Athens, Greece. You can visit over and over again but seeing the main sights are still breathtaking. I say this yet for 2 years in a row when I’ve gone the only place I’ve hit is the Acropolis which houses the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena and I haven’t revisited the places my mother and I went a few ago. I shouldn’t say “only” as this landmark is iconic Athens, but the thing is I usually plan to see more but for about 3 hours every night on the Jade I find myself dancing, so by the evening before I’d decided to wake up when I wake up catch the HoHo bus when I was ready to leave.
You know what they say about assuming. Well I assumed we’d be at the exact same terminal in the port as the one that we were at last year. So I got off of the ship. Looked around and realized that this was no where near the same place as last time. Asked where I should go, the young woman pointed in the direction of what I thought might be an exit. So I walked, and walked and walked and about 1/4 mile later realized that no, indeed if there was an exit there it wasn’t visible. So I turned around walked back and saw…a shuttle bus! We were at Terminal B in Piraeus and the side that I’d been previously acquainted with was Terminal A.
Note: When you come out of Terminal A. Make a left past the taxis and through the parking area and you’ll reach the sidewalk. There are 2 types of Hop On Hop Off Buses that you can take. In most cities I usually opt for the Red one.
While waiting at the bus stop I met a fellow Cruise Critic member that I’d seen on the shuttle bus and met at the Meet & Greet. He told me that his wife had gone on a tour but he wasn’t up to it that early in the morning and thought he’d head out later on. I told him that this HoHo bus would take him where he wanted to go and so we both hopped on. When we reached the Acropolis we decided to stick together as travel buddies as it’s great to have someone around to take photos and hopefully I could point out the interesting things since I’d been there. Well I’m not much of a tour guide as my memory can be fleeting but we had fun walking around the Parthenon, Athena’s temple, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. We didn’t have a whole lot of time left but decided to head down to the Acropolis Museum. Our ticket didn’t give us a pass to go inside but we took photos of the ruins that were under the transparent walkway and area open to be able to view them below. While there he spotted a familiar face sitting down at the cafe attached to it, his wife 🙂
After another half an hour or so, it was time to head back to catch the HoHo bus that would get us to the Pier on time.
We got back with plenty of time to spare and a was happy to see our smiling Cruise Director Gary Glading waiting there directing passengers to the shuttle bus. I’m still of the mind that Gary is actually a set of triplets that all go by that name because I’m really not sure how he manages to be in so many places at once. It seemed that within a few minutes of being back on the Jade I heard him welcoming passengers back to the ship. I know that it was longer than a few minutes but he does seem to work in a dual reality that allows him to transcend space time and be in multiple places at once.
I will write more about Mr. Glading later, but please check out the website regarding his wonderful animal sanctuary: http://www.hanalei-animal-sanctuary-onlus.com/
More photos to come!
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