Arrival 7:00am – Depature 6:00pm

9:00am (3.5 Hours) Athens Sightseeing & Lycabettus Views: A UNESCO Partner Tour

We awoke this morning with our ship docked in the extremely busy port of Piraeus which is the largest Greek seaport. After being in peaceful small harbors for the past several days, it’s a shock to look out the window and see that we’re surrounded by numerous cruise ships, container ships and ferries.

We traveled by Mercedes van today along with 4 other couples on our tour. Thankfully, Sunday is a quiet day in Athens as most of the locals retreat from the city for the weekend. Traffic is shockingly light and we’re able to navigate about town expeditiously. Today is mostly a van tour of the highlights of Athens with emphasis on viewing Unesco World Heritage Sites. Our guide tells us that it is very hard to find a job in Athens.

The city of Athens stretches for miles in a wide mesa surrounded by high mountains and the sea. Inside this large mesa, numerous hills and peaks create a diverse landscape.

The Greek flag flies proudly throughout the city, the blue symbolizing the sky and the sea, and the white symbolizing the clouds and the waves.

It was very exciting to get a view of the amazing Renzo Piano designed complex that received so much publicity and won special recognition for his use of light in the complex. The Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano was enlisted by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to design the 1.8 million-square-foot space which is home to the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera.

Our first stop is the Olympic Stadium to snap a few quick photos.

The Panathenaic Stadium is made of marble and is the only one of its kind in the world. Nowadays, this multi-purpose venue is used for sports and also for the handover ceremony of the Olympic Flame every four years.

As we are driving through Athens, beautiful orange fruit trees line the sidewalks. The fruit however is very bitter and is only used to make Bittersweet Marmalade.

Our next stop was at the most impressive viewpoint of Athens, Lycabettus Hill. Despite its prominence in the city, very little is known about the history of the hill. With a height of 745 ft, Lycabettus is the tallest hill in the capital, offering a panoramic view of almost the entire city. A cable car whisks us up to the highest point in the city. As we ascend the final stairs to the top, we hear mass being broadcast from the little chapel and the aroma of incense tantalizes the senses as the astounding view opens up before us. Our timing is perfect as we arrive during Mass at the Chapel of Saint George which sits atop the hill and was founded in 1834. The church is very small and crowded, so it is quite nice that we can enjoy the mass outside via the broadcast while enjoying the magnificent view and refreshing breeze.

From atop Lycabetta Hill we have a 360 panoramic view of the city. Quite astonishing that we can see all the way to the seaside.

As we’re driving by the Parliament building downtown, we can see a parade of white uniformed military officers. They are escorting the Germany Chancellor who is visiting Athens politicians to discuss the ongoing disaster in Ukraine.

On our whirlwind drive through Athens we passed the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Panathenaic Stadium, built for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Our route also included views of Constitution Square, the City Gate, the National Gardens of Athens and several of the Grecian Museums. We are happy that streets in Athens are relatively traffic free on Sundays which allowed us to travel by the sites without congestion. The only area that appeared congested was the Plaka area which is open primarily for tourists.

We drove by the Monument of Unknown Soldier which is guarded 24 hours per day with the guards change hourly.

Our drive went so smoothly that we had time to stop by the Parthenon for photo ops from the base of the monument. Unfortunately, a large portion of the structure is covered by scaffolding while repairs and restorations are being undertaken.

The Parthenon is the temple that dominates the hill of the Acropolis in Athens. It was built in the mid-5th century BCE and dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena Parthernos.  Although the rectangular white marble Parthenon has suffered damage over the centuries, including the loss of most of its sculpture, its basic structure has remained intact.