We pulled up to the port in
Piraeus, Greece early in the morning. I
have been fortunate when I have done excursions in ports that they haven’t been
too crowded. When we were in Dubrovnik
the other day, the guide said we were lucky because there were only two ships
that day, but there had been many ships the day before and it was so crowded it
was hard to enjoy. That is how today
was! There were a ton of cruise ships in
the ports so dozens of busses were going into Athens. Everyone wanted to see the Acropolis and it
was so crowded that it wasn’t a lot of fun.
It was warm and sunny and beautiful, but hard to see anything with so
many people around. Our tour guide was not that great and seemed confused by a
lot of things. She pointed out important
buildings as we drove by and then we stopped at the Old Marble Olympic
Stadium.
We drove up to the Acropolis
and meandered our way through the crowds to get up there. The walkways are so slippery and I was
thankful that it wasn’t raining! It
always amazes me that people wear flip flops when touring ancient ruins. They complain constantly about how uneven the
terrain is, how hard it is to walk, etc.
Wear athletic shoes people!! Our
guide told us some things about the Acropolis (one of the most photographed and
recongnizable hills in the entire world)
She told us about the Propylaea, Temple of Apteros Niki, Erectheum, and
the Parthenon. It was hard to hear
her/understand her due to the crowds and her daffiness (even though we had
headsets). After she finished we had a
couple hours to do what we wanted. I
walked down a charming road to Plaka, which is the old preserved district of
Athens. There were art and craft shops
and restaurants. I love Greek food and
was excited to have lunch there. The restaurant
I went to was in a great area – outside with gorgeous sun and a breeze, but I
was disappointed in the food.
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| Athens from the Acropolis |
The guide made a lot of
jokes about the economy and said there was 26% unemployment in Greece. Poverty wasn’t visible like it is in India
though. I saw one beggar in Athens and
the Greek people wouldn’t let any tourists give money, said they were
discouraging that kind of behavior. At
the port a woman was dragging a little girl behind her and trying to get people
to put money in her cup. No one gave her
money and whenever someone turned her down she barked at them about how she
only wanted 50 cents and would grumble out loud about “these people” giving her
money – like she was entitled to it and the tourist were being rude to her.
According to the guide, Greece
only has 11 million people and 6 of them are in Athens. I was a little disappointed
in Athens. I guess I thought it would be
like Rome – lots of ruins and easy to see things, but Athens was not as nice as
Rome.
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