Marders in Greece: Days 1,2,3 Arrival & Mykonos

Windmills in Mykonos A decorative plate from Mykonos


Days 1,2,3: Arrival and cruise to Mykonos

We drove from Fort Myers to catch our flight out of Miami Int. Airport. About halfway across "Alligator Alley" it started pouring rain. It rained very hard, making the drive quite difficult. We parked the car in a long term lot and waited for our departure in the Miami Int. Airport at 8:55 PM aboard Swiss Airlines. It took about 8 hours to reach our intermediary connection in Zurich. From there it was another 2 hour flight to Athens airport. We collected our luggage at 4:30 PM local time on Sunday, met our guide, and bussed to our hotel in Athens, The Athens Imperial Hotel. While not first class by any means, it as very comfortable and had a large bathroom (unusual for Europe). After checking in, we had a brief meeting with the tour staff and then had dinner across the street in a small restaurant they call here a "Taverna". Then it was to bed for a fitful, jet-lagged sleep at our hotel. We woke up at 5:30 AM in order to pack and have a quick breakfast. We boarded our motor coach for a short ride from our hotel to the port city called Piraeus. Piraeus really just seems like a sprawling suburb of Athens. We didn't get to tour Athens at this time although you could see that it was built on the side of a small mountain. Strangely, on these two days it was somewhat hazy which our guide said was due to sand blowing north out of Africa. We exited our bus and entered the cruise ship terminal. Our ship, the "Aquamarine" is a fairly old vessel probably dating back to the early 1970s. The cabin was comfortable yet we really did miss some of the niceties we were used to from Celebrity and Princess. We sailed out of Piraeus at 11 AM. We enjoyed our buffet lunch and then proceeded back to our cabin to try to catch up on our much needed rest from the trans oceanic flight to Greece. At 5:15 PM, our ship approached the island of Mykonos. Due to wind, we had to take tenders in to shore. We strolled through the narrow, white painted streets of this small port town. All the buildings are white-washed and are built on a hill. We saw the famous windmills and watched the sun go down in the west. Patty purchased a hand-painted plate for a souvenir and we stopped and had some fried zucchini appetizer. At 8:30 PM we head back to our ship via the tender.

See Slideshow for this section by clicking HERE