The Final Countdown. Day 21: Athens - Thira, Santorini

One thing that occurred to us was that our ferry was probably going to be crammed after 2 full days of strikes. Because of this, we got up even earlier and left our accommodation at 6.11am, arriving at the port at 6.22. This looked a little more promising! No big crowds of people, cars seeming to be in the right place. We weren’t sure where to line up, when we realised people were boarding already. Awesome!

We joined the very short queue and soon enough, we were aboard. The day before we had scoped the ship from the ground and decided the 2nd level would be best for us, out the back of course (none of this inside business for us). We powered our way up the escalater and stairs with our luggage, and landed on level 2. I started making my way to a table, and noticed Dan was making his way to another. His made far more sense. We sat sort of in the corner of the back of the open area, but glassed in, with easy access to the front and side of the ship - and best of all, an alcove for our luggage.

We settled in and made ourselves comfortable, stretching our belongings over the table next to us. A voice came over the loudspeaker - accompanied by a 3 note tone that was very reminiscent of the chorus of “Evacuate the Dancefloor” by Cascada (and has caused a serious ear worm for the last few days), telling us not to put our luggage on chairs. We relented and took our things off, realising that the boat would probably need all available seats.

Soon enough, a middle aged couple asked if they could sit at the table next to us, to which we said of course. We ended up having an amazing chat with them across the course of the 8 hour journey: they were of Indian descent but from South Africa, and as he was a doctor they traveled everyone 2 months for 2 weeks to different destinations around the world. I think their travel style may have been a little more high-class than ours, but it was really lovely talking with them for the journey. They too were headed to Santorini but were staying in a different town, so chances of running into them again were slim.

Once we had set off, it was time for breakfast, so we pulled out our muesli and tucked into it, while the loudspeaker started to tell us “Goody’s restaurant is now open. Enjoy your meal.” This message would continue to play (accompanied by the 3 note tone), roughly every 10 minutes for the next 8 hours. We eventually caved and bought Goody’s. I jest, well, it really did tell us every 10 minutes - we timed it - but we had always intended on trying Goody’s. It’s a Greek fast food chain, and actually quite reasonably priced. We each got a burger and friends (maxi, for an extra 20x) and a giant soft drink. Our neighbours collected their Goody’s at about 10am, and from 10am until about 11.55am I asked Dan every few minutes whether we could have lunch yet. He eventually relented (yaaaasss) when we pulled into Paros, and there was a lull in people milling around.

I forgot to mention the people. So while we were sitting in our perfect spot because we got there at ridiculous o’clock, we watched probably close to hundreds of people boarding the boat. The ticket office had told us to get there half an hour early, which we ignored and got there much earlier, but a very large portion of people adhered to this advice. There were also a lot of people who got there early - like we did. This mean that by the final waves of people getting on (either foot passengers or via car) - there were practically no free seats left. I say free, because on a tour of the ship I noticed that a lot of the “airline” seats were available. These were an extra 5€ and could recline. Woo! No one wanted to upgrade to these, so they remained free while everyone crowded in all the free areas.

Above our spot was the kennels, and there was a poor dog in there that barked on the staccato for basically the whole 8 hours. Luckily for us, the sound of the ship muffled it most of the time. Another time I was walking around the boat, I could hear loud and very clear bird song, to find a lady, inside, surrounded by bird cages. Most of the journey passed quick enough - the last little bit seemed to drag bur soon it was time to collect our luggage and depart.

Sounds easy, but it was a bit of a trial. Shouldering our masses of backpacks, we snaked down to the bottom deck with hundreds of other people. We were shepherded across the parking deck, squashed against people, jostling. We could hear the boat changing gear. We could feel the boat turning around. But the boat ramp wasn’t lowering - we hadn’t come to a stop yet. We stood here for probably 20 minutes with no clear sign of release. The suddenly - a sliver of light from the ceiling - the ramp was lowering! 

The people around us CHEERED and screamed and hollered, even Dan and I joined in. I think some of the people here had been waiting since Wednesday to make it to Santorini, and had finally made it. Dan and I had little pangs of excitement - but first, we had to figure out how to actually get to Thira/Fira from the dock (so I hadn’t fully settled into my excitement yet). The boat was still moving as the ramp was lowering and eventually BANG, it landed, and we all flooded off, surrounded by people filming their arrival walk onto the island.

We veered left with the crowd and soon Dan saw a sign for a public bus. We went towards it, and want ensued was perhaps the most confusing 10 minutes of my life. Someone told us “Bus 4” was the one the Thira, but we just joined the crowd trying to buy tickets. People seemed to be throwing their things under the bus, but it didn’t make sense to us to put our belongings under the bus and then try for a ticket - what if they all sold out?

After being seriously jostled, I started to get really pushy back and made it to the front of the line, and got us two tickets. I was shouted at for having my luggage, and eventually we worked our way back out of the queue, put our luggage under the bus, and shouted at trying to get back on the bus, sans luggage. It was all very chaotic and stressful - exacerbated by the ridiculous number of people as a result of the strike. We pushed our way on the bus, fell in a seat, and finally breathed a very small sigh of a relied. We were on a bus. We would see where it takes us, hopefully our luggage is on there, fingers crossed.

The bus filled up quickly and there were a few people standing the aisle, but not many. We could see other buses turning away people and getting them to take their luggage out as there was no room for them, so I was glad - even with the shouting - that we had managed to make it onto a bus. We took off - up and up we climbed, through the zigzag road that would scale the sheer clifff that skirts one whole side of Santoniri. Later on I would think, “Why did they make their settlements up on the cliff face and not in the plain on the other side?”

