Athens, Greece

Trip Start Aug 17, 2005
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Trip End Aug 31, 2005


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Sunday, August 21, 2005

The Grand Princess sailed into the Port of Piraeus in the morning, and we boarded buses for Athens. The first stop was the ancient Acropolis, a sharply rising hill in the center of ancient Athens atop which sit the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena-Nike. It was an unforgivingly hot day, with a scorching sun overhead and virtually no shade on the top of the hill. So while the ruins of the Parthenon were engrossing simply because I had seen pictures of them for as long as I can remember, we didn't stay any longer than we had to. Unfortunately for us, the Parthenon was still undergoing renovations as well, so we were not able to see the architecture and sculpture up close. Still, the temple's sandy-white marble and imposing Doric columns, at roughly 2,500 years old, never fail to impress.

Our bus also made short photo-opportunity stops at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the old (1896) Olympic Stadium, and Hadrian's Arch, before dropping us off in the unpleasantly touristy Plaka area of restaurants and shops not far from the downtown area. We were fortunate that we arrived on a weekend and avoided Athens' legendary traffic, but nonetheless it was a short time to visit a city with so much history (we had to return to the cruise ship in the mid-afternoon), so we'll have to come back at some point.
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