Pireas (Greece) - Port City Views

5/21/2012 - We left Kusadasi, Turkey and sailed across the Aegean Sea, through a few islands, and docked at Pireas, Greece, the port for Athens.  The coastline is lined with docks for large cruise ships, ferries to other islands, and huge shipping vessels.  Of course, the sleepy Greek fishing village (little) portion is my favorite view.

The map will give you an idea of what our overnight sailing path was, snaking through this Greek Islands.

 The arrow points to the port and the red balloon in the upper right hand corner points to Athens.  This was a short driving distance.

As the tour bus left the port, you can see that the taxis were lined up and waiting for the passengers to disembark and tour the city.

 This is a modern city, and the first street scene shows that it is clean and modern.

 The apartments were interesting, especially with the blue awnings on the decks.

 The buildings were mostly three or four stories high and built with different architectural styles.  The cars were small (no SUVs!!)

 Just checking: there is graffiti here as well.

 Here it is, the local Starbucks.

 This section of the city had office buildings that were about 8 stories high.  The cars take advantage of all space along the curb.  Look at the little one in the center bottom of the photo.  He squeezed in between the sidewalk marking and the other car.

 The street also took us past the coast line and beaches.  You can see across the bay.  Palm trees lined the sidewalks.

 This is a little island.  I looked it up on the map and can't find information so it simply must be a little island off the coast.

 Some additional port views.  The buildings are low along the coast and I imagine that the apartments all have marvelous views.

 This is a little side street. You can tell that this area is a little hilly.  Notice the yellow curb markings, which have the same meaning as in the USA....don't park here.

 This is another view of the boats and shoreline.

 We drove along the coast and you can see the "Peace and Friendship Stadium" or Stadio Eirinis kai Filias (Greek: Στάδιο Ειρήνης και Φιλίας).

 Peace and Friendship Stadium -  home court of the famous Euroleague basketball powerhouse Olympiacos Piraeus.  Really?  I did not know this!! Euroleague basketball league?

 Karaiskaki Stadium - It is the home ground of the most popular Greek club Olympiacos F.C. and is named after Georgios Karaiskakis (Γεώργιος Καραϊσκάκης), hero of the Greek War of Independence, who was mortally wounded near the area. (wikipedia)

Our tour bus drove past the stadium and entered the main road between Pireas and Athens.