Today we had the opportunity to visit the Port of Piraeus. We visited 3 of the port’s piers. The total capacity of the port is more than 8 million TEUs, and one TEU is the size of a 20 foot container. Typically when we think of shipping containers (at least from my perspective) the 40 foot containers come to mind. These containers are two TEUs in size. As we toured the port, it was very prominent how things were constantly in motion. Trucks were moving with and without containers to and from dropoff areas. The port cranes were moving containers mostly onto ships at the time we were there. Being able to get close up was a surprising perspective to have. The scale of the cargo ships themselves is incredible. In that same vein, when we were first entering the storage terminal, seeing hundreds of containers stacked in many rows was impressive. We got to hear a bit about the process of managing these containers and how they are sorted by what materials are within the containers, etc. I was happy to get some explanation because to see the sheer amount of containers I was immediately made curious how movements are even planned. The amount of people working at the port at a time is also staggering, being more than 3000. Overall, I was very impressed to see all the technology used at the port, and am glad we got this opportunity.
Visiting the Port of Piraeus
