Ta pedia tou Pirea – Never on Sunday

"Ein Schiff wird kommen" from the movie "Ta pedia tou Pirea" or "Never on Sunday" ("Sonntags nie") - a song by famous songwriter Manos Hadjidakis, sung by Melina Mercouri always comes to mind when visiting Piraeus. The port city of Athens is located about 7 mi. (12 km) southwest from the city center, on the east coast of the Saronic Gulf. The city was found in the early 5th century BC, and became the new chief harbor of ancient Greece. Today, Piraeus is still a buzzling, large city, and it is still the country's biggest harbor and the largest passenger port in Europe. Though,,, it's not Greek anymore, since in 2016, China's shipping firm Cosco purchased a majority stake in Piraeus port.

But, first things first: We had to move to another hotel this morning, but were fortunate and got our room at 10 am! We moved to the fantastic 5-star Grecotel Pallas Athena, very centrally located nearby Omonia Square and the Central Market. With its 60+ individually decorated guestrooms, it's considered a boutique hotel, and it offers great luxury. We got a nice, spacious "graffiti room" with French balconies and a view towards City Hall Square. Besides the fancy design in the room, fridge, safe, bathrobes, slippers, coffeemaker, water and (!) a bathtub, as well as a "pillow menu" are nice features of this hotel. The lobby is inviting and tastefully decorated, too, though currently featuring Christmas decoration. Looking forward to the breakfast buffet tomorrow!

And the view from our room:

After having checked in, we took the streetcar to Piraeus, a fun trip of about half an hour. Weather was like in September, sunny and warm. We walked from the final streetcar stop at the Olympiakos soccer stadium along the coast line to the city and - to our full surprise - many Greeks were still at the beach, swimming in the ocean! Wished, I had my bathing suit! A swim in the ocean with Bill Gate's yacht (not 100 % sure about it, but we read something along these lines) in the background,,,

What a beautiful walk along the waterfront to Micro Limani - the little harbor - plastered with little fish restaurants, on to Zea Harbor, the antique harbor, still with fishermen selling their catch from the boat. Crossing through downtown, passing the Archeological Museum we arrived at Pireus Harbor (Kantharos) with towering cruise ships, appearing like skyscrapers. Since the Chinese took over, all the huge cruise ships (pic below) are landing here,,, Would never want to be on one of them!

Before we checked out the harbor further, we had a late lunch at our favorite taverna in Pireus, more of a diner, with an semi-open seating area with five tables covered by solid umbrellas and tarps. It's an authentic greek taverna: When you walk in, you pass a counter with pots and pans showing what's offered today. You get further explanations by the owner/waiter and order what you want. It's delivered to your table (all at the same time), with fresh bread. We had maridaki (picarels) and moussaka (eggplant & minced meat casserole) and choriatiki (Greek Salad) with 1/2 liter local white wine and paid 23 Euro at the end. What a delicious meal!

On to the ferry harbor to check out the ferries to the Greek Islands and getting wanderlust. As students with big backpacks we took the next boat to an island, without pre-booking or worrying,,,








The market in Pireus was about to shut down, but we still got some provisions there. We criss-crossed downtown (which is totally ignorant when it comes to tourism) and, eventually, took the "Elektriki", the Athens–Piraeus Electric Railways, back into Athens. It's the oldest urban rapid transit system in Greece.

Checked out Kerameikos - the potters' quarter of Athens, and, at the same time, the site of an important cemetery featuring numerous monumental funerary sculptures - and, in the evening, Gazi (pics below), a neighborhood around a former natural gas depot, which was moved out of town in 1984. The stone buildings left behind are quite attractive and were restored and are functioning as sort of a cultural hub, museum and event space, surrounded by clubs, bars and restaurants. Our final destination was the oldest and major microbrewery in town in Gazi: Noctua, situated in an old garage. Four young guys have had the courage in 2017 to open this brewery, and, they do a great job now! We had a tour and "tasting" with one of the owners/founders and talked about (and admired) the courage, young people developed in tough times in Greece.