It’s astounding the things they leave lying around in Greece. Our ship has docked in Lavrio, southeast of Athens, and I’ve just made the potentially regrettable decision to not visit the Acropolis.
For most guests aboard this cruise with French luxury line Ponant, it’s a no-brainer: Acropolis now. But I can’t do crowds, at least not today.
Shunning the Parthenon for a path along the coast, I walk a few kilometres north, passing dusty backyards and disused train tracks, before stumbling upon the stone ruins of a strangely elongated theatre at the base of a scrubby hill.
A nearby interpretation board is so faded I can barely decipher it, and when I do I can barely believe it. I’m standing on the stage of the world’s oldest known performance space, the Theatre of Thorikos.
Constructed between 525BC and 480BC – before it occurred to anyone to build amphitheatres in a circular shape – it sits largely forgotten, on a hillside littered with remnants of settlements dating to 4000BC. And there’s not a soul around.
“In the Footsteps of Great Civilisations” is the theme of this history-laden Mediterranean cruise, which departs Malta and dips into Sicily and Puglia in southern Italy, before bouncing between the Greek islands and washing up on Turkey’s Aegean coast 10 days later.
Of the 10 ports, eight offer excursions to UNESCO World Heritage sites, so there’s no shame in taking a rest day if you’re not in the mood. Plus, you never know what you might discover on spontaneous wanderings.
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