Best of Greece and 7 Day Aegean Cruise
Day One – 11 Sept 2009
Weather: 25 cloudy with some showers.
I slept for ten solid hours. I LOVED the firm bed. I woke at seven and took my time coming to life, so I didn’t bother with breakfast and chowed down on a granola bar.
I put my camera into my knapsack and left just after nine for Lycabettus Hill. It wasn’t an excessively long walk, but if you have problems with walking, especially up hilly streets, take a taxi and ask the taxi to wait as you’d never see one up by the funicular. If you walk to the hill, take a map. The easiest way to get there is to walk to Syntagma Square (10 minutes) then turn east on Vass Sofias – a main street. Walk on the left side until you come to Ploutarhou. That street will take you straight to the funicular. The last portion of the street was stairs.
If you get lost, look for signs pointing to the Telefink (or something to that effect). It cost 6 Euro to get to the top.
The view was magnificent!
Bring along a few 50 Euro coins to look through the coin-operated viewer. You can see all the way down to the sea where the cruise ships dock. There was a church at the top of the hill. I took a peek inside, but I’m not a church type, so I can’t really comment on what was inside. It was quite small.
The ticket up also took me back down to the bottom of the hill, though there was a trail that one could take down. I imagine it was a nice walk, but I needed to save my feet. At the bottom of the hill, I walked back down the stairs until I came to a street selling fruit and vegetables. I turned right and followed the street back toward Plaka and browsed the Kolonaki area on the way. The nice part about the shopping was that it wasn’t souvenir shop after souvenir shop. It was everything the locals needed with the tourist stuff mixed up in it. I weaved my way through the streets until I got to Adrianou Street looking for a gyro. I found a little shop that was just a window in a small building. For 2 Euro I got my first gyro.
Yup. It was a donair and it was delicious. The sauce was not unlike the sauce we use for donairs in eastern Canada. I’d probably end back up there for dinner as the welcome meeting wasn’t until 7:30.
I returned to the hotel to freshen up a bit then I set out for the Acropolis Museum.
Apparently, the city tour would give us a ticket we could use to get in, but until the end of 2009, tickets were only one Euro, so I decided to do the museum this afternoon.
It didn’t take long.
The museum was three stories high and built on top of ruins that you can see through clear glass as you walk toward the entrance.
The museum has a short film on the Acropolis. It was on the top floor and it was well worth waiting to catch the English version. It explained a lot of the displays in the museum. In fact, I suggest that you should watch the video first then see the rest of the museum starting on top and working your way down.
As I left the museum to go shopping it started to rain. (Anyone who has read my Bohemian Highlights tour tale knows the story of me and rain and shopping 🙂
I headed towards Adrianou street again and bought a couple t-shirts. First thing I learned was don’t buy the first souvenir you see without checking prices. The same t-shirt can go for 20 Euro in one store and 5 Euro in another. Also, you’ll get a much better price if you pay with cash. I bought a silver ring at Olympio and the tag said 48 Euro. When I said cash, the price dropped to 30 Euro.
I stopped off at my favorite gyro place for another chicken gyro and strolled back to the hotel. As my internet was almost up, I asked about getting more time and learned that there was a third option of twelve hours for 24 Euro. I wish I had known about that yesterday. It was good for a week, so I’d still be able to use it the night I get back from the land portion of the trip. I may not use all twelve hours but I could surf for a couple hours in the evening easily enough and this meant I didn’t have to be in a rush.
At 7:30 I went downstairs for the meeting with the tour guide. Instead, we were met by the local representative. She said we would meet our guide in the morning and her name is Joanna. The tour group had forty-eight people with at least half being from the US. The rest were from Canada, Australia, Ireland and England. Best part was that the bus held fifty-five, so there’d be some empty rows.
The rep spent about an hour giving us a breakdown on the land portion of the tour and answered questions. She said thirty-two of us would also be on the seven day cruise, with two others doing the 4 day cruise. I signed up and paid for my optionals which included Cape Sounion, the Greek dinner and the farewell dinner. The ship for the seven day cruise was the Cristal.
After the meeting broke up, I returned to my room, finished some laundry, repacked my suitcase.
The forecast was looking up with showers in the morning and a high of twenty-eight. Dare I go shopping?
Go to Day Two
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