Greece

Apparently one can become saturated with visiting ancient ruins, a fact I had suspected but never before had the chance to prove.  After our trip to Athens I now know it to be true.
Is the end result that you are underwhelmed or overwhelmed?  I'm still trying to figure that out.
Here's the deal: all of the structures are old and huge and more or less share the same color tone and one stands before them (or under them) and takes photo after photo and says things like "wow, this is incredible" until it begins to lose it's meaning.  Or maybe I just lack the appropriate level of appreciation for the ancient Hellenistic world. I confess I often have to pause and think carefully to be sure I don't mix up my Roman and Greek mythology (Jupiter always felt so Greek to me and Pluto so Roman) but it's not as if I think history is irrelevant.  On the contrary, there are few things more vital to understanding the world as we know it.  If I could have been assured of securing some sort of paying job in the field, I would have been a history major and studied feudal Japan instead of how to insert a urinary catheter.
But touring Athens made me feel like one of those teenagers who skulks about on field trips and secretly sends texts to her friends that say "this is so lame."
But what is lame?  Lame is standing on the flipping Acropolis and thinking nothing more than "Hmm...it's kind of cold on this hill and that lady bringing her walker up here was a bad idea, she's going to fall."
Someone should have slapped me.
Fortunately Mihai was not behaving like a pathetic teenager, he was suitably excited and got photographs for your enjoyment.

So we went there, saw that and descended the slippery, wind-blasted marble steps.  At this point the nurse in me feels the need to say few words about these precarious, borderline-suicidal stairs:  we are four relatively healthy, young, in-shape (maybe in-shape is stretching the truth a bit) people and the day was sunny and dry and even under those conditions we experienced a bit of trouble making our way down.  I can't imagine what they are like in the rain when a person is either aged or otherwise compromised below the waist (as in feet, knees and ankles). What a nightmare.
One is far better off visiting the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch which are on flat surfaces.  They appear to have the additional advantage of not appearing as hot spots in any tourist books.  I say that because when we arrived we happily discovered we were four of 12 people there.
But I know, I know, it's just Hadrian's Arch which means it doesn't have that glamorous ring when people ask you how you came to be in a body cast and you get the chance to say "Oh, I was visiting the Acropolis and there are these marble stairs...."

Next stop, the changing of the palace guards and all I have to say about this experience is that I am adding it to my list of "Least Wanted Jobs".  Currently it's above Macy's Day Parade Float Rider though below both Speleologist and Professional Mucous Specimen Collector.
I mean no disrespect at all to these men in uniform and its really not the thought of wearing those shoes, those tights or even those skirts (er...long jackets?) that I find so personally horrifying.  Its the thought of being photographed while doing so.  Photographed by throngs of disrespectfully laughing tourists standing about 2 feet away.  No thank you.  That job plus their debt crisis?  More than anyone should have to endure with such a straight face.
Yet they do.
Bravo, panty-hose wearing Greek men, I salute you (except you can't salute them, it's against the rules and they have a machine-gun wearing camo-outfitted solider on hand just to make sure you don't.  But somehow laughing is okay-go figure).

Did I mention we got a taxi for the day?  I did not.  Well, we got one.
The original plan had been to catch the train into Athens since we'd heard it was easy to do but on the walk from the ship to the train station we were stalked by Niko, The Marvelous Greek Taxi Driving Wizard who wove such a web of persuasion that in the end we could do nothing but compliantly crawl into his yellow-painted Skoda.
(In fact what he said was: "You'll pay 21E each for the train and buses and I'll drive you myself for 22E each which will save you time and confusion."  Magic I tell you, magic.)
Not only did Niko save us time and confusion but he somehow managed to get us everywhere just ahead of the crowds.  I don't know how he did it but he did.  By the way, the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch were Niko's idea. Magic.
Niko assumed we would want to go to the historic downtown district for some shopping but Turkey had saturated every shopping cell in my being and the only thing we really wanted from Greece was some Ouzo.  Did Niko know of a place where we could buy some good quality Ouzo for a good price?  Niko did.
"I take you where the Greeks shop," he said.  "No tourists."  Through a maze of streets he wove and then had to go with Mihai into the store he chose because no one in there spoke any English. They emerged with bottles of Ouzo in nondescript, modest-looking boxes, twice the amount and half the price of a bottle in the downtown district.  Where the Greeks shop indeed.
By then we were hungry but Niko anticipated our request: a local restaurant, nothing too touristy.  Exactly.
We were the only patrons in the place which is a good thing when what you want is elbow room but isn't necessarily a good sign when what you want is really good food. Nick strikes again.
A few minutes after we sat down the owner came out with a plate of fresh fish and told us to pick which one we wanted.  No menus, just pick a fish.
Once we settled on the grouper, he described how he would prepare it and then what sort of sides he thought might go well with it.
When you're in that situation the smart thing to do is just nod and agree.  End result: one grouper devoured, one bowl of tomatoes, feta cheese and sliced red onions devoured, one bowl of tzatziki devoured, one bowl of olives devoured, one plate of crusty bread and some kind of wonderful milky olive oil devoured.  Our plates were wiped clean.  Clean.
At the end of the meal the owner came out and tried to persuade us to let him prepare a bowl of fresh fruit, "for the children at least" he begged but we were in danger of having our lunch revisit us if we continued eating.  In fact, it was no longer lunch time, it was nearing four o'clock in the afternoon and dinner on the ship was a mere two hours away.  A nap was in order, that is to say, I could feel a mild coma coming on.  It was time to crawl back into Niko's yellow-painted Skoda and head back to our monolith of a ship.

I would like to have walked on a beach in Greece but the afternoon grew cool (it being November and all) and we figured our Greece Beach Vacation is for another time.

My one serious regret is that I did not get a photo of Niko but when we parted he told me happily: "I'm on Facebook!" 

If you have an account you can look him up under Niko, The Marvelous Greek Taxi Driving Wizard.