We have been enjoying not having planned excursions because that means we can get off the ship whatever we want to and we don’t have any hustle and bustle and waiting with a big group for our number to be called.
So by the time we got up and going after our big night of staying out late. We walked out about 1030 and were shocked to find that we were still able to jump on the same bus that Rich and Ginny were on. The guy selling the tickets showed us. The route asked us what time we wanted to be back and we said probably around three and so he told us what station to be at at 2:30 in order to get back at three. Perfect. We hopped on and were on our way.
The bus first went through the Seaport town of Piraeus, which was absolutely adorable. Clearly, some money in this town they were all kinds of yachts open air cafés shops. It was so cute and we were delighted to once again have some sunshine. We noted to ourselves that that might be a great place to come back for lunch after we toured the city.
From there we were off to Athens, which probably took seems like less than 10 minutes. We decided we would just stay on the bus to one huge lap and get a chance to see everything. And I have to say this still remains my favorite thing when you see something you’ve only seen in Books or TV with your own eyes so there we were cruising along and all of a sudden Jason points up the hill and I look and there’s the acropolis for crying out loud. Amazing. We enjoyed riding the bus around seeing the sites. It’s a little crazy that it’s this massive booming cosmopolitan city on one hand and also look over to your left and suddenly there’s some ancient building, gorgeous old architecture, destruction… Truly fascinating to see.
We got back around to the stop where we knew we needed to catch the bus back to Piraeus and that’s when we realized there had been slight communication error. We got there about one and asked when the next bus would be rolling up which we assumed would be any minute and they told us 230 and we said well that can’t be right. One comes every half an hour, but apparently not at this stop. It will be there at 2:30. Well shoot that pretty much destroyed our chances of going back to Piraeus to indulge in one of the beautiful open air cafés at the marina. So we made the best of it and we strolled right back down the street found a cute little café, sat down and ordered some grilled halloumi and a picture of local white wine to share. Ginny got what she thought was a piece of baklava but a huge plate of baklava came out instead so we all got a few bites of that too, and it was so delicious.
We got back to the bus pick up area about 10 minutes early to make sure we could get on the bus and we’re told that princess was going to send a separate bus just to pick us up so they were asking us please not to get on the first one that was coming, will that be for people who were not cruisers to take. I have to say, we’ve traveled all around the world and sometimes we face things like this and it turns out not to be true, so we were a little bit skeptical. But before long we looked up and there was a bus coming that had a big banner running across the front that said Princess cruisers only. Low and behold a miracle. Bus took us straight back to the cruise ship- no chance for Piraeus! Nothing that when we come back, we’d skip Athens and just go to this charming town.
Since it was day one for all the new people, we knew the piazza would be nuts since people tend to congregate there while waiting for their rooms. I went up to the sanctuary sun deck to write and enjoy the last of the evening sunshine. It was a bit chilly so I wrapped some blankets around me. Pretty much had the whole place to myself!
Jason came up and we had our new favorite drink- a vodka soda with a splash of limoncello! We realized we hadn’t had much food so we cruised down to dinner. Our main man Stefan rolled up to help us open our wine and have a few sips. We have him hooked on Nicora!
And the most exciting thing about this day is that it’s the eve of my chance to finally get to Santorini. Will I make it?!?!?!?!
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