Morning in Pireaus before boarding our ship the Galileo

10^thAugust, 2018

A more relaxed day today starts with a respectable meeting downstairs at 8.30am, to walk down to the supermarket to have breakfast in the cafeteria on the top floor.

The breakfast spread isn’t quite what we expect and there is a serious language issue in trying to decode what is inside the extensive range of pastry wrapped packages. The cashier , who has limited English, is called in to translate, and still unconvinced, we bought something we perceived was edible. Next challenge was to order coffee. For black coffee drinkers, this is no real challenge, but once you order cappuccino it is a whole new game. I thought I had done a great job in communicating that Carole wanted a large cappuccino (with no confusing special milk requests). When I saw the girl putting ice blocks in a latte glass it was not looking good, so I quickly halted proceedings and reiterated that a hot coffee was required. Finally served with great pride, was an iced coffee in a tall glass, pretty much the same as what I thought she was making in the first place. Fortunately, the English speaking cashier intervened and we ended up with a regular cappuccino, not large, but not worth arguing about.

After breakfast we still had several hours to fill in before boarding the Galileo, so decided to visit the Piraeus Archaeological Museum which was recommended by our hotel. Located on an archaeology dig not far from our hotel, it turned out to be well worthwhile. Devoted to the history of development of Piraeus it provided an excellent timeline, from 5BC.

Map from 1881 showing the ports of Zea and Pireaus

Carole and Sharon checking out the museum exhibits

The archaeological dig where the museum is located

Check out time at the hotel is 12 noon and it is now approaching 11.30am, so we walk back to the hotel, check out, get them to store our luggage, and head out to have lunch as we cannot board our ship until 2pm.

Greek food was the choice for lunch and we had been recommended a restaurant nearby called 4 Brothers, so we sought it out with a plan to have a light meal.

We ordered a few salads, some fried calamari and fried anchovies (what we call whitebait).  The food was terrific and very reasonably priced.

It was only a short walk before we were back at the hotel by 1.30pm to get our free shuttle to the dock at marina Zeas where Galileo was moored.

Arriving right on time at 2pm, we were greeted by the staff of the Galileo who quickly organized for our luggage to be taken on board to our cabin, whilst we were escorted to the saloon to complete formalities and enjoy a welcome drink before being taken to our cabins.

The ship so far exceeds our expectations, both in public areas and personal cabins. The dining room is all set up for dinner and is the venue for our safety drill at 3.30pm , before planned departure at 4pm.

Our cabin

Dining area in the saloon

At the briefing we are advised of a change of plans due to strong winds forecast for tomorrow. We will continue on to Poros this afternoon and will stay there until 3am, before departing for Nafplio. Along the way we will stop for a morning swim and BBQ lunch. Our original destination was Poliegos and Folegandros. I am not sure whether we will see them now.

Once the safety briefing was completed, there was a cocktail party on the aft deck to celebrate our departure. It went on for as long as anyone was drinking and eating before dinner at 7pm.

Cocktail Party on the aft deck

Dress on board is informal and dining seating is not structured. You just choose your own seat on communal tables of various sizes. On our table we ended up seated with a couple from NW USA and a couple from Berlin, all nice people.

Dinner was a limited a la carte menu , with good food and plenty of it.

After dinner we ventured ashore to get a better look at the township, which was coming alive as darkness descended. Moored along the waterfront was a good mix of cruising yachts and super yachts with both local and international ownership. The restaurants a bars were doing a great trade.

Poros

Back on board by about 9.30pm, we decided to have an early night as we still seem to be catching up on our sleep. The wind is now quite gusty, and it could be a rough ride to our next anchorage when we depart at 3am.