Greetings ! I live much of the year on luxury cruise ships as an enrichment lecturer, exploring the intersection of history, culture, and cuisine. I write about these in my weekly Destination Curation, 8-Hour Guides to Cruise Ports, and Books for Travelers reviews. I'll help you make your travel full of meaning and context! Join me!
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π¬π· Ageless Athens π¬π·
Published about 8 hours agoΒ β’Β 10 min read
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June 07, 2026
Greetings!
As I write this, I am already on board Seabourn Ovation and watching the stunning scenery of Iceland slip past as we sail away from Reykjavik.
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Reykjavik, Iceland
This was a fleeting visit to the Icelandic capital β my tenth β but I squeezed in two of my favorite things to do: I had the non-negotiable bowl of the worldβs best lobster soup at the Sea Baron and browsed Reykjavikβs famous weekend flea market, the KolaportiΓ°, which is a great place to start if you are looking for an affordable new or gently used Icelandic sweater.
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I was tempted by several things, including a 1950s edition of Matur og Drykkyur, which is the seminal work of Icelandic cuisine, rather like the Joy of Cooking or Delia Smith. I could hear Dmitryβs voice in my head (he isnβt with me this week) telling me I have enough cookbooks (can one ever have enough cookbooks?) and that itβs in Icelandic, which does me no good. So I left it there. I suspect it will still be there on my eleventh trip. I love going through the bric-a-brac, and always wish I had an extra suitcase to take it all home with me.
I was also tempted by the small food shop that sells all manner of Icelandic goodies: rotted shark, of course, but also whale meat, smoked fish, the famous Icelandic salt from Saltwerk (try the Arctic Thyme Salt on a roasted chicken and you wonβt look back), and something that was new to me: Dulce-flavored salt. Dulce seaweed is a major reason the early Norse settlers survived their early years in Iceland: the Celtic slaves they brought with them recognized it and knew its nutritional value, and it is a major flavor note in Icelandic cuisine today.
Though I have my fleece jacket to the ready, my mind is in far warmer climates today as I spent much of the afternoon working on some new Greek material. This weekβs spotlight highlights Athens, the subject of my latest 8-Hour Guide: 8 Hours in Athens from Piraeus: A Cruise Port Day.
The first thing I do when I find myself with a free afternoon in Athens is climb to a rooftop. Not only for the obvious reason, though the Acropolis floating at eye level across the Monastiraki tiles has never once failed to stop a conversation mid-sentence. I climb because from up there, with a glass of chilled Assyrtiko sweating in the afternoon heat, you can finally read the city for what it is: ancient marble beneath neoclassical civic stone beneath the mid-century apartment blocks postwar Athens threw up in a hurry. Athens is a palimpsest, and learning to read its layers is, for me, one of the many pleasures of the place. One of the better rooftops I know is on top of the Electra Palace Hotel, where I stayed three years ago: a perfect central location in the city with a dazzling rooftop bar with an Acropolis view.
All of this is much on my mind at the moment. I will spend the better part of two months in the Adriatic and Aegean this season, and I am happily buried in the work of building new lectures on Greek cuisine for those departures. So allow me to spend this issue tempting you toward a city I think most travelers underestimate.
Most cruise passengers arrive at Piraeus with a single mission: the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and back aboard before the gangway lifts. It is a fine day. It is not the only one available, however, and in my 8 Hours in Athens guide, I make the case for a different approach: choose one major archaeological site, one museum, and one neighborhood, and refuse to race between them. The trick is restraint, which is a hard discipline to summon when three thousand years of history are pressing on you from every direction.
Begin with the Acropolis early, before the heat and the crowds arrive together, and book your timed ticket several days ahead. Then surprise yourself. The Ancient Agora, just below the rock, is the city's most overlooked major site and in some ways its most important: this is where Socrates needled his fellow citizens, where Athenian democracy did its daily business, where Saint Paul preached. A few minutes away, the Byzantine and Christian Museum holds nine hundred years of civilization that the Acropolis deliberately leaves out of the story, including a thirteenth-century mosaic icon of the Virgin that is one of roughly forty of its kind left in the world. It is air-conditioned, uncrowded, and almost always empty of cruise passengers, which tells you something about how we travel and how we might travel
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And then, of course, there is lunch, which for me is never an afterthought. Greek food at its best makes an argument that simplicity, well executed, defeats complexity every time. What Athens offers on a port day is not elaborate multi-course architecture but a few ingredients at their peak: a horiatiki of tomatoes that taste of sun, a slab of feta that arrived from somewhere nearby, taramasalata with a briny depth the supermarket version has never once approached. I have written a full guide to Greek cuisine for travelers who want to understand what they are eating and why, with a companion field guide to the dishes themselves, from moussaka to imam bayildi to the proper ritual of Greek coffee poured grounds and all. If you would rather simply be told where to sit down, my Athens restaurant guide will steer you toward the tavernas with the daily-specials board chalked up in Greek, which is always the board you want.
