This was our earliest arrival at port. Disembarking began at 7:30am and getting everyone up early was hard. We’re all feeling a bit travel weary and the heat over the last few days has been somewhat enervating. Today’s high in Athens was 36 C (96.8 F) and when the sunshine reflects off the marble walkways, you feel like melting!
We wanted to take a taxi to the Acropolis and make our own way from there, but when we reached the front of the taxi cab line a huge Greek taxi driver speaking in broken English, started trying to persuade us to do a 4 hour tour of Athens with him. He was getting more and more worked up as we told him we only wanted to go to the Acropolis. Finally a terminal official stepped in and signaled for another taxi driver to come get us. The second driver, Angelo, was much calmer, easier to understand, and ended up driving us to the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus, the stadium of the first modern Olympic Games, and the Agora.
The ruins were incredibly impressive. I think Kent was most excited about standing on Mars Hill and imagining the Apostle Paul standing there, looking over the city. We found the city of Athens to be rather ugly. Cement blocks and a lot of graffiti. Everywhere is very dry—very different from the lush green fields we left in the UK.
Neither Anna nor Elizabeth has been feeling 100%. Some of it may be the heat. After returning to the ship, we spent a little time on deck—but even that was hot—so we retreated to the air-conditioned cabin, had an early dinner, and went to an entertaining variety show that featured singing, dancing, acrobatics, and juggling.
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