Zigginag and zagging, we eventually reached the Thira bus station. Again due to the sheer number of people and cars from the strike delays, this took longer than it should have, but we got there in the end. Our accommodation, Sea of Aegeon, was about a 10 minute (unladen) walk from the station, so once off the bus we began the walk. Dan had google earthed the route and it all looked familiar to him. There was no footpath (well, not serviceable anyway) so we had to walk on the road, but cars and ATV’s and scooters seemed to know what to do with us and so the walk was, considering, relatively easy. I had read that there was a very steep hill at the entrance of our accommodation (many people complained about it), and so we steeled ourselves for this at the end of our walk.

In turned out that the steep hill with down in this direction, so that was a relief! Although with my slippery shoes, I was  very cautious but realised there were some narrow steps to the side. Thank god, we didn’t have to go up. We saw Sea of Aegeon (yes, spelled like that, not “aegean”), and made our way inside.

We were greeted by a lovely lady - I have the highest recommendations for this accommodation - who said she would give us an upgrade to a room with a little balcony and was on this floor, not sort of underground. That was nice! She told us to get ourselves settled, and then come back to the counter and she’ll give us some maps and information about the island. Our room was quite lovely - twin, but she told us to push the beds together, with a little fridge and a balcony on the outside. It was overlooking some other white washed terraces - by this stage I hadn’t even had a chance to look at the typical Santorini architecure - which was quite lovely.

Returning to the counter, she gave us a map of the island and some information about tours, one was a full day tour that went to the volcano, hot pools, Thirissa and Ioa, and a short one that just went to the volcano and the hot pools. We returning to our room to deliberate and get ready to go out, and decided we would do the small one - volcano and hot pools. We booked this tour, and headed out into the evening

The original plan was to hike from Thira to Oia this evening, but we were both too stuffed to even contemplate this - and the time was much later than we expected, so we chose to watch the sunset in Thira instead. Thira is right in the middle of Santorini, and when the sun sets, it fills the bay. First though: we needed some supplied. We headed to the main square in search of a supermarket. This proved a little problematic, but on the outskirts we happened to find one. We got some cheese and crackers and ham for a picnic dinner, and some wine. Lots of wine. A large 1.5L bottle that was only €4 and a small 500ml bottle of rose for €1.50. The idea was that we would find somewhere to picnic and watch the sunset.

We also grabbed some muesli as we were running out, and a couple of other bits and pieces. Leaving the store (purchasing our wares was definitely on “ish” time), we raced to the edge of the town to find a spot for the sunset. Turns out, there’s really no where to picnic. I hadn’t considered this. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, but the whole town is walled in at the top, with stairs down to the port. There’s no grassy knoll to sit on. The walls were lined with people getting ready to take their photos of the famous sunset, and we decided to watch the sunset from here, and then take our cheese and wine back to our hotel and eat that there.

The sunset was beautiful, with the sun streak filling the bay. The end of the sunset was obscured by clouds as the sun dipped behind the volcano island infant of us.

We meandered our way back through some of the Thira streets back to our accommodation, dished up our cheese and wine (which was pretty tasty!) - oh, one of the cheese we bought turned out to be cottage cheese, which was ok, but a bit surprising. We obviously couldn’t’ read anything on the labels! Soon it was time for bed - the next day we had planned quite a lot of activities, and needed our sleep!

Til next time,

xxx

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The Final Countdown. Day 20: Athens - ….Athens. It was supposed to be Santorini.

Rising early, very early, we packed up the rest of our things, checked out (each going down the lift separately) and wandered across the road to port E7. We had been told to get there half an hour early, which would have been 6.55am, but being the kind of people we are, we got there about 6.30am instead. When we arrived, a lot of people were milling about aimlessly, and there were two men standing where the cars would normally enter the ferry. Something wasn’t right.

We found a place to dump our stuff and survey what was going on around us. A young woman came up to us and said, “Have you heard about the strike?” The what? No. I was initially sceptical, you know, often when you’re in foreign places someone will tell you a thing isn’t open but instead come this way and they’ll be able to help you! So it wasn’t until an old American gentleman came up and said the same thing that we realised that this wasn’t a joke or a scam, and that there was an actual problem.

The big screen above our heads was no longer showing departures, and the queue at the ticket office was getting longer and longer. Dan went to join that queue to find out what was going on, while I looked after our mountains of luggage. A camera crew rocked up, and it was then that I realised that it was going to be very unlikely that we would be getting on a ferry to Santorini today.

As I stood there, passive aggressivley contacting Blue Star Ferries on social media asking for updates, that I noticed the camera crew edging closer to me, before thrusting the camera and the microphone in my face. At first I shook my head no and put up my hand, but he was pretty persistent so I just answered his few rapid fire questions anyway. I can’t completely remember what he asked, but it was along the lines of, “where are you supposed to be heading today” and “what are you going to do?”. With my response being something along the lines of “What can we do? I guess if the ferries aren’t running, we’ll have to find accommodation for the night here and hopefully make it there tomorrow.” I surprised myself that I wasn’t nervous with the microphone stuffed in my face (I didn’t really get a chance to think about it) and I wasn’t a ranting and raving customer, just tried to be logical about the whole thing. Also uncharacteristic of me! 

Afterwards I laughed to myself and realised I must have llooked like the poster child of the disgruntled passenger when they came up to me - slouched over my phone, perched on the edge of a potplant, surrounded by our mountains of luggage.

The line Dan was in wasn’t moving, and so we messaged each other and decided to try another ticket office outside of the port area. This proved successful and it wasn’t long before Dan was back and able to update me on the situation. Our tickets had been moved to tomorrow (Friday 20th), with the hope that the strike would be over by 6am that morning. No guarantee, but as close as we could get. Bugger. Ok, well at least we had tickets for the next day. Now what?