If you have a second day, or simply a slower temperament, skip the monuments for an hour and walk the Varvakeios, the central market that has traded since 1886 and is gloriously indifferent to tourists, then turn down Evripidou Street, where sacks of saffron, wild oregano, and Aegina pistachios spill from shops that have changed little in decades. Buy a twist of oregano. The scent alone will bring the whole port day back to you months later, somewhere over your own stove. Or decline the city altogether and take a taxi to Mikrolimano, the small circular harbor near Piraeus ringed with fishing boats and seafood tavernas, where a plate of grilled barbounia and the late-afternoon light off still water make a quietly perfect alternative to monument-hopping.
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A word on the wines, because they have quietly become some of the most exciting in the Mediterranean. Assyrtiko from Santorini is mineral, citric, and faintly saline, the ideal foil for grilled fish. Moschofilero from the Peloponnese is lighter and floral. Order either cold, somewhere with a view, and you will understand why I keep coming back.
There is one Athenian subject I cannot leave alone, and it is not a culinary one. The question of the Parthenon Marbles, the sculptures Lord Elgin removed from the temple in the early nineteenth century and which now reside in the British Museum, is the great unresolved argument of European cultural heritage, and it grows more pointed every year. I have laid out the history, the law, and the competing moral claims in my piece on the Parthenon Marbles, and I will say only this here: stand in the top gallery of the Acropolis Museum, where the surviving frieze is mounted against the glass with the temple itself visible on the hill beyond, and the argument stops being abstract. The empty spaces where the absent sculptures should be are the most eloquent thing in the room.
View of the Acropolis from the Acropolis Museum
This is the kind of context I love bringing to my guests at sea, and it is exactly what I am weaving into the new Greek cuisine lectures for this season's Aegean and Adriatic sailings. The dishes are never only dishes; the marble is never only marble. Both are doorways into who the Greeks were and who they remain.
If Athens is on your horizon this year, whether from the deck of a ship or under your own steam, start with the 8 Hours in Athens guide and let it talk you out of trying to see everything at once. The city will still be there, layer upon layer, when you come back for the rest. And you will want to come back.
The Adriatic & Aegean Capsule: What Iβm Packing for July and August
Summer in the Adriatic and Aegean is my favorite kind of packing problem. The light goes golden, the water stays warm, and the evenings ask for one more layer than the afternoons. I solved it the way I always do, by building around a single blue palette so every piece talks to every other piece. Here is the edit, with a link to each one.
The Squishee is one of those travel inventions that seems small until your luggage gets checked. Crushes flat, springs back, looks impeccable. Use the promo code DESTINATION10 to enjoy a 10% discount on all Eric Javitsβs marvelous hats. Here are some of my favorites: Headgear: Sunhats, Rainhats, and Beyondβ
The Breton stripe has been correct since 1858 and it remains correct on each body of water from the Adriatic to the Bosphorus. I will not be argued out of this. This one provides good coverage from the sun and looks super in every port.
The elevated Birkenstock. Waterproof, architecturally sound, perfect for scrambling around old temples and new markets. I would wear them onto a super yacht without apology.
Silver embellishment catches the Santorini sunset in a deeply satisfying way. These are the sandals for special evenings ashore or formal night on board.
The Genius Gadget: The 4-in-1 Travel Pump Bottleβ β
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I am often teased by my family about my passion for travel gadgets, but when I find something that makes my travel easier, I make no apologies for shouting about it to the rooftops. As regular readers know, the last month, weβve been on the move: three days here, two days there, and lots and lots of travel days.
Regular cruisers know that you have to surrender your luggage the night before disembarkation, so you have to think carefully about what you need for that final morning. My solution to this has been to create a βFirst Night/Last Nightβ case with small sizes of everything in one of the indispensable Rough Enough travel cases (between us, Dmitry and I own seven separate sizes). This works well and I wonβt be giving up on it for other items, but for my main liquids, I found a major upgrade!
My new 4 in 1 Travel Dispenser Bottle has been a game changer on this trip: I decanted my four common liquids: shampoo, conditioner, face serum, and body wash into this leak proof bottle that is TSA-approved and slips right into my carry-on. I donβt worry about it leaking and I have everything I need for a quick shower in the morning. I love it!
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Thatβs all for this week. I hope you are enjoying the beginning of summer: it certainly is lovely here in Northern Europe.
As a subscriber to the Destination Curation Newsletter, you have access to my cruise schedule, which you can visit here. If any of these voyages align with your travel plans, I'd love to share the journey with you. There have been some recent additions this past week.
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Greetings ! I live much of the year on luxury cruise ships as an enrichment lecturer, exploring the intersection of history, culture, and cuisine. I write about these in my weekly Destination Curation, 8-Hour Guides to Cruise Ports, and Books for Travelers reviews. I'll help you make your travel full of meaning and context! Join me!
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