Athens, acropolis, and airplanes

Well, this week we dropped off Maggie and Levi at the airport for a month in the states for a wedding, so Rachel and I, Emma and the three youngest are on our own for a while! So far it’s been a bit stressful without four other hands to help out. Things like dishes and cleaning and straightening up…..not to mention a little thing like sailing. Mehari is possible to sail single handed, but not easy. So Rachel or I are handing off the baby to Emma, or keeping him busy with toys on the floor while we tack, roll out sails, raise the main, etc.! Also, Emma is now the official anchor person, so she's in charge of putting out the anchor when we head into docks and bays, and she takes her new position very seriously.

Miles was NOT impressed!

Before the kids left, however, we had a great visit into Athens and seeing the sights. We were a little apprehensive because we’d heard from some other cruisers that Athens is dirty, smoggy, congested and just miserable but everyone ‘has’ to go see at least the Acropolis. Our boat is anchored about an hour from Athens, in a calm bay around the corner form all the craziness. So, we looked into renting a car, but needing a van, we couldn’t find anything less than 170Euro per day, about $250. Plus we’d have to brave the traffic and parking and fuel. Not much incentive to rent. We also needed to sort out the bus for getting Maggie and Levi to the airport, so we thought; maybe we can try that, and use the Metro from the airport to get downtown. It was going to be cheaper and ‘hopefully’ less hassle.

Once we were on the bus, the ticket person explained, why not transfer at the bus station and take a different bus all the way downtown? Why not. So it ended up dropping us right in the middle of town, close to the market and main square, and a close walk to the Acropolis.

As an added bonus, the day before, Sunday, we had rain showers off and on during the day, and Monday was still a little cloudy, so that cleaned all the smog out of the air. That made the hike up the Acropolis a little more bearable and the views of Athens from up top were spectacular. You could easily see the surrounding hills and get a feel for what it must have looked like as ancient ships approached Athens for a beach invasion. I’m sure it was daunting.

As if it couldn’t get better, for us as penny-pinching cruisers, Monday was a holiday in Greece and admission was free! We easily justified spending the savings on a nice lunch in a tree lined back street and had a fantastic meal of grilled chicken, Greek and Cesear salads.

We made it back to the boat around 11:00 that night, exhausted, but an almost perfect day.

The next day was last minute packing and swimming/showering. As boaters who hardly visit marinas, there simply just isn't showers available very often, so we've developed our back deck as our shower. We jump in the water, climb out, soap up, shave, shampoo, jump back in to wash off and do a "final rinse" with a small amount of precious fresh water, no salt. It works actually pretty well, and it feels amazing. 

Sailing Mehari a few pounds lighter,

~Hems