… to Piraeus, Greece …

… for an overnight stay in the port nearest Athens. We had a list of things we wanted to do in Athens: revisit the street of jewelry making supplies if we could find it, see if anything was new at the Antikythera Mechanism exhibit in the National Archaeology Museum, have lunch in the Plaka – and find a souvenir for our door wreath.

Our first day was fraught with problems. After downloading photos the night before, I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera. Problem #1: find a replacement before leaving the port. None of the stores in the terminal carried cards (!), but a nearby newspaper kiosk did. Done. We opted for the narrated hop-on, hop-off bus near the pier to get to Perikleous Street, listed on an online blog as the place for beads in Athens. This required taking the blue bus, then transferring to the orange bus. Smoothly done – until I realized I’d left my hat on the blue bus. The representative contacted the driver, he found the hat, and said he would drop it off at Stop #1. We continued on, fortified by a circle of the local sesame-crusted bread sold on the street. We located the bead stores, window-shopped on our way to Stop #1 (Easter was definitely in the air, with decorated candles everywhere!), reclaimed the missing hat, and celebrated with lunch at KFC.

 
 
We hopped back on the bus to the Plaka, and shopped an overwhelming number of jewelry stores, souvenir shops and clothing stands, before cabbing it back to the ship. The 18 K gold and diamond object is a cuff bracelet.
The next day we took a cab to the Archaeological Museum with friends Doug and Tauna Durand, and spent several happy hours gawking at the outstanding collection of gold objects, a great new 3D movie on the Antikythera mechanism, and all of the really ancient pottery and sculptures this incredible museum exhibits. The rather modern-looking musician is from 2800 BCE!
 
 
   
The museum is unfortunately not close to the other sites in Athens, so we cabbed it again to the Plaka for lunch outside at the Metropol, in front of the beautiful Cathedral of Athens. Lunch over, we shopped the Plaka, walking to the end and transitioning into the flea market of Monastiraki. We headed back to the ship just in time for all aboard.