Up at 6 for breakfast at 7:00, then on to the airport shuttle at 7:20 for our flight to Athens. Carole and LeVerne were catching a later flight. We arrived at the airport by 7:30, checked in, got rid of the luggage and through security by 7:50. Easy. Our flight was 45 minutes late leaving Rome (started raining hard when we boarded the plane) and we arrived Athens at 12:20 in the sunshine. Checked out our ride to the cruise ship port, the X96 public bus. It looked like it would work for us so I bought 4 tickets at 5 euro each for the 90 minute ride.

    
  
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Carole and LeVerne’s flight arrived right on time at 2:00. They grabbed their luggage off the carousal and the four of us ran for the next bus which was leaving in 5 minutes. We made it with one minute to spare. Once onboard, the problem was we were having some difficulty figuring out where our stop was going to be. The names of all the stops were in Greek and didn’t really correspond with the map I had. However, about an hour into the ride LeVerne took the instructions I had and asked a local on the bus if he could tell us where our stop was. He said for us to wait about 15 minutes then ask the bus driver as we would be very close to our stop by then. At the 11 minute mark LeVerne made his way to the front of the articulated bus and checked with the driver. Good thing he did because we were told it was the next stop.

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When the bus came to a stop and the doors opened, we piled out with all of our luggage and there we stood. Still not knowing for sure where we were or even which direction we needed to go to find our hotel, we asked a few people and finally got pointed in the right direction. Ten blocks and 15 minutes later we found our Phidias Piraeus hotel exactly where it was supposed to be. After checking in and getting settled, we struck off for the small boat harbor a couple of blocks away.

  
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We had our nicest dinner of the trip so far at the 4 Brothers restaurant. After dinner we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few bottles of wine for the cruise tomorrow. Back to the room by 8:00. Caught up on some of my notes, then off to bed by 10. Long day but went well.

    
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