Carnival Vista Review: Day 13 – Athensfeatured

I’m not a morning person, and I’m really bad at waking up. It doesn’t really matter where I am or what the circumstances are. I’m awful at getting out of bed.

But when I woke up, intense, bright sunshine streaming into our room, I couldn’t linger in bed for long. We had a big day ahead of us: not only were we docked in Athens for our last port (an overnight visit), but it was our last day onboard the Carnival Vista and we had no time to waste.

If you’re visiting Athens for the first time, there’s nothing I recommend more than taking a trip up to the Acropolis to visit the Parthenon (either on your own, with a tour or with a ship excursion). It’s beautiful, awe-inspiring and it’s some of the deepest history you can walk through.

We contemplated a return visit this year just because it was such a moving experience last year, but with limited time to spend in port, we opted to do it our way: on our own, at our own pace.

But on that note, as a general sentiment of cruising in general, I really don’t like having port days on the final day of any itinerary. When you’re traveling (especially when you’re traveling so far from the US to Europe), there’s always some kind of pressure to go out and explore. It didn’t make sense to come all the way to Europe to spend a day in Athens on a ship (even a ship as shiny, new and magnificent as the Vista). But we had packing to do. And we did want to spend more time onboard the Vista. And beyond all of that, we were completely and utterly exhausted. I don’t think there’s an adequate synonym for intense to describe the feeling of touring eight ports in ten days. So on our final day, we slept in a little bit. We grabbed a quick breakfast up on the Lido deck and then we headed out to explore Athens for a few hours.

When we docked in Piraeus on the Vision of the Seas last year, we took a guided tour through the ship that offered a tour of the Acropolis and then free time to wander around. We noticed, though, that the Hop On Hop Off bus stopped right outside our ship. That was option one. Option two was a last minute transfer offered by the ship, only announced that morning, a roundtrip transfer to Plaka for five and a half hours for $17. We weighed both options and ultimately decided on the Hop On Hop Off bus. Five and a half hours in Plaka seemed like a bit much and even though we’d have to transfer on the Hop On Hop Off bus, we’d have the flexibility to come and go as we pleased.

We had three options of Hop On Hop Off bus, each lined up next to each other literally right outside the ship. All of them offered similar itineraries and free wifi. We ultimately went with Citysights because that was the one we’d researched. Tickets were €22 (€20 with the on-site discount they gave us) and the tickets would be valid for 24 hours. Citysights has three lines: a Piraeus line, an Athens line and a beach line. The Piraeus line is what stops at the ship. It’ll take you through the town of Piraeus, where you can transfer to the beach line, or to the Acropolis, where you can transfer to the Athens line. We did the latter, riding through Piraeus and admiring the beautiful beach and seascape they have, until we arrived at the Acropolis, where we could transfer to the city line.

Although we had no plans of going up to the Acropolis this visit, I have to say, staring at it from the parking lot was so tempting. It’s just such a stunning sight. Alas, I was veto’ed by Stephanie, so we just admired it from the line for the Athens bus.

It was a scorcher of a day in Athens and although the top deck of the bus offered a nice breeze, it also put us right under the sun. Mom sat downstairs and Stephanie and I tried to shade each other because nothing sounded less appealing than walking around the Athens airport the next day with big backpacks on sunburned shoulders.

We hopped off the bus at Syntagma Square, which is in the middle of all of the downtown Athens action, right by the Old Royal Palace. The year before, we’d found a café, Orange Bakery, as we drove by on the tour. We circled back during our free time and discovered the absurd deliciousness of the cappuccino freddo. I’d been dreaming of those freddos ever since, so you can imagine our disappointment as we walked up and found our little gem of a bakery had shut down.

Undeterred and under-caffeinated, we headed next door to Paul, a French patisserie we’d seen in Arles, for still-good-but-not-AS-good freddos and some pastries to start our day with.

Athens has always offered an interesting juxtaposition for me: the impact of the financial crisis is obvious from every corner of the city, in crumbling facades, unfinished buildings and graffiti. The area the patisserie is located in is as opulent as Athens gets – almost reminiscent of a Grecian Beverly Hills. But amidst the glamour are political messages scrawled in black spray paint, or an intricate building façade that’s broken down and crumbling. In front of the high end department store is a man panhandling and another selling lottery tickets to make a living. It’s impossible to ignore.

