Athens, Greece

We arrived in Athens, Greece at around 8:00 AM this morning. We docked in Piraeus, which is Greece’s largest port

As has become our regular routine since we first boarded the ship in Miami, Florida we woke up early and had a nice relaxing breakfast in the Lido Café. It was fairly crowded as several passengers were getting ready for their shore excursions. After breakfast we worked out in the Fitness Center, which was not crowded at all. Anne Marie worked out on the treadmill and Keith worked out on the elliptical machine.

Afterwards we took a complimentary shuttle that Crystal provided from the cruise ship terminal into downtown Athens. The ride took about thirty minutes and we passed by the Hotel which we had stayed at when we disembarked the Crystal Serenity in October, 2005. Since we have been here twice before, we did not sign up for any shore excursions. When we got off the shuttle we wee only a couple of blocks from the Acropolis so we decided to purchase tickets to visit this site. It was fairly crowded and there were a couple of tours from our ship. We had previously toured this site in 1999 while on another cruise. We walked around the area for quite awhile and took in all of the sites around us. It is so hard to believe the age of this very historic site. After enjoying this site we walked around some of the adjacent streets before we were ready to return back to the ship.

When we returned to the ship we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the main dining room.

This evening we will attend a special event for those on the Full World Cruise. This is the second of three evening events, which have been planned for us. This event will be held at an exhibition hall in the heart of Athens called Zappeion Megarion, and will include both dinner and entertainment.. This event is scheduled from 6:00 PM until 11:00 PM so we will post additional details on tomorrow Blog.

The weather in Athens is quite nice with highs forecasted for the 70s and lows in the high 40s. After returning from the event this evening, we are scheduled to depart Athens and we will have another day at sea tomorrow as we cruise to Istanbul which is our next port of call.

Keith & Anne Marie