Greece trip!

[Boringchap]

During one of our cruise stops recently, we had a day in Athens. Technically the ship called at the Port of Piraeus, which was very near Athens. We hired a private driver to bring us around for the day, and it was a wonderful day with good weather, bearing in mind this was December (i.e. winter).

 

We saw the changing of guards at the Greek Parliament, went up Mt Lycabettus, Acropolis including Aeropagus, New Acropolis museum and other sights.

 

I made several videos but here is just one short video summarizing what we did that day.

 

http://youtu.be/bfABTgvEFRY

 

If there is interest here, please shout out and I will post more of my review.

 

Have a great day!

[Neutrino]

I was in Athens in 1983 for a job interview.

 

There was scaffolding around the Acropolis then as there is now.

 

The food ... bleugh.

[TameDriver]

 

 

I took the hop-on-off city bus that covers most of the main attractions like historical ruins & Central Market in the heart of Athens.

Ticket just a few Euros, valid 24 hrs.

 

I didn't go up Acropolis as the workers were on strike. But had this awesome view of it from hotel room bed, located along Vasilissis Sofias.

[Hydrocarbon]

During one of our cruise stops recently, we had a day in Athens. Technically the ship called at the Port of Piraeus, which was very near Athens. We hired a private driver to bring us around for the day, and it was a wonderful day with good weather, bearing in mind this was December (i.e. winter).

 

Why hire driver? Athens can travel on foot + public transport.. Besides, can see a lot more small stuff in the smaller streets...

 

If other islands, hire car or ATV (for Santorini) can liao... But, it's still a nice place...

 

Just curious, how were the charges like for the private driver and what vehicle? Thanks.

 

[Boringchap]

 

Why hire driver? Athens can travel on foot + public transport.. Besides, can see a lot more small stuff in the smaller streets...

 

If other islands, hire car or ATV (for Santorini) can liao... But, it's still a nice place...

 

Just curious, how were the charges like for the private driver and what vehicle? Thanks.

 

 

We only have very limited time in port. The ship arrives at 7am and the all aboard time was 3:30pm. The port of Piraeus is about 10km from the center of Greece. Depending on the traffic, it may take up to 45 minutes (sometimes there is a jam).

 

There were 6 of us in my party. My wife and I, 2 kids (under 10) and my parents who are in their 60s.

 

So, after doing all the research, we decided that the easiest way to get around quickly on that port day was to hire a private driver. There are many companies offering such services and the company we used was called pktravel greece.

 

The vehicle was a Mercedes van that could seat up to 8. Charges were 200 Euros for the day. We tipped the driver a bit.

Here are the detailed videos.

 

Day in Athens Part 1 (Changing of Guard, Mt Lycabettus, Temple of Zeus, Olympic Museum)

 

Day in Athens Part 2 (Acropolis)

 

Day in Athens Part 3 (Lunch, New Acropolis Museum, back to ship)

[Boringchap]

Now that I have figured out how to add my images on this forum, let me add on some descriptions to the day in Athens.

 

Athens has such a long, rich history and so much has been written about it. Athens is one of the world's oldest cities, having been inhabited for thousands of years. Her recorded history spans 3,400 years - that is just mind-boggling.

I shall not even try to pretend that I know very much but let's just say that reading the history of Athens and walking through her streets gives one a great perspective of time and space. It is humbling, to say the least. Even more humbling would be to visit some of the places whereby apostle Paul would have preached.

Our driver was Dimitris. The service was excellent & I would recommend them if you are considering a private tour.

Today, the ship docked at 7AM. We scheduled to meet our driver at 7:30AM. As it was an early day, we had breakfast in the suite, and then departed the ship promptly. As we were the only ship in port, it was quite quick to get off, and our driver was waiting for us.

We were here on a Saturday. Traffic was extremely light. Usually it would take up to 45 minutes to get from Piraeus to the center of Athens. Today, it took just 10.

Our first stop, the Greek Parliament. The van literally stopped by the road outside the Parliament. We got off to view the change of guard. It was a most interesting display. (see the video earlier)

The weather today was good and it would get better. We were blessed, this is winter. It could easily have rained. The views from this lookout were breathtaking. See the Acropolis in the distance. We would be headed there later.