Now we had to get a nights accommodation somewhere. I suggested returning to the hotel we were at. It was shit, but it was a known factor and close to the port. Dan had already done some searching on booking.com and it was available for €32 for the night, or there were a few others around with the same price range.

We returned to Hotel Delfini and waited for the woman to finish parking her car and serve us. I explained that we had just checked out and stayed there the night before, and our ferry was just cancelled so could we please have a room for tonight again? When she said, “That will be €60” I almost fell over. Excuse me? We just paid €30 for it last night, how can it be so much tonight? Also, on booking.com, it’s €32. “Will you honour the booking.com price?” I asked. “I don’t know why it hasn’t updated,” she said, “I can’t give you the room for the price on the app.” 

This went on for a little longer than what I’ve written above, and I was getting pretty angry. In the end, it was basically, “Well, if you won’t honour the online price, we won’t stay at your really shitty hotel, there are plenty of others around and you’re getting a bad review.”

Can I just say I am so glad we left that place because the hotel we ended up at was just lovely. Once we were outside Hotel Delfini, Dan bought our room at a hotel around the corner called Eva Hotel. It was about an 8 minute walk away from this one, €30 for the night and looked quite nice. The walk was largely up hill, but that was ok - in the morning this would all be downhill.

We approached the hotel, and the moment we stepped inside, we were in awe. Beautiful glass paned ceilings, lovely couches - a far cry from the shithole we had stayed in the night before. A gruff but kind man was behind the counter, and we said we had just made a booking for tonight, explaining about the ferry. He looked at his computer system in confusion, and at that moment his fax machine fired into life. There was our booking! It came through as we stood there.

He was slightly perturbed as I think he was now overbooked, but he said we could leave our things and come back at about 1pm and he will have something for us. He said, “Don’t stay in Piraeus. Not today. Go into Athens, get away from here.” Which was sound advice - the pickpockets would be rife today with the confusion at the port. 

We left with mixed feelings. Obviously very disappointed that we hadn’t made it to Santorini today, and no guarantee that we would on the morrow. But relived we had found a place, and what looked like a good place, to stay for the night. We would deal with anything else when it eventuated. We also didn’t really want to go back into Athens - what would we do? On the train to Monastraiki I looked up places to eat breakfast, and once we arrived we walked for a bit looking for it. It didn’t look like what I had hoped for when we got there, so we continued on. We thought - maybe we’ll have breakfast in that place we keep having drinks at! However we were too early for their breakfast. Walking a bit further, a man tried to have us eat in his restaurant - it was one of those all plastic, fake and shitty looking places and I was already in a bad mood so I said no. 

We looked at the menus of a few places and settled on the restaurant next to the shitty one called Komikos. It had a separate breakfast menu but didn’t quite get the reviews I usually hope for - but we tried it anyway. It should have better reviews that it does! It was the most inexpensive of all the restaurants we looked at, and it was actually delicious. We both had the “mediterannean omlette” with feta and capsicum and potato, and it came with lovely bread and we also ordered a side of strawberries and greek yoghurt and honey - to get some much needed vitamins. We wanted a big breakfast so we could power through the day as much as possible, and this fit the bill!

We really weren’t sure what to do with the day, so we thought we’d go back to the botanic garden. As we sat there, I  realised we were near the Olympic Stadium and I googled whether it was in fact worth it to go inside for €5 each.  Seemed to be, so now we had a plan! At some point around here I had a horrible coughing fit (I’ve been fighting a sore throat for a few days) and something wasn’t feeling good from breakfast. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Suddenly, we heard BANG bang, BANG bang, and out from the street next to us marched a whole troop of greek soldiers! Dan grabbed his camera and ran to catch up to them - I was considerably slower and happened to hear a nearby tour guide mention it was the soldiers doing their drills. I eventually pulled myself together enough and we took a few photos of them, all the while saying to each other, “Marching up and down the square!” from the Monty Python sketch.

Because that’s exactly what they were doing. Marching up and down the square. They had an interesting march pattern which involved slapping the right foot hard while the left foot took a normal step. Occasionally they would march with their heads turned to the right, and in sequence return to the frontwards position. Up and down the square.

We left them to their marching and continued on to the Olympic Stadium. I was feeling pretty poorly, so we bought our tickets, went inside, climbed the huge amount of steps to the top of the stadium (that didn’t help how I was feeling!) And sat in the sun for a little while, Ssurveying the scene. Dan read out some facts from the brochure about the stadium - the most interesting to learn was that, while it had been built for the 1896 first modern Olympic Games, there had actually been a stadium on this spot since anceint Olympic times, so that made it considerably more interesting!

We circumnavigated the top of the stadium, stopping for a selfie (realising a bloke had chosen the perfect spot for it and waiting for him to complete his selfie) before meandering down the stairs. On the way, I spotted two “throne” like chairs built into the marble with clawed feet, so we spent some time sitting in them. And ultimately sliding off the seat, because it was polished marble.

On the right of the stadium was a door way, which I presumed led underneath the stadium. In fact it went up, and into the hillside that the stadium was built into. Inside was a really interesting overview of the Olympics and athletics in ancient times, before a display of all the modern Olympic posters and the actual flame torch for each year since it was introduced for the Berlin games of 1936. Of course the Nazi’s introduced the flame - they loved their pomp and circumstance. 

It was really interesting seeing the progression of design (and design tools, the last few obviously computer drawn, whereas those early in the 1900’s were, well, obviously hand drawn…) and the evolution of the torch (as it became more and more wind resistant).

