They do like a whistle in Piraeus

They really do like a whistle in Piraeus, but I’ll come to that in a bit. I’m writing this blog in the sunshine on the back of the Blue Star Delos as it thunders across the Saronic Gulf, and considering this is NOT a high speed ferry it is shifting, according to Marine Traffic, 25 knots, nearly 29 mph in land money.

We arrived at Piraeus yesterday afternoon and whilst it’s hardly adventure travelling, there is an amount of phaffery to get here. Getting to Athens was relatively pain free but whilst Piraeus is the main port of Athens it’s about as close to Athens as London Stansted is to London. So it was then a couple of trains and a long walk through the heat of Piraeus to the Hotel so we were fair worn out when we got here.

Piraeus is pretty interesting and has a long history dating back to ancient Greece in the 5th century BC serving as the port city for Athens and in general the chief port of Ancient Greece. It declined from the 4th century AD until Athens was declared the capital of modern Greece, which gained it’s independence just over 200 years ago. It’s now, once again the largest port in Greece and the main port of Athens. It’s as mad a cheese. Piraeus makes Dover look like a country bus stop in the world of harbours, it looks like organized chaos with people and ferries everywhere although it’s actually surprisingly easy to find your ferry and much better organized than it looks. It’s also pretty run down, most of the buildings look tired, lots of them are empty and the building work at the harbour we saw back in 2019 hasn’t progressed at all. Here’s a couple of pictures of the ferry chaos, who knows how many there are, loads!

So Piraeus is a bit intimidating and not for the feint hearted but we love it, for it’s hustle and bustle, for it’s chaos, with so many people on a journey, you just want to know all of their stories. But it’s not just the sights of Priaeus it’s the sounds, which is mostly whistles, traffic police whistles, which this morning was a cacophony of sound. I tried to count them which was impossible, but certainly 10 plus we could hear from the back of the ferry.

So, that’s us on our way to Naxos, enjoying the cool breeze in the sunshine watching the wake of Blue Star Delos as the islands of the Cyclades slip by. We do love a ferry, do you?

More soon,

Yammas.

PS

As the ferry left, the driver effected what almost felt like the ferry equivalent of a hand brake turn, it was well heeled over!