright and early with our meeting time of 7:30a in the theatre on the ship… once were given our group numbers to break us into smaller group for our guides - we disembarked the ship to the busses to take us into Athens.  We had met another family from MA, and the kids had hit it off - and we were happy to discover they too were booked on this excursion and in our group!
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We had a comfortable air conditioned coach bus to take us on our fairly long journey into Athens.  Due to standard Athen traffic - this ride was about an hour, during which time our guide gave us an overview of our day - and what to expect and what we could and couldn’t bring to certain stops… our first stop was the Acropolis - to see the Parthenon!

Due to the amount of walking needed to get to the Parthenon - getting here first thing in the morning helps with the heat a bit - but we arrived with the rest of the tour groups, so keeping together was a challenge.  Our tour guide had given us headsets to hear her - however we ended up so separated we didn’t end up using them for this portion of the tour.  The final ascent to get to the Parthenon were open stairs that we climbed with the masses - and unlike the states - there are no required safety handrails or treads on the marble, so going slow and steady was a necessity… along with shoes/sandals with a good tread… even with these, the marble was REALLY slippery! 

The Parthenon was surrounded with scaffolding due to the current restoration efforts.  Apparently the previous efforts of years past had used a material that was actually speeding up the rate of deterioration!  Even under scaffolding it all was an amazing site to see - all the structures are so massive and beautiful it was unbelievable to think that it was all hand created!

Once our group reunited - we headed to the Acropolis museum.  This Air conditioned building was a bit of a welcome relief but also was so helpful to getting a full understanding of what the Parthenon looked like in 432 BC!  The museum houses the pieces of the Parthenon that were not holding up to the elements and displays them in a re-creation of the top “crown” of the structure - where the stories were told… the museum has “filled in the blanks” for us to see the full picture!  The museum holds many other antiquities and displays about the Acropolis.  This is a must see for any visit!

On our way up we got to see the changing of the the guard as they marched down the stairs!

The Parthenon under scaffolding

Souvlaki stand in Plaka

​From the Acropolis Museum we headed to Plaka - the popular shopping district in the city of Athens… our first stop was for a quick lunch - a handheld gyro, that we all ate standing around.  While delicious - this was not the lunch I had hoped for!  Meals in Greece used to be a time for socializing and relaxing - sometimes lasting hours… and in an area like Plaka, would include people watching!  This was not that meal!  

Once we were all finished eating we were taken to a meeting point and told to return in an hour… on our way to the meeting point we had passed a Starbucks - and in the heat, all my family could think about was a COLD Frappuccino!  Don’t judge - I also wanted one of the mugs for my “you are here” collection!  They had one for Mykonos AND Greece!  By the time we completed that errand, we only had about 20 minutes to shop… so we browsed a few shops and ended up with some jewelry and Olive Oil!  Not bad for 20 minutes!

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​Somehow our large tour bus managed to get into the city and was parked and ready for us to board and get back to the ship!  This ride was barely 20 minutes back to the port, with no traffic!  It was a whirlwind tour of Athens - but one that I was grateful we took!

Our next and last port of call was Katakolon.... read on here!

The sun sets on our day in Athens