Back outside, we opted not to run on this track as we had run on the Ancient Olympic track just the day before (was it really only the day before?!) and that was probably all the exercise we needed for a while… On the tracks were some interesting statues - notable for their face at the top of a rectangular marble block , and then about halfway down a set of genitals. One was flaccid, and on the other side, happily erect. I had stood here taking photos of their faces for quite some time before I noticed the willies, and was probably quite childish about it when I did.

What I had really wanted to so was have my photo taken on the winners podium. We waited patiently as a large Indian family did the rounds with each family member, and when it was our turn another couple waited in line after us. I asked if they could please take a photo of Dan and I, as my normal selfie wasn’t going to work (too low), and offered photos in return. This was all good - I wanted Dan and I to both stand on the number 1 position as we are both equal! This mostly worked, except we held hands above our head and with Dan so tall, I had to stand on tippeytoes. It makes for quite a hilarious photo, at least! We returned the favour and stood having a bit of a chat with this couple.

It was now well and truly lunch time so we headed back to Tylixto Greek Wrap to try the gyros this time (pronounced “yiros”, like they do in SA). After lunch and some people watching, we returned to Piraeus to check in. On the way, we stopped past the ticked office to see if they had any updates and they told us to come back at 5pm.

Now we just collapsed for the afternoon. Our room was really nice, considering. It was still a cheap hotel, but my god it was a 200% improvement on the night before. We had running hot water, door handles that stayed on, air conditioning, little shampoo bottles, wifi, and a comfy bed and delightful purple decor. We spent the afternoon doing a lot of research for New York accommodation, something we hadn’t had a chance to do yet. So maybe this spare time was fortuitous? 

After 5pm, we returned to the ticket office and got the all clear for the morning - hooray! That was excellent news. Boyant by the news, we wandered to the port to take photos of all the ferries and boats with the lovely green blue night sky.

By now I was getting very hungry, and had researched a place not far from our accommodation that received good reviews. It was called Stoa Rakadiko and it was slightly pricier than others, but the menu online looked lovely. We had done a walk by on the way to the ticket office and found it so we knew exactly where to go on our return. The inconspicuous doorway was surrounded by bougainvilleas, and once inside the space was quite large and broken up into different areas. We sat in the half-outdoors area with umbrellas on the roof. It was lovely.

Our waiter was very charismatic, and as I had looked online at the menu we were quite quick to order. Dan and I each ordered a different kind of pita wrap which were quite inexpensive, so we ordered a couple of local mains as well, namely dolamades and a dish of gruyere cheese with drunken figs. To top it off, we had red wine and crusty warm fresh bread. It was. Delicious. Our waiter laughed at me when I took some photos, “Thank you for taking photos of our food!” He said, but you never know - my photos may bring some more people there!

Piraeus is not an amazing place to be, but if you do have to go there, definitely try this restaurant!

We knew we had an early start the next morning (when don’t we have an early start?) so we headed back, packed (we are getting really good at repacking!) and went to bed.

Til next time,

xx

The Final Countdown. Day 19: Olympia - Piraeus

Yet another early start, I had wanted to get us to Olympia before the crowds got there and it became too hot as there is little shade coverage at the ruins. Again, I have done this before but Dan had been interested and I really enjoy showing him things I’ve seen before and seeing them through his eyes. Our accommodation was literally minutes walk from the ancient ruins site and the museum, so it was just a little after 8am when we arrived.

I wasn’t entirely sure where the ticket office was and as we approached the main entrance (after patting a friendly kitty, of course), I noticed a sign on the door saying “April 18: Nation Monument Day: Entrance is free.” I had a vague recollection that I had seen this for the Acropolis and lamenting that we were not in Athens on that day, but it never occurred to me that the offer would extend country-wide.

We walked inside and up to the ticket counter, where we were handed our free tickets. Score! A saving of €20. I have been inside the Ancient Olympia museum before, but it was on the Contiki tour and while we were given a tour around the museum, we didn’t have a lot of time to peruse on our own. Dan and I were often the only people in many rooms (or just leaving as a group would walk in), and so it felt like it was our own private museum. We took many photos, and again, as far as museums go, it’s fascinating to think that all of these relics and objects and statues were found just a few hundred metres away - many dating back to older than 500BC. Incredible.

Charlie bit me!

After the museum, it was time for the archeological site. We of course met a lovely vocal kitty on the way who didn’t want us to stop patting him. We continued to the gates of the site and made our way in - quite a few people already inside. I suggested we head straight for the running track before it became too busy, which turned out to be excellent advice! We walked past a few very large tour groups who were circumnavigating the site in the opposite direction.

Dan running onto the track to the cheering crowd

There were a few people on the track when we arrived, not too many though. I forced Dan to enter the field like he was an athlete of long ago, arms up, running into the imagined cheers of 45000 people. Unlike today’s running fields, the track is straight, and at either end are marble starting and ending blocks which the althetes would have wedged their toes into. Very uncomfortable starting position!

First things first: a race. We put our stuff out of the way and set ourselves up on the starting block. I attempted to take a video of this, and it is definitely one fine piece of video footage… 3, 2, 1 and off we went! I seriously legged it, and I was surprised how well I kept up with Dan. We were neck and neck, until about 20m from the end he pulled away and managed to get into the lead. Well done! We really, really pushed ourselves. 

To the point where Dan sustained an injury. To his elbow. Yes my friends, he hurt his elbow running. My attempts at sympathy were overshadowed by my increasing need to laugh at him.

As we huffed and puffed our way back to the starting line, the field filled up with “children” (as I like to call big obnoxious groups of teenagers) and we praised ourselves on our perfect timing.

I gave Dan the “Sasha Tour of Olympia”, which mostly consisted of me saying “take a photo of that, it’s important. I don’t remember what it is.” and looking at the placards. I felt a bit sorry for Dan as I couldn’t point out things very well, unlike when I had been there and we had a guide who helped recreate the story for us. However, it’s really good to do the museum first because then you can imagine what it would have looked like better, and where the various statues would have stood.

