László Varga

It was our fifth morning of our cruise and the destination of the day was the last one in Greece. It was the island at the north-western corner of the country, holding a lot of heritage and beauty: the island of Corfu. Although we did not originally plan to take a pre-payed trip in Corfu, we changed our minds after some careful thinking 🙂 . We decided that if we are there, we really must visit a special palace which we have seen on pictures to be quite nice: Achilleion Palace.

Although the name of the trip held one destination, as we have already seen on other trips during the cruise, this did not mean that it was the only thing we could see. We also had the pleasure the see a lot of the island (granted, only from the bus) and to spend some time in the old town-center of Corfu, so the day was quite promising. We started of as usual: numbers on clothes, bus at the port, tour-guide on the bus. No changes there 😉 .

Being quite far away from the port, our itinerary had the Achilleion Palace as first point to visit, so we headed off to the higher points of the island, up to the famous palace built by the beloved empress of Austria:Sisi. The entry fee to the palace was, again, included in the tour price, so unfortunately I have no idea how much it was. For sure it is an acceptable price, because there were a lot of tourists visiting 😉 . We were walked by our guide through the main rooms on the ground floor, followed by a walk through the lovely gardens with a spectacular view of the island. The gardens are also home to the two famous statues giving the name to the castle: the beautiful statue of the dying Achiles and the huge statue of the victorious Achiles. There is a lot to learn about the history of the palace (if you have a guide) and a lot to see in this beautiful building, so I think it was a great decision to visit it.

Once we were on the bus, we started our descent on a somewhat different route than we followed to climb. The road was extremely narrow and frankly I have no idea how our bus driver managed to go through them. As the guide mentioned: “we just had to close our eyes and let things happen” 🙂 . After our eyes being closed a few times and a short stop at a terrace close to the airport, we quickly arrived to the city center, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. In places like this, even McDonald’s has to follow the architecture and color scheme 😉 . Also, the main square in the town center is the largest square in entire Greece (I must admit, after seeing Athens’s “main square” I really understand why 😉 ).

The whole island gave an interesting impression of multiculturalism. According to our guide the people here even speak a very different dialect than in other parts of Greece, a dialect greatly influenced by the Venetian times. The palaces, the buildings all hold the marking of great European rulers without making it “too European”. It is a great mixture of elements making Corfu stand out from the rest of Greece. If we had to choose a place to return to for a couple of days, it would definitely be this island 😉 .

I have uploaded some picture here.

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The destination of day four of our trip did not hold too much excitement, when I just looked at the brochure. The port we were about to dock to was called: Piraeus. Little did we know at that point, that this city is actually the main port of Athens, the birthplace of modern republic. Here, we really had to book for a trip, because the actual city of Athens was at a 20-25 minute drive from the port of Piraeus, so if we wanted to see something, we had to go on a trip.

We arrived to this destination a bit early in the morning, so we had quite the warn-out faces as we were sitting in the theater, waiting for our number to get called. Again, we were following the usual process, of disembarking, walking to the bus having our number on it, where our tour-guide was waiting for us. We did not have any delays, so we could head off towards Athens promptly. My impression of the city was quite a surprise. It was absolutely not what I was expecting: it had a very modern look with a lot of new high-rises (without overdoing the height), an internal highway leading into the center of the city and lots of green areas bringing nature right into the city center. Compared to Rome, for instance, it did not give off the ancient feel that I was expecting from this city: it was a modern city, with only small patches of the remains of the ancient culture that once vibed here.

The road to Acropolis mountain was again, through the narrow streets of modern Athens and not much gave away of what was coming up until we were almost there. The main tourist attraction was working like a charm: the place was swarming with tourists and we really had to be careful not to fall on the slippery marble stairs that lead up to the temple-complex. Our tour guide was wise enough to make a short stop before entering the crowds and tell us all the details up front of what was coming up. We just had to walk up the stairs, take some quick shots and get into the complex. Once inside, the air got breathable again, as people spread out to admire the different temples.

I must admit, this part of Athens did not disappoint at all. The temples were indeed magnificent, the view of the entire city was breathtaking 😀 . I was maybe a bit disappointed because of all the scaffolds that were built up around the Parthenon ruining any decent picture I wanted to take of it. It turns out, those have been there since the seventies (talk about efficiency :p ) as part of an ample restoration project to refurbish a bit the temple. In any case, it later turned out, that the scaffolds did not exactly go all the way around, so there were some shots I could make without that ugly (but useful) “decoration”.

After visiting the main attraction of the city, we headed back to the bus to take a quick ride to the ancient stadium (here we had a short pit-stop to make a few pictures, but that did not impress me too much…), then onto the main street of important buildings, that I completely forgot about, just because we did not even stop there. Yes, they were nice as I remember, but I could not see anything. Big disappointment here 🙁 .

The final stop of this trip was Plaka, the old historic center of Athens. This was basically a set of narrow streets filled with gift-shops, bars and restaurants. Even the main square was completely invisible due to all the tables and umbrellas of restaurants. It did not even resemble a real main square: it was too small, too crowded and again, did not give off any vibe at all. It was great to relax a bit and have a drink, but apart from that, nothing… I think I will refer to this place as “the shopping alley” rather that the “city center” of Athens 😉 .

I think the trip to Athens, left a lot of mixed feelings inside me. On one hand there was the awesome Acropolis and on the other hand the city itself, which was not something special. But then again, if someone thinks “Athens”, the next word that comes into our minds is “Acropolis”… so that is where you will get the wow-effect and not in the rest of the city…

I have uploaded some pictures here.

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