And so to Greece
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2010
1
32
66
Trip End
Jan 02, 2011
Athens, Attica, Greece
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Everything seemed so straightforward – bus to terminal 1, check – in & wander around the terminal until our flight leaves. Not so. The check-in desk could not find our reservation. Neither could the customer service desk. By the time he told us our booking had been changed to another airline, in another terminal & that he could only find the reservation, but no tickets & that Blackie's was the only name on the booking reference, I was close to tears. Especially when he told us we should contact our travel agent to sort it out. 11am in London is 6pm in Perth – no chance of contacting the travel agent in time to get our flight. WHY had our agent changed our flight & not told us???
I reached for the netbook to check the latest version of the itinerary (just some small changes to departure times for our Dubai flights) when I thought to check the other printed itinerary in our luggage. I only carried 2 copies because 1 showed flying times & the other had all the booking references & ticket numbers. OMG. Which copy was I using to check-in? The older version with flying times, rather than the newer version with the correct reference numbers! For some reason the travel agent had no control over how the itinerary printed & I liked knowing how long we’d be in the air, as with changing time zones, departure & arrival times were no guide at all. For example, one flight had us arriving at a destination at the same time as we left the previous one. Problem solved - finally. We had a booking & tickets & luckily the new flight left an hour later than the original, so we had time to catch the train to terminal 4.
Phew, almost. Our Tanzanian suitcase decided it had had enough travelling & collapsed as I left the train at terminal 4. I had to carry my bag, the wheels from the suitcase & the suitcase until Blackie could find a trolley to deposit it all on. Check-in staff were more than a little surprised when I asked if I could put some rubbish in their bin (no bins inside the airport, as they’re a security risk) to see me jam a set of wheels & the handle from the suitcase into said bin. Our suitcase looked rather forlorn as it left on the luggage belt. If it weren’t for the half a roll of gaffer tape holding it all together I would not have expected it to make it to Athens. I would have taken a photo, but I was still feeling rather fragile!
Rain usually signals our departure, but it was our welcome in Athens. Pouring rain, creating rivers in the streets. At least it wasn’t cold, but it put paid to my idea of strolling around the Plaka district after settling into the hotel. Our taxi driver apologized for not getting out of the cab to help with the luggage – he only had on a shirt & no jacket to protect him from the rain – so we struggled it all out of the boot & up the steps into the lobby ourselves. THE WRONG LOBBY. We had been dropped at the wrong hotel! Our hotel was 8 doors away, but the guy at reception didn’t know in which direction, so Blackie had to go back into the rain to find it. Sometimes it pays to be the girl.
He arrived back, soaked to the skin, after committing quite a sin – he butted out his cigarette on the lid of the bin outside a restaurant (The bin was plastic), to be told “just throw it in the street”. The lobby of our actual hotel was not nearly as plush as the one we were dropped at. The lift was so small it would not fit the two of us with our luggage. Poor Blackie had to trudge up 3 flights of stairs with his golf clubs while I struggled with the lift. The room turned out to be of similar size to the one in Moshi (ensuite included), but this time we had the golf clubs with us. The door to the room & the door to the 'ensuite’ could not both be open at the same time, & we had to pass each other side on, but it did have a balcony of sorts with glimpses of the Acropolis. What more did we need? We survived for 2 weeks under similar conditions in Moshi; 4 days would be a breeze.
We awoke to glorious sunshine the next morning, just the right weather to explore the Plaka district on foot. It was a public holiday, so all the monuments & museums we visited were free. We took a hop on hop off bus up to the Acropolis (you would too, if you saw the hill it was perched on), marveling at the engineering genius of the ancient Greeks. Current restoration work relies on huge cranes & rail, making you wonder how on earth the original was achieved with little more than human labour.
And of course, we made time for coffee in the sun on many a sidewalk café & for sampling the local cuisine & wine. (There was no point going back to our room)The wine I couldn’t recommend, everything else was sublime. Dogs wandered the street, but these were not the skinny dogs you see in Bali, these were fat, well fed dogs. The only way you could tell the strays from the pets was that the pets had collars. It seems all the café patrons feed them.
The first time I used the toilet in a café I was concerned – there was a ‘do not throw paper in the toilet’ sign in the cubicle, next to a small bin. Surely not, but what else could it mean? What other type of paper would someone throw into a toilet? The newspaper they’d been reading – but you’re in a café, just read it at the table & leave it when you go? I did as I normally would & things were fine. These signs were in every public toilet I used. Things got even weirder when one of the signs had pictures of a bottle and a newspaper with a red cross through them. Why would anyone need to be told not to try to flush these things??? And is it the Greeks or the tourists? Curiouser and curiouser.
