27/12/24
We’d agreed with the hosts that we could leave our bikes and bags in the flat till one o’clock. We wanted to go to the National Archeological Museum. It’s the largest collection in Greece and spanned all of history rather than just a narrow range like the Acropolis Museum.
We woke up early but still didn’t quite have enough time to walk it comfortably and arrive within our time slot, 8:30 to 9:30, so we took the metro. It’s modern, clean and only €1.20 for 90 minutes of journey time. There’s no disgusting smell either, unlike the London Underground. It was very quiet when we arrived at the museum and we sauntered straight in.
The first rooms contain a lot of the smaller items such as Agamemnon’s mask. Artefacts from the Cyclades are in a side room. These are incredibly old, over 3000 years in some cases, and the statues take a similar form to the moai found on Easter island. There were also many ‘frying pans’, unusual objects that no one is completely sure for what they were used.
The next stop we made was to see the Antikythera mechanism. This is a phenomenal object. The earliest known analogue computer, from around 200BC, and retrieved from a shipwreck in 1901. It could predict astronomical positions decades in advance and nothing similar to the advanced technology was made by humans until the 1300s. Incredible.
Afterwards we perused the Egyptian section, and then all the sculptures, of which there were many. It’s a great museum and we probably could have spent another hour there ideally.
Alas we needed to head back to vacate the apartment. We walked the whole way back and on the way met some bike tourists. They’d cycled from Spain and were heading east, leaving on the ferry for Chios today. We chatted for a while and exchanged info. Upon arriving at the flat, the cleaners had started though we couldn’t see them. We hauled the bikes and all downstairs. The ferry didn’t leave till five, so we weren’t in a rush.
The route we had was one way in places and we had to make it work but no one seemed to care which way we cycled down the streets, even if they were narrow. We’d forgotten how hilly the route from Piraeus was and ended up walking the last part as it was both uphill and one way and we couldn’t be bothered to find the alternative.
The port was more noticeably enormous and we were departing from the further east end. We were really early but the boat was already loading and after twenty minutes we were boarding. It was Blue Star Ferries, a subsidiary of Attica again. They don’t care about bicycles and just pointed where to leave them. We made sure they were bungeed in.
Upstairs was the same again. We didn’t book an expensive cabin and just found a a sofa to sit on. There were plenty of other people doing the same. The boat stops multiple times during the night so it wouldn’t even make sense to get a cabin unless, like us, you were getting off later in the morning. We ate some lentil and feta sausage rolls we’d brought with us and settled in for the long night.
The Sun had gone soon enough and we just whiled away the time. Watching the laptop, tapping on our phones, nibbling some food. Eventually we laid down, Frankie on the sofa and Jonathan on the floor, with our camping pillows. It wasn’t comfortable. The lights were bright and they never dim them. Everyone but those willing to splash the cash are in the same boat.
At around midnight we arrived in Santorini, known as Thira in ancient times. The huge caldera forms the centrepiece of the island and is the remnants of the Minoan Eruption in 1600BC, one of the largest eruptions in human history. It’s a popular island but we weren’t getting off here. We were asleep, well until a numpty of a ferry steward woke everyone sleeping on the sofas up and told them to sit up. What a dick eh?
Surly They Won't Make It 