At this time of year, the site was covered in beautiful bright purple blossom, which was so lovely and striking between the grey overgrown ruins and the bright green trees. The gardeners had decided today was the day to do some weedwhackjng, and they were going very hard at it, plowing through the overgrown grass and flowers. There were also these odd looking pure pitch black bees which took a distinct liking to me and continued to dive bomb me. As you know, I don’t like bees, so I didn’t particular enjoy this all that much. Dan thinks it was because I was wearing a bright orange top and they thought I was a giant flower.

We spent a few hours here, and then it was time to leave. I had researched a few cheap eats (of course) and found one only a few minutes walk away. To be fair, everything was only a few minutes walk away - Olympia isn’t very big! On the way, we passed the Archamedes museum which was free (it’s always free) - we thought we might be able to see the original screw here - but all the inventions were recreations. It was a lot of reading, and our bellies were grumbling, so we didn’t stay too long - but god that guy invented a lot of stuff! This is something for me to research later.

The little place we ate lunch at was called Symposio and it was set back just off the Main Street, which was very touristy. It was quite early so we were the first customers, and the little man let us sit outside under the boganvilia. It was really cute. When the menu was presented, a lot of things didn’t have prices and I asked if that’s because they weren’t available. They cook fresh and seasonally, so there were a few things not there, but as I was hoping to have moussaka I was very happy to learn this was on the menu today! Dan had a giant souvlaki, and we topped it off with wine and garlic bread. The meal was actually delicious, and while we sat there a number of other people joined. The tables around us. We received complimentary dessert - greek yoghurt with honey and cinnamon and soon it was time to get the bus back to Athens.

It was only a fleeting visit, and maybe a long way to go for some ruins, but it was lovely and a lot of fun. I really do enjoy the small cities and towns over the big ones - I can relax and soak it up without having to stress so much! 

We collected our belongings from our hotel and waited at the bus stop. We were quite early, but we weren’t entirely sure where the bus stop was (even though it said in big letters BUS STOP). After about half an hour, a bus pulled up with PYRGOS on the sign, we threw our belongings on and off we went, stopping periodically on the way to let people off. I was pretty busting by this time, and was noticing that the time between this bus arriving and our bus to Athens leaving was getting closer by the minute.

I left Dan with our bags when we got off and raced to the toilet - totally forgetting that we didn’t actually have seats on the next bus, and Dan had needed to go get us seats. Oops. I returned and he raced off, and I hadn’t realised what he was doing until he got back. Silly me! All good though - the bus wasn’t full and we had seats up the front for the 4 hour journey.

At our toilet break on the way back, I waited outside the bus while Dan also relived himself. As I stood there, I thought to myself, “Gosh, it would be amazing if Dan came back with chocolate,” but knowing it wouldn’t happen as we are pinching pennies, I started searching through my bag as I was sure there was one small Ritter left. He came up to me while I was head in my bag, and thrust a magnum ice-cream towards me. I almost died of happiness. 

Nothing much else happened on the bus journey, and when we got back to the KTEL we had to collect our things, get back on the bus to Athens, then catch the metro to Piraeus - exactly as we had done that morning. We definitely got our moneys worth out of the 24 hour ticket! We went straight to our hotel, Hotel Delfini (do not stay here - but I will get to that later) and checked in. There were two lifts and they were both tiny - we couldn’t both fit inside them so we had to take it one at a time.

Once in our room, we realised there was no wifi. Oh well. The room was pretty dingy but we were pretty sure we had had worse, so we quickly researched dinner and set out. The place I had looked up must have moved or changed hands because we couldn’t find it, and just settled for a place around the corner. We ordered the Philadelphia gyros (?), where the yoghurt sauce was actually inside the meatball, and it was quite tasty. 

To prepare ourselves for the morning, we walked across to the port to see where we would have to go and the sky was a lovely green colour. It was getting cold, so we returned to our hotel and got ready for our early start the next morning. So many damn early starts!

Til next time,

xx

A useful post: Tirana

We were only here for a short time but I can definitely make some recommendations based on my experience there. 



Accommodation

Choose Balkans Apartments
For less than €30 per night, we had a full apartment with small kitchen, stove tops, washing machine and dryer. The service was second to none - we were invited for a coffee or a raki at their offices, the latter we took up the offer. The apartment was very comfortable and in quite a good location. Be aware that the location on the booking sites is for the head offices. Our apartment was located near the gymnasium on the other side of the river. 



Restaurants

Tek Zgara Tirones 2
There's a number 1 nearby, but number 2 is the one that came up on all best restaurant searches. They looked quite similar from the outside but we went to number 2. The menu was all in Albanian but the waiter kindly gave us some recommendations. We chose the chicken wings and a local Tiranian plate which turned out to be a local dish, some steamed veggies and of course a half carafe of wine. We were given complimentary bread which was light and fluffy. 


The food was incredible. I cannot describe how tasty the local dish was, just that I couldn't get enough of it and was mopping up the sauce with my bread. The wine was so cheap, about €2.50 for a half carafe so we ordered another. The veggies were done with lemon and had a great zing to them, and the chicken wings - always messy, were delicious too. We found out later that chicken is a bit of a delicacy here as the staple meat for years was pork or beef. 


Our whole meal came to about €12 including tip. Divine!


Kolonat 
Albanian fast food, this company used to have a logo rather similar to some very famous Golden Arches with many things on the menu quite similar. Also does pizza. A cheeseburger will cost you 200lek and a meal with drink and fries 400lek. Some of the appeal is now lost because the logo has changed but if you're in the area, it is interesting to see their fast food. Cash only, the only one we found was located near pyramid. 