After taking in the views, Dimitris drove us up the hill a bit more, till we reached a place where the vehicle could no longer ascend. He then said that we could walk the rest of the way up to the top of Mt Lycabettus, but make sure to take the exact same path back to the van. If we took the wrong path, we would end up on the other side of the Mountain and won't be able to meet him!

So we took a leisurely walk up. Some of the steps were fairly steep and it would have been rather slippery, had it been wet. So be careful if you want to do this climb.

The climb was definitely worth it. Check out the views from the top. There was a church up there as well as a restaurant. Both weren't opened yet when we were there.

Our next stop was the ancient Temple of Zeus. It didn't take long to get there, at most 15 minutes. Dimitris advised us to buy the 12 Euro combined ticket for the Acropolis at the entrance ticket booth and that would also give us entry to this temple. Great idea. We spent about 20 minutes looking at the temple ruins, which were the remaining columns.

 

 

 

Our next stop was the first stadium of the modern Olympic games. This place was just a 3 minute van ride from the Temple of Zeus. The stadium was made completely of marble. We didn't enter, just took photos from the outside. This was like the gift shop.

 

This was the cover of the report of the 1896 Summer Games, officially known as Games of the I Olympiad. Only 241 atheletes from 14 nations participated, but already it was considered a great success. Today, the Olympic legacy lives on, with about 10,500 competitors from 204 nations competing in the 2012 Summer Games.

 

Panathenaic stadium sign, from the outside. The stadium was reconstructed from the remains of an ancient Greek stadium and the only one in the world built entirely by marble from Mount Penteli.

Our next stop would be the highlight of our day in Athens, the famous Acropolis!

 

Check out the video I made of our visit to the Acropolis. Thank God for the beautiful weather on that day.

 

 

We saw the Acropolis from Mt Lycabetttus earlier that morning and we had bought our combined tickets for the Acropolis (12 Euro adult) from the ticket station outside the Temple of Zeus. All this created great anticipation. Buying the tickets at the Temple of Zeus where there were no lines for tickets also saved us some time. Good suggestion by Dimitris!

The Acropolis is an ancient citadel located on a flat-top rock, 150M above sea level, with a surface area of about 3 hecares or 7.5acres. Earlier, we were at Mt Lycabettus, 277M above level, however the top surface area was not very big.

The site contains several ancient buildings of great historical and cultural significance. The most famous was the Parthenon - a former temple dedicated to the godess Athena. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and even western civilisation.

The Elgin Marbels (or Parthenon Marbles, a collection of ancient Greek classical scriptures) were controversially removed by the 7th Earl of Elgin in 1806 and sold to the British Museum in 1816.

This was the view point where tourists congregated to take photos. It is a raised platform and the space on that platform was not very big. You could get excellent views of Athens from there, as well as views of the Parthenon. However, please be very careful with your belongings especially when you are in crowded places. Congestion of tourists is the best place for pickpockets to operate and there are very sophisticated pickpockets in Athens.

 

 

Another view of the Parthenon columns. You can literally see the restoration work going on.

 

We spent about an hour taking in the sights from Acropolis. Then we head down and found our way to the Areopagus. Here she is.

 

The Areopagus is the site of the famous Areopagus sermon by Apostle Paul, as recorded in Acts 17:16-34 of the Bible.

Acts 17:16 - "Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatory."

Having now visited the Acropolis, I can start to appreciate the meaning of "the city wholly given to idolatory". Imagine the splendour of the grand Acropolis back then!

Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel of Jesus and the resurrection. Paul went to the synagogue and had a dispute with the Jew, and with other devout persons, philosophers and pagan worshippers.

Acts 17:19 - "And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?"

At Areopagus, who did Paul address in his famous sermon?

Acts 17:22-23 - "The Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

A most remarkable observation. Mankind would rather worship unknown Gods than the true God and saviour. Peterronius, one of the ancient historians, said that is was easier to find a god in Athens than a man! With 30,000 of them, one can see why this was true.

Paul goes on to explain,

Acts 17:24-25 - "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;"

Eventually, Paul called on the people to repent,

Acts 17:30-31 - "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."

Jesus had died on the cross for all of mankind's sins. Repent!

Who was Paul addressing when he gave the famous sermon? This picture is a reproduction of a painting by Raphael 1515, depicting Paul delivering his sermon on the Aeropagus. From the Bible, we know that Paul was preaching to Judges as well as senior religious people.

