Visiting Athens has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager and read Sofie’s world by Jostein Gaarder and becoming more interested in the Ancient Greek philosophers. It was odd to walk around the Acropolis with the Parthenon today knowing that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had all been there long ago.

I was lucky enough to spot a few cats hanging about at the Acropolis too!

It took longer to exit than to enter since a thunder storm came down on us. The sky looked like a dark evening sky and not early morning and rain soaked us as lightning bolts charged the air and made our hair literally stand on end. The storm quickly died down and we hopped on a bus for a quick view of the rest of Athens. We couldn’t spend a lot more time there because we had to go through security and passport control before boarding the ship as it continues to the Middle East. We had allowed for about an hour wait, but it took nearly an hour and a half. Passengers were still boarding almost an hour after the planned departure time, so there was a slight delay but not much to do about it, and it looked as if everyone made it back before the ship departed. It would have been a long trip to catch up with the ship in Oman a week later!