To that end, though, we’ve walked quite a bit through the city on both this visit and our last one, and in no part did we ever witness anything sketchy or feel unsafe. Syntagma Square or Plaka are probably the grittiest of the downtown areas. If you linger anywhere long enough, you’ll probably be approached by someone wanting to sell you something or “give” you something for a tip (this time, it was roses). If you make eye contact with a street musician, they’ll come play for you and expect payment out of it. General common sense rules of travel awareness and safety should keep you safe in Athens.

We probably could have picked up the Hop On Hop Off bus to take us to Plaka, but it was such a nice day out that we just decided to walk it, stopping to browse in some of the shops we found on our way and marvel at the way the city had been built around the ruins left behind from ancient times.

Plaka is the cultural epicenter of Athens. Everyone gathers in Plaka – to shop, to eat, to stroll along the tree-canopied streets. Plaka was built around the ancient Greek Agora and houses many of Athens’ museums. By the time we walked over, we were parched, so we stopped at the first café we saw: a yogurt café. The Greek yogurt we buy in the grocery stores here in the US has nothing on real Greek yogurt. For one, real Greek yogurt has about 8% milk fat, which makes it entirely decadent, but it’s much more mild tasting, too. A cup of Greek yogurt topped with honey and walnuts and (another) cappuccino freddo made a perfect snack for such a hot day.

We continued our walk around Plaka, stopping in and out of the shops we found, but we didn’t buy much – we’d already bought so much in our first seven ports, and between that and all of the things we bought on our Athens visit the year prior, there wasn’t much we needed to buy. We walked as far into Plaka as we could, we sat in a park for awhile and enjoyed the warm weather. It was a perfect day in Athens.

When we were done wandering around, we made our way back towards the main street where we could catch the Hop On Hop Off bus. We noticed a line out of this hole in the wall for pita sandwiches and decided to grab a quick lunch before we headed back to the ship. We sat on a bench underneath the trees people watching and eating our pitas and it was the perfect way to end our time in Greece.

We headed back to the Vista around 3:00 pm, hoping we’d have enough time to pack and enjoy the ship before dusk. The bus left us off where it had picked us up, right at the terminal, and we took some time to browse the terminal shops for luggage (terribly overpriced) and last-minute souvenirs.

For as much as we travel, we’re all terrible at packing. We’re terrible at estimating how much we need, we’re terrible at eliminating items we’ll never use and we’re terrible at estimating how much space we’ll need for souvenirs. We were flying home business class, so we could fly with three suitcases each, each one up to 75 pounds. But before we flew home, we’d have to fly from Athens to Zurich on Swiss Air, a European carrier. European carriers are much more strict with their luggage allowances, which made packing for our next destination so much more stressful with two weeks worth of purchases coming with us. Flying business on Swiss didn’t allow us any extra luggage allowance, so we pre-purchased an extra bag when we checked into our flight, which would save us a few dollars from having to do so at the airport.

When we literally couldn’t pack anymore, we headed downstairs for our last dinner in the dining room. We had a different dining staff every night, so there were no drawn out farewells – it was just another meal in the dining room. I can’t really say too much about it because I was too congested at this point to taste anything I was eating.

After dinner, we wandered around the ship a bit, taking pictures of anything we hadn’t already taken a picture of before heading up to deck 10 to take in the sunset. Sunsets in the Mediterranean are so breathtakingly beautiful and this one, our last one on this trip, was no exception.

Stephanie and Mom forced me back to the room until I finished packing. There are few things I hate more than I hate packing and I’ll always put it off until the very last moment. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long or look far for my next excuse not to pack: the entertainment for the evening was an interactive movie game show hosted by our Cruise Director, Matt. If I haven’t said it enough, Matt was a fantastic cruise director. He and his crew kept us busy and entertained every evening.

I couldn’t put off packing any longer after the show – we didn’t have long before bags were due outside the cabin – so I trudged back to the room and threw anything that wasn’t in a suitcase into my suitcase. We’d have plenty of time to re-pack everything before we headed back to the US. The three of us headed out to the patio with the bottle of cava we’d bought in Barcelona. Mom and Stephanie toasted to our final night, I popped a celebratory Sudafed, and we enjoyed the balmy breeze and full moon over Piraeus.

Mom turned in for the night and Stephanie and I headed out. We spent some time on that not-so-secret deck of ours, we split one last prosciutto and arugula pizza, we caught the end of a movie at the Dive In and we walked around the ship. It was quiet – I think most people were either still in port or in their cabins packing – and because we were docked, all of the shops are closed.

And then, as quickly as it came on, it was just about over. We were sad to leave the Vista and our amazing voyage through the Mediterranean, but we still had so much left to look forward after we left the Vista and Athens – the next day would bring a new journey to a new country and an entirely new adventure.

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