Imagine Paul standing at this point, preaching to the pagans. I stood there too, but I didn't do any preaching. The weather was great and I was certainly brought back almost 2,000 years in time.

Well, we had to move on with our tour. By now, it was about noon, and we were feeling hungry. It was time for lunch!

This video shows you our lunch and the New Acropolis museum.

 

http://youtu.be/_GYjGhWAFQU

We met up again with our driver. He dropped us off at one end of Adrianou Street

(37.975731, 23.724949), it was like a small bus interchange. Dimitris advised us to walk along Adrianou street as there were many restaurants and cafes where we would get some food. It was by chance that we ate at the restaurant Kotoli.

We walked along the street, for about 400M, and we came to Kotoli.(37.975731, 23.724949 - type these co-ordinates in Google maps to get the exact location)

The restaurant - Kotoli.

We ordered 2 platters (Large platter and Seafood variety, 26 Euros each) from the menu, a Greek salad and some drinks (including 2 Greek beers, diet coke and a cafe latte).

Greek beer tasted really good after walking the entire morning. Cheers!

This is what the seafood platter (26 Euros) looked like. All the items were fresh of the grill and tasted lovely. There was so much to eat!

We had a fabulous meal and they even gave us complimentary dessert (a scoop of strawberry ice-cream) as well as a shot of some very flavourful and sweet Greek spirit. The bill came up to 82.90Euros.

After the meal, we met up with our driver again and went to the last stop of the day, the New Acropolis museum. The museum was fascinating because they built it on top of Byzantine ruins. Apparently, when they were excavating the foundations for the museum, they found a large Byzantine complex, including beautiful mosaics. In order to preserve the archaeological site, they erected columns to build the new Acropolis museum, while creating enough space below so that excavation works could continue.

We spent about an hour at the museum, before heading back to the ship. We got back to the ship at about 3pm. Overall, it was an excellent day in port. We saw a lot, learnt a lot and ate quite a fair bit too. It was amazing to look at ruins from thousands of years ago, only to realise that life was already so modern and complex back then. The Greek city states rose to pre-eminence, only to be defeated and subsequently absorbed (more or less) into the Roman empire and then other empires. Athens is undoubtedly one of the most incredible cities in the world, in terms of history, in terms of the birth of Western civilization.

Of course, from a Christian perspective, even more relevant to me was the blessed opportunity to visit the Aeropagus, to see for myself where Paul delivered his Aeropagus sermon. Stunning.

Post script -

Back on the ship, I did a video while on the sun deck, watching passengers enjoying the pool. There was also three vessels from the Greek Navy (Hellenic Navy) docked beside the Norwegian Jade. (One frigate, one fast attack craft and one submarine). Here is the video.

http://youtu.be/EfsrzMup_C4

Edited January 4, 2015 by Boringchap

[RadX]

Come Greece and see ruins!

great for history buffs and what not

 

visit Zeus and ask why he send so much rain.. ccb

[RadX]

[BanCoe]

U must be #1 Original Living Olympian back from 1896........ 

[RadX]

Walking among the clouds.
 

Sanctuary of Apollo

[RadX]

On 4/3/2025 at 1:17 PM, BanCoe said:

U must be #1 Original Living Olympian back from 1896........ 

yes

 

back to where I was last century 😂

[RadX]

View from my hotel room

[RadX]

1 of the monasteries out of the 24 in meteora. Only 6 left

[Freeder]

U kanna pickpocket or not?

Take care of your Merdeka card yah..

[mersaylee]

On 4/6/2025 at 9:23 AM, Freeder said:

U kanna pickpocket or not?

Take care of your Merdeka card yah..

I tink he's there to look for this lost card...😁

[Freeder]

On 4/3/2025 at 6:55 PM, RadX said:

Walking among the clouds.
 

Sanctuary of Apollo

Why ur pics all so gloomy one ? Like u like that🤭

Edited yesterday at 02:13 AM by Freeder

[Freeder]

On 4/6/2025 at 10:05 AM, mersaylee said:

I tink he's there to look for this lost card...😁

Better kajiao more while he’s still sleeping now😂

[inlinesix]

On 4/6/2025 at 10:13 AM, Freeder said:

Better kajiao more while he’s still sleeping now😂

Hantu got sleep 1?

Run quickly