Day Seven: A Whirlwind Tour of Athens

December 26, 2025. After yesterday’s day of rest, and a day and two nights at sea, we awoke early to find the ship already docked in Piraeus. The port is Athens’s gateway to the sea—and the city at its most practical and bustling. Blue Star ferries came and went, connecting Athens with the islands of the Aegean.

The dawn had turned the sky red, and the dome and cross of a church stood out against the horizon. This was how Athens began to introduce itself.

Agios Nikolaos, near the Port of Piraeus. Its blue dome, particularly striking in the half-light between night and morning, is one of the port district’s most recognizable landmarks.

Another Viking cruise ship was docked on the far side of the terminal, while our own appeared only as a reflection in the terminal windows. Both ships had spent yesterday at sea and were now in port together, reality and reflection overlapping in an image that captured this moment in Athens harbor.

With two cruise ships docking at once, the crowds multiplied—and we got a firsthand taste of the Greek pace of doing things. We waited, then waited some more. In the end, we did not make it ashore until nearly two hours behind schedule.

The day truly was a whirlwind tour. Our coach threaded through the city, rarely stopping as the major sights slipped past the windows one by one: Zea Marina, Mikrolimano Marina, and, in the distance, the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

We drove past the Panathenaic Stadium, the world’s only large stadium built entirely of marble. First constructed in the fourth century BC, it was originally used for the Panathenaic Games. In 1896, it hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympic Games, and it remains the traditional venue for the Olympic flame handover ceremony.

As we passed Syntagma Square and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, our guide pointed toward a distant crowd and told us that the changing of the Presidential Guard was under way. The coach did not stop, but from afar we could at least say we had “seen” it. Later, during our free time, a few of our companions made a point of returning to capture the ceremony up close.

The coach stopped at the Acropolis of Athens, and at last we could get out and stretch our legs. Before us lay the western entrance: surviving stone gateways and steps rising tier upon tier, naturally drawing the eye upward. This was once the principal approach to the Acropolis.

The Acropolis extends across a rocky plateau, its massive walls following the contours of the land and sharply separating hill, monuments, and city. Above them, the Parthenon stands quietly on the summit, firmly commanding the center of the view. It was originally built as a temple to the goddess Athena.

This is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, on the southern slope of the Acropolis. It was built in AD 161 by the Roman senator Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. The theater originally had a wooden roof and a three-story stage façade. Restored in the nineteenth century, it is now one of the principal venues of the Athens Festival.

At the foot of the Acropolis, olive trees and low shrubs grew intertwined in the shade.

Near Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, the large windows of a white building reflected a corner of the Acropolis.

The building is the Acropolis Museum. Completed and opened free of charge in 2009, it houses artifacts and finds from the Acropolis rock and its surroundings, spanning the Greek Bronze Age through the Roman and Byzantine periods. The building itself stands on concrete piles above an ancient Athenian neighborhood, whose archaeological excavations can be viewed through glass floors. Today was a holiday, so the museum was closed—and so was the Parthenon on the hill.

With the attractions closed, visitors found their entertainment in the streets.

All kinds of electric scooters could be seen around the streets.

Police were everywhere, which made the tourist areas of Athens feel fairly safe.

There were also ancient Greek Spartan warriors in red cloaks and golden helmets. They were actors, of course, and not responsible for security.

Street performers seemed to be everywhere.

This round stone structure is the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the only surviving intact choragic monument from ancient Greece. It was erected in 334 BC to commemorate Lysicrates’s victory in a choral competition at the Festival of Dionysus. Built in the Corinthian order, it had a major influence on European Neoclassical architecture.

At the foot of the monument’s steps, a street musician quietly tuned his strings, using the ancient stones as a makeshift stage.

This district is Plaka, Athens’s oldest and most charming historic neighborhood, known as the “Neighborhood of the Gods.”

Plaka is Athens’s most popular tourist district, filled with restaurants, open-air cafés, art galleries, and shops selling every variety of traditional Greek gift.

This is Brettos, a Greek bar whose walls are lined with illuminated shelves of colorful bottles.

Street art and graffiti are common sights in Athens.

This is a work by the Greek street artist LOAF, whose name is short for “LOve Against Fear.” One of his signature images is a cluster of large, expressive eyes in black and white—a recurring motif that lends the scene a striking air of watchfulness.

This graffiti is most likely the work of the Parisian street artist P*NM Street Art. Although it uses a rat motif similar to that of the renowned anonymous British artist Banksy, the distinctive style and the “P*NM” signature at lower left point to its creator. Rats are a common image in street art, and Banksy is also known for using them, often as symbols of society’s underclass or marginalized groups.

Visitors can reach the summit on foot or by funicular. We wound uphill through narrow, graffiti-lined lanes until we reached the top.

At the summit stands the white Chapel of St. George.

The Parthenon may have been closed, but the view from the hill across Athens and the Aegean was still magnificent. The prominent hill in the background is Mount Lycabettus, the highest hill in Athens at 277 meters above sea level.

To keep us from losing our way to the meeting point in the busy city center, the cruise line stationed staff with signs at key locations to guide us back to the coach. The return trip went without a hitch—full marks for that.

And so our whirlwind tour of Athens drew to a close. Time had been short, but we had never felt flustered: fragments of walls, ruins, streets, and everyday life had already assembled themselves into the basic outlines of the city.

At that moment, the final page of our Ancient Mediterranean Treasures voyage slowly came to a close. Tomorrow, we would begin the journey home.

Ancient Mediterranean Treasures Itinerary

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Day Seven: A Whirlwind Tour of Athens

Ancient Mediterranean Treasures Itinerary

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Day Seven: A Whirlwind Tour of Athens

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