Things to do

Free walking tour
This starts outside the Opera House everyday at 10am and lasts between 2-2.5 hours. It's a great way to get your bearings on the centre of the city - and was an utterly fascinating way to get a first hand account of what living in the city is like now and what it was like under communist control. Highly recommend. Our tour guide Gazi, who organises the tours (Altho he may have other guides on other days) was incredible, quickly humorous and super knowledgable. 


Bunkart 1 and 2
We only had time to visit one of the two, and the recommendation was to do 1 over 2. It's a bit complicated to get to - you have to go to the main bus station on the other side of the main square (behind the mosque) and then catch a blue bus headed towards Porcelan. Tickets are purchased onboard are 40Lek. The bus stops right infront of the Bunkart. Well worth a visit, the walls are adorned with historical information as well as art, and shows what it would have been like had there been a nuclear attack on Tirana. Tickets cost 500lek to enter. Note that the site closes at 4pm and you'll need at least 2 hours inside. 


Bunkart 2 is in the middle of the city and is open to 6, so is more convenient but apparently not as interesting, but a good option if you can't get to the other. 


Dajti Ekspres Cable Car
The longest cable car in the Balkans, the journey from base to top takes a full 15 minutes and the start is very close to Bunkart 1. It is open until 7pm. Amazing views of the city (Altho it because very far away the higher you go) as well as the lush green mountainside. At the top are a few restaurants and hiking trails. Return tickets cost €6. 


National Art Museum
This was a surprising addition and one we are so glad we popped into. Located near Bunkart 2, the gallery is full of communist propaganda art and shows an amazing insight into how the communist regime brainwashed its citizens. Tickets cost 200lek, and you'll need approximately 30-60 minutes here. 


Climb the Pyramid
No visit to Tirana is complete without scaling the pyramid. Initially a museum to the dead communist leader built by his daughter, it was turned into a cultural centre and then left to ruin. People now scale it for a free view over Tirana and also a place to hang out. You need non-slippery shoes and the third slope around is the least steep. Note: I am not condoning anyone climbing this structure and am not responsible for any injuries sustained in the attempt. 


Try Raki! 
Albanian raki is quite different from the spirit made in other countries as the country because completely closed off so they developed their own recipes and flavours. 

The Final Countdown. Day 18: Athens - Olympia

Our alarm went off stupidly early again (this is going to be a running theme for the next four months, I think) and we made ourselves some muesli and headed out. Dani was already downstairs and we said we would be back in a little while after we bought our bus tickets.

Googlemaps suggested the ticket office was about a 10 min walk away but it was through the dodgy area, so we caught the metro one stop instead. Popping out of the station, we held our belongings close to us and started searching for this ticket office. And searching. Finally we came to the shop we figured it had to be - completed closed up. An old travel agent. Shit. This is what happens when you rely on a timetable from 2014.

To hold back the panic, I suggested we just go straight to the KTEL bus station - they’ll at least be able to push us in the right direction. Just around the corner from where we were standing there would be a bus that would take us directly there. Perfect. We got ourselves some little seats (using our 24 hour ticket from the day before) and waited for the bus to leave. Every time I looked up public transport in Athens on Google maps, I would get a little warning suggesting that Google didn’t have the latest timetable information. This was no exception - the time the bus was supposed to leave according to the app and the time it actually left was quite different (although didn’t make much difference to us, just a little extra wait). It’s interesting to note that this is the first European city where I have repeatedly receiving this warning notification.

I kept my maps open so we knew when to get off the bus (as the bus stop was all Greek to me!…ok I finally had to say it…) but quite a few people on the bus had luggage so we were pretty sure we were going to the right place. When the bus stopped, we just followed everyone and saw a big sign for TICKET OFFICE. This was excellent! Inside were a row of ticket booths, most unmanned, so we went up to one and asked about tickets to Olympia. He pointed to the unmanned booth next to him and said “You buy your ticket from here.” Luckily, we had seen someone sitting in there a few minutes before so knew that someone at least existed, and it wasn’t too long before he returned.

Buying the tickets turned out to be relatively simple - there was some initial confusion as he thought we wanted to get on the next bus, but we sorted that quickly and chose the 5.15pm bus instead. This would get us to Pyrgos at about 9pm and then our bus to Olympia would get us there about 10.30. Late, but gave us almost another full day in Athens, which was nice. At the last minute, Dan remembered to ask about return tickets, which gave us a slight discount. When we turned to leave, our ticket man said, “I’m from Olympia, actually. Have a lovely time.”

I feel like I need to put up a post on Tripadvisor to help people with this now as the information I had previously found was so out of date!

We were on a ticket buying roll, and we still needed to get tickets for our ferries to the Greek islands, so while we were out and about we decided to just hop skip it to Piraeus and see if you could get those tickets while we were at it. This would also give us a heads on how to get there in a few days time, laden with our luggage. We had heard horror stories about Piraeus and pickpocketing so we wanted to spend as little time here as possible.

We caught the bus and the metro to Piraeus, being regaled by a considerable number of homeless people on the train - seemingly more than Berlin, even. We looked for the Blue Star Ferries office, and there seemed to be one in 100m, and another in 160m, and we soon realised that these were the travel agent offices and this would be where we booked the tickets. Inside, we listed our dates, and the lady told us the prices. We had hoped to get the €20 tickets to Santorini, but apparently there are only ever 10 of these and we had, not surprisingly, missed out. Therefore: Thursday 19 April: Piraeus to Santorini. Monday 23 April: Santorini to Paros. Wednesday 25 April: Paros to Piraeus again. It cost a little bit, but not completely unexpected, and so once we got our tickets we checked out where our next accommodation would be. 

Literally across the road from the E7 port for our ferry. Perfect! The street smelled like pee but we could get past that.

We returned to our accommodation in Athens and checked out, leaving our bags with the strange gentleman who always hovered around. He didn’t talk to us nearly as much as Dani did, but he was very kind and helpful. As we had already been up for hours, we were ready for lunch. Just around the corner from our accommodation was a small street with vines and pretty lights - and I realised I had eaten here on my previous visit. The gyros was cheap, the wine was cheap, so we set ourselves up in the sun and waited to be served.

As it was before 12pm, I think the place was still in the process of setting up for the day, and our service was on what I like to call “ish” time. This means things happen when they happen, in no particular hurry. We weren’t in any particular hurry either - we had gained much more of a day than we thought we would as our original idea to catch the bus to Olympia would have left at 1pm. Now we had until 5pm to meander through Athens. Eventually we got some service, and our delicious red wine was delivered in a very cool but impractical container, so we proceeded to spill most of it over the table.

This was the first proper gyros of the trip, complete with chips stuffed inside the wrap. It was delicious and hit the spot! Buzzing from our wine, we started wandering all through the Plaka area. It was quite beautiful, and we felt the need for a wine top up and some coffee, so we stopped at the same place we had had coffee on the first day. It seems we were destined to only every drink there, and never consume food! 

As we walked past some shops, Dan noticed a bee hive. This initially made me uncomfortable but when I realised they weren’t getting out, I crept closer. The store owner spotted us and gave us a few samples of the different honey flavours. He also showed us some lip balm and body balm - good for exzema and sunburn, and as our sunburn lotion continually explodes in our bag we  grabbed ourselves a little tub. It smelled lovely, like pine trees.

We returned to the rock overlooking the city and next to the Acropolis and sat here with a multitude of others in the lovely sunshine. Time was slowly moving along, and we were ready to return to our accommodation, grab our things and head to the station.

We picked up sandwiches on the way which would constitute our dinner, and back at the apartment Dani was there to welcome us. We chatted for quite some time, Dani repeating that Sasha, you’re such a good girl, and Dan, you have such babyface, and with cheek kisses and air kisses we finally extracted ourselves and made it out the front door. What a character!

Laden with our luggage, we traversed the metro (always stressful, let alone covered in about 20kg of luggage each) and we were quite relieved when we made it back to the KTEL station. Nothing much to report of the bus journey - I fell asleep for the beginning of it (it was 4 hours to Pyrgos, then another hourish to Ancient Olympia). We arrived in Pyrgos about 9pm and went inside to ask where the bus to Olympia would be and what time. We found out that we would actually be getting back on the same bus we had just gotten off, and if we had looked up we would have realised we had already pulled into the Olympia parking spot. No matter! We were told, haltingly, that the bus would leave at 9.35pm. 9.35pm came and went, but when we all piled on a little bit later I realised that perhaps he had meant 9.45pm.

A lady was waiting with us, slightly crazy of course, and she chatted with us for a little bit. She had been on the bus all the way from Athens too, and had the most bizarre luggage. She was putting a big box that she had been dragging across the floor under the bus, as well as a series of plastic bags, all bursting. Must have done some shopping in the big city! I think her daughter came to meet her at Pyrgos because they went off chatting together. The bus from Pyrgos to Olympia was also uneventful - it definitely took the “local” route which was not direct. There didn’t appear to be any bus stops along the side of the road - people went up to the driver and said something, and a short while later he would pull over and they would get out, often in the middle of nowhere, and often with a parked car waiting to pick them up.

The bus pulled over at one of these stops and we realised it was right out front of our accommodation, not the main bus stop, so we made the snap decision to jump off and walk the half a block to our accommodation.

Check in was easy enough, our room was nice enough, and that’s the story of how we got from Athens to Olympia!

Til next time,

xx

The Final Countdown. Day 17: Athens

What to say about our accommodation in Athens! I'll start at the beginning. We had checked the day before what time check in opened from, which was 7am. We were a little earlier than that but figured we could just wait outside or something until they opened.

We had a bit of trouble finding the place but eventually Dan spotted the hand painted sign and we tried opening the door. Locked. A dog started barking. Tried the door a few more times. Nothing. Then we heard a voice calling out to us from inside - basically, be patient, I'm coming. The door opened and there stood a squat middle aged Greek lady who opened her arms wide and beckoned us inside. Inside looked like a living room - her living room - and she bade us take off our bags and get comfortable. It's hard to describe the decor, but this wasn't a hotel! She chatted and chatted away, asking our names again and again, bidding us welcome to Athens and apologising for her poor English. She explained again and again that we couldn't go to our room until 2pm, which was fine, but she seemed distressed by this, and we assured her it was ok as long as we could put our things somewhere and come back later.

I am a good woman, it is safe here. My husband is a policeman! She repeatedly assured us, before ushering us downstairs so that I could use the toilet. Our accommodation had a lift - a very old lift - and she took us and all our luggage jerkily down into the basement. It was pitch black down there, and she started shouting to the gentleman who I don't think was her husband but maybe the cleaner. She shouted and grew louder and louder until he turned the light on from upstairs. This toilet was for the cleaners, not the guests usually.

While down here I tried to sort myself out and figure out what I needed for the day as I didn't know if I'd get a chance once we dropped our bags. I needed my contacts and deodorant - oh yes, and there had been no time to change clothes so I had to stay in what I'd been wearing the day before and all night. Don't judge me!

I took ages and I could hear her and Dan nattering away. When I finally emerged she said Australian! and was very impressed. She then started commenting on Dan's "baby face", a theme which continued for the rest of our stay.

We went jerkily up to level 1, did another quick bag sort and finally bid our farewells. She sat there lighting up her ciggie waiting for us, saying "pretend I'm not here." I later found out her name was Dani or Deni, and she saw us down to the front door and waved us out into the day. Before we left, she told us not to go left - lots of criminals and robberies that way, stay right, and for Sasha, Sasha always keep your bag at the front!

We stepped out into the still rather dark morning air, blinked and laughed quietly to each other - what have we walked in to! Such a whirlwind for having had no sleep, we weren't sure what had happened.

First stop: breakfast. We hadn't wanted to impose so we thought today we will just buy something. Our accom was very close to Monastaraki and I realised that it was also very close to where I had stayed last time. We emerged into the square and it looked cold dark and grey. Completely uninviting. I could only think "what is Dan thinking of this place?" Athens had been my first stop on my Summer of Fun in 2015 and I traversed it alone - it had a bit of a special place in my heart. This Athens looked yuck.

We found a place doing pastries and fresh juices so after a lot of sleepy deliberation, we managed to order these. The juice waiter was Albanian of all things, and he was quick to tell me how Albania is full of drug dealers and criminals - I couldn't help but think that Athens probably wasn't any better...

We decided to make our way up to the Acropolis as it wasn't far even tho the day was quite grey and hazy. Not the best for photos but maybe our only chance. As things transpired this was an excellent decision as I will get to later!

The square was covered in graffiti and closed up shops. I could tell by Dan's face he wasn't impressed. We walked up the hill and met some kitties on the way, spirits slightly improving. We stopped to let a large group of French teenagers pass as we didn't want to have to fight for our place in the queue.

As we approched the entry point I noticed some steps up onto a rocky enclave which I had never spotted before. A few people were up there and once we were up we could see why - here was a fantastic view of the Acropolis to our right and out across Athens to our left. You could really get the full scope of how big this city is from here - it's enormous. We took a few photos and selfies and made our way back down to the ticket queue.

We needn't have worried as when we got to the ticket office, there was no queue and we were able to enter immediately. On our right was the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and we stood next to two bogan Aussie girls with matching braided hair as they posed in front of it. We kind of followed them around the whole site and we are probably in the way of all their posed shots!

As we reached the stairs to the make our way up we could hear shouting - army style shouting. A frantic looking man was trying to keep tourists out of the way and then we spotted 6 soldiers doing drills on the stairs. They weren't able to look where they were treading - head up and tiny steps. Took them an age to go past, but gave us some great photo opportunities with all the ruins in the background! They eventually crept past us and we continued on.



There ahead of us was the Parthenon. Covered in scaffolding, as per usual. Usually I'm pretty annoyed to find a monument/building all scaffolded (and to be honest this isn't an exception) but we had a good read about the restoration work and it is a worthwhile cause. It literally looked identical to when I saw it last - but this time had a crane sticking out the Top. I'm sure some work had been done on it since then...!



We also encountered a very friendly kitty! We nicknamed him the Parthenon kitty and he didn't want us to stop patting him. So friendly!

We got to the non-scaffolded side of the Parthenon before the big crowds so took a few hurried pictures and then sat back to watch the swarms. We checked out the theatre and kept walking in that direction, coming to a closed gate, and unwilling to go back up the hill again we stood there and pondered whether we just go through it. Someone walked past and let us out and we popped out into the street. Dan was flagging, so next stop was for some coffee. We looked at a few price lists and found one that was quite cheap and settled in for some caffeine and juice.

We people watched for a while as the square got busier as it got later in the morning. We devised our plan: the archaeological museum opened at 1: we would meander our way through the Athens markets and head towards the museum for lunch and opening time.

Plan in place we set off. Now Athens was coming alive - the streets were buzzing, all the graffitied shop fronts had lifted their barriers and displayed amazing (touristy) wares. Beautiful dresses, ouzo, evil eye jewellery. We kept on walking towards the museum and hit a really rough patch. I mean a really rough patch.
"Would you like anything? Marijuana?" Was the only one I caught as I held my bags closer and kept on walking, Dan behind me.

Big groups of men leering at us - we were no longer in the nice buzzy bright section of Athens but it's seedy underbelly. We eventually came out the other side and arrived at the museum. Across from the museum is a nice albeit expensive and touristy restaurant so we rested our tired feet here, had some wine and a feed (Greek salad for me!) and when we were sufficiently rested we went into the museum.

I expected a queue here too but there was only one person in front of us. Super easy, checked my backpack and we were in. Now I have been here before - Acropolis and the Archaeological Museum but Dan hasn't, and to be honest I was with a Contiki group and wasn't able to peruse at my leisure (or walk past things I found uninteresting) so it was nice to be able to do it my (and Dan's) way, no compromises.

I pointed out to Dan some of the funny things I had seen last time, like the statues with the star shaped pubes and the statue that the Starbucks coffee logo is apparently based on. We walked past what felt like a billion clay pots (and it was almost like I had a tic, I kept muttering "Pots pots, pots. Pots." Probably the lack of sleep.) Lots of pots. Loads of statues from varying ages - many created hundreds of years BC. Basically statues and pots. Lots of pots.



Oh and the gold mask of Agamemnon is really cool! There's something about seeing these objects in a museum right near where they were found - unlike something like the British Museum which has pilfered so many things (including about half of the Parthenon). Maybe one day these big museums will give back what isn't really theirs?

We took our time here but eventually our feet got sore so it was time to walk back to our accom and check in properly. We walked a different route to avoid Dodge Alley arriving about 3pm.

We were gently chastised by the accom owner as we had originally said we would be back about 2pm. This accommodation didn't really let us come and go with ease, to be honest! We had to keep checking on time which was slightly annoying but to be fair, