The Hellenic Classics Cruise, 12-19 June 2015

A series of travel articles covering our trip with friends on the Thomson Majesty cruise ship as she sails on the Hellenic Classics cruise around the mainlands and islands of Greece and Turkey. There will be some spectacular and exciting excursions to some of the region's most beautiful and historic sites and some looks aside at lesser-known aspects of life in the Aegean. We might even find time for a drink or two...

Click each picture for the associated article. Each page contains a link back to this index.

Return to Cruise Holidays Index

Concluding Our Day in Athens

Tuesday 16 June 2015. The coach arrives at the Acropolis to pick us up. Space is at a premium here. Coaches are allowed to park for only ten minutes so anyone arriving back before that should not get worried at the absence of their bus.

We now have a while on the coach as it does a sight-seeing tour of Athens. I have to conclude that apart from the ones we have already seen, there are not a lot of sights of universal interest... This is the Olympics Stadium for track and field events, others are scattered here and there for specific events.

The Grave of The Unknown Soldier has a Guard of Honour posted to either side. The Changing of The Guard had just taken place but we did catch a glimpse of the just-relieved Guard Party marching away with the distinctive Greek slow march.

After half an hour that was more enjoyable for being able to sit and rest the feet than for the sights - large modern boring buildings I can take or leave even if they house the government or a university - we arrive at a rather familiar road...

This is where we were headed: the new Acropolis Museum. It is opposite the Theatre of Dionysus that we walked down to earlier this morning and seen in the previous entry.

In the space in front of the museum, the courtyard is opened to reveal the archaeology underneath. The contrast of light levels meant I had to create this from two photographs taken from the same place. One exposed for the shadowed area below today's ground level and one for the top level in bright sunlight.

Once inside the museum we can't wait to get away from our guide. She said we had to keep together until we were inside but should have mentioned that there were toilets once through the turnstile as well as just outside it. A few disappear into the toilets and we were 20 minutes waiting and had scattered about somewhat. Once through and into the museum she again starts talking unnecessarily. She actually starts reading out the labels from some of the exhibits... We leave her only 30 yards from the entrance.

This is the third and top floor which has a view towards the Acropolis opposite. The windows aren't dirty - it's the polarising filter on my lens that has brought out all the stress patterns that are normally invisible.

I'm not sure we have the order right here, but you get the drift...

Having looked at a few exhibits, we decide we are more interested in food and drink and walk back down towards the exit, passing our party who are just climbing from the first to the second floor! Good luck trying to find time for lunch, guys...

We walk down to the narrow streets and restaurants of a part of Athens called Plaka. It is almost like an old town. Not without a little difficulty, we find a taverna where we can have a snack and a carafe of wine. A chap is playing guitar and crooning and we nod our appreciation to him as we pass on the way to our table which is outdoors and sheltered from the sun by a canopy. Even better, that's an air-conditioning unit next to David!

This is the life. Sitting outside a cafe even in warm weather is no fun in England now because all the smokers have to sit outside and you have to put up with foul-smelling smoke in what should be fresh air. It can be as bad in other countries, but funnily enough I don't remember seeing all that many smokers in cafes during the week.

Right at the side of our table was a large cage with ten or twelve budgerigars tweeting away. I did wonder when the waiter came whether to point and say "That one..." but instead Fran and David ordered toasted sandwiches and chips and Jeannie and I agreed to share a Greek salad.

Not much on one of these drumsticks, come to think of it... The food was delicious. What is it about salads in Greece that taste so much better than those in England? Apart from the natural oil on them, the absence of mayo and tomatoes ripened by the sun instead of sprayed chemicals that is...? These days in England you don't even get lettuce - it's all stuff that in past years would have been labelled grass... Crunch with no taste does not a salad make...

The entertainment. I'm not sure of the significance of the number 5 on his guitar unless they were auditioning and number 6 was waiting for his turn...

I tried out my Greek on the young lady as we left. "Efcharisto!" I said cheerily.
"Oh!" she said in surprise, "Almost Greek..."

And on into the shopping streets with their colour and crowds, the smell of perfumes, garlic from the cafes, the occasional whiff of exhaust fumes as something ancient and fuming splutters past.

Miss Franny - as an ex-leather worker - always likes to get a fix of the smell of leather products! She casts an expert eye over pieces and comments favourably or otherwise with phrases like "That's a good piece of leather!" or occasionally, "That's not been fixed properly..."

An almost deserted side street with a tiny church on the right. Not all of those fridge magnets on the stand stayed in Athens at the end of the day... It really amazes me that our suitcases at the end of the week don't attach themselves to the side of the ship as the crew try to take them off!

On the other side of the street to the fridge magnets was another bit of ancient Greece, clearly showing how the dust of centuries has built up the present day ground level.

The high rocky outcrop of the Acropolis at the end of the street.

David and I both wanted a chance to see and take photos of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We had glimpsed it on the opposite side of the street when the bus dropped us off and as we were due to meet the bus again in the same place, we agreed to leave the ladies shopping and we crossed the busy road.

Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD some 650 years after the project had begun.

We were so close, but the photos were taken through a fence. The entrance was a quarter of a mile away which would have meant a half-mile walk to and from the entrance and then we would still have to walk up to it. So we took our photos and then waited ages to cross the road back.

The Arch of Hadrian. It is thought to have been built to honour the Roman Emperor Hadrian for his arrival to the city for the dedication of the temple that we have just seen. He is named on an inscription as is Theseus (on the other side of the arch). It has been suggested that they were named as founders of ancient and modern (that is Roman) Athens.

We meet up back with the ladies and have a soft drink at a street cafe. As we wait for the bus another member of the party moans to us about the guide. He tells us that they only had 20 minutes left by the time they came out of the museum and that they have not had time for any lunch...

Hellenic Classics Index

Excursion To Athens

Tuesday 16 June 2015. Thomson Majesty has travelled through the night, from Turkey on the eastern side of the Aegean back to Greece on the western side.

David and Jeannie are up early to catch the arrival of Thomson Majesty into the Greek port of Piraeus. Very early... On one of David's photos the clock on the poolside bar on Deck 10 reads 06:25 am. However we are right behind them. By about an hour and a bit...

We have a coffee in the Cafe Royale on Deck 10 forward and then go down for breakfast to our favourite spot in the Seven Seas restaurant. Halfway through breakfast a familiar face walks past our table.

"Pipit!" I say in surprise. Pipit was our waiter on the Thomson Destiny in 2011 and on the Thomson Spirit when we went to Norway in 2013. At first I thought he must have transferred over from the Spirit in Mykonos but it turned out he had joined the day before, being one of the group of crew members we had seen bringing their luggage on board in Kusadasi. Although not stationed by us, he made a point of coming to speak to us every day after this.

Fruit and vegetable carvings in the Seven Seas restaurant. By now the waiters are getting used to David grabbing his camera at all opportunities and eye him warily before approaching our table with loaded plates in case he shows signs of excitedly leaping up and backwards...

Breakfast over and he has changed tactics for today. Instead of photographing us on the gangway getting back on, he hairs down to the dockside as fast as possible and stops us on our way off the ship!

We have a full-day excursion today to Athens. I've decided not to climb up to the top of the Acropolis as I have a very nasty big toe, caused by a bit of toe nail cutting into it. I've had it most of the week but by now almost the entire toe is bright red and swollen and very very painful.

Luckily we have already been on the Acropolis in 2009 so this isn't as disappointing as it might have been. Especially when David and Jeannie come down later spitting about the guide. She had stopped her group in the middle of four other groups instead of going to a massive empty space nearby and there was no chance of hearing her. Plus at one point she had said to David, "Don't be taking photos - you need to watch your feet here..." Yes: that's why you visit the Acropolis - to spend your time looking at your feet... Totally the wrong thing to say to The Clicky-Monster...! He did ignore her of course and there will be some of his photos in a minute.

I can't sit or stand still for the entire morning so we wander down the road - well Fran wanders, I limp... This will lead in front of the Parthenon high up on the cliff and also in front of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the more ruinous Theatre of Dionysus.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is still in use as a theatre, hosting opera and even rock events but it is hidden by the trees. Built in 167 A.D. it seats 5000 and was originally roofed with cedar timber. It may well be worth the entrance fee, but we decide to go farther down to the other theatre.

At the entrance to the Odeon is what looks like an old water cistern.

Unfortunately very little can be seen of the Theatre of Dionysus either. The slopes of the seating rows can be seen, but the small group of trees hides the few rows of remaining stonework. The origins of this theatre go back six or seven hundred years before the better preserved Odeon was built. It was commenced in the 5th or 6th century B.C. with early seating being wooden flats on terraces set into the hillside. It would have seated an audience of 17,000.

I swap to the telephoto lens to look between the trees and a small glimpse of the theatre's stone seating can be seen.

Road trains head up and down the hill from the entrance of the Acropolis. We don't know at the time but we are to return to the spot we reached in our walk in order to visit the Acropolis Museum after a sight-seeing ride through the city.

Meanwhile up on the hill, David and Jeannie have deserted the guide and here he sits on the wall behind the Parthenon with the hill on which Cliff Richard sang The Next Time in the film Summer Holiday over his left shoulder.

From his vantage point he has managed a much better view than mine of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Not to mention the Theatre of Dionysus. (Sickening isn't it...)

The Parthenon. Empty in the middle because under Ottoman rule, the Turks stored their ammunition in the building and during an attack by Venice in 1687 it ignited, destroying much of the building and sculptures in the ensuing explosion.

In 1801-05 Lord Elgin, Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul, acquired some sculptures which were sold to the British Museum in 1816. The Greeks would like them back to display in their own museum - it is accepted that they can never be re-attached to the building. Whilst not favouring either side in an argument that has far more to do with how best to use them to raise awareness and knowledge of ancient Greek art and culture, I do have to say that 247 feet of frieze makes a bloody boring museum exhibit in an otherwise sparsely furnished room unless you are intensely interested in Greek history...

The Caryatids are female figures who act as supports for the porch of the Erechtheion. The temple dates from 421-406 B.C. and the caryatids in situ here are casts of the originals, five of which were removed to the Acropolis Museum in 1979. A sixth had been removed in 1801 by Lord Elgin and is now in the British Museum.

We had wandered the slope to the museum and back and looked in a few shops, had a granita (we would call it a slush drink) and dodged the busker who was playing Bob Dylan's Knocking On Heaven's Door, the song of choice for not-very-good guitarists... We also couldn't help raising our eyes to the sky as an English woman stopped one of the many tour guides and asked her what to do as she couldn't remember where she was supposed to wait for her bus and it was due to go in 15 minutes.

"If you wait here someone will come looking..." said the guide. Ten minutes later the woman realised the time and that the bus would have gone 45 minutes ago. She stopped another guide who, bless her, phoned and arranged for her own bus to take them to meet the one they should have got. Please note folks - even on holiday you should leave your brain switched on... Ah, our own party are back!

Hellenic Classics Index