Greece 2019...Piraeus

We start this journey at Catania airport where lovely Luca dropped us off and where no-one seemed to know where Aegean airlines was based for us to bag drop!!! We were finally sent to the furthest part of the airport ( I am sure just to get rid of us) where eventually a very helpful young man decided he could do this for us. Let me tell you though, we were not the only troubled tourists looking for Aegean airways.
Going through security and all the other checks as you do, we decided finally to sit and indulge ourselves in a glass of airport wine. Thankfully finding a table that a young family were vacating in this very busy airport we were joined by a lovely older (I say older but she was younger than me) lady who turned out to be a Psychoanalyst tutor from Oxford!!!!! She was indulging in a beer and a baguette which looked very nice. She was a lovely lady but very much from the Upperclass section of the UK and I dreaded her bringing up any issues dealing with Brexit or immigration.....instead she brought up how everyone was in awe of our Prime Minister which is probably just as bad!!!!! If we were not careful she would be in her element psycho analysing Gary. She was waiting for the same flight as us so knew relief was not coming soon as our flight was already running very late with no indication boarding was imminent. This lovely lady was married to an Oxford professor, obviously had plenty of throw away money as well, as she indulged herself again - this time with coffee and cake.!!!!! Eventually she decided to go to freshen up and we decided to walk the 5 metres to the gate.....phew another save.
Our flight did eventually leave almost 1 hour late and by the time we had been served some refreshments we landed in Athens Greece....very late in the evening. First stop.....Greek sim card....no......too late shop closed. Second stop....senior bus ticket to Piraeus.....no.....stopped that concession on May 19th (must have known we were coming). Ok, no worries a 6€ ticket each will do fine and there was an X96 bus ready and waiting.
It takes about 50mins to an hour to get from Athens to Piraeus Port over pot holed roads and multiple railway tracks but we finally arrived about what we thought was 10.30pm. In reality it was 11.30pm...different time zone to Sicily......and we still had to find....walk...to our hotel. We had allocated 2 nights here purely so we could do a dummy run to where our Blue Star ferry was leaving from at the port. Thank goodness for Google maps and thankfully only a 2km walk....it was such a relief to see a sparkling white, well lit, extremely clean Hotel Faros.
Our room was very small but for 2 nights it didn't matter, we had a balcony with little red plastic stools, a great shower, a Thai Restaurant two minutes walk away and they made the meanest Mojito in the Faros bar!!!!!

Next day we walked to the Port, collected our prebooked, prepaid Business class tickets and proceeded to find Gate 7!!!! Bloody miles away, just before the last gate which was 8, right at the other end of the Port!!!!
Knowing our departure berth though and collecting our tickets the day before was a good move as the part of Pireas that we were in was extremely busy, quite dirty and purely for access to the port where several ferry lines conducted their massive businesses transporting passengers and freight to the outer, Ionian islands.
So tonight a well earned, well looked forward to Thai dinner, an early Mojito and an early night..... for tomorrow we shall see!!!!!
Oops no Thai dinner....CLOSED....Mojitos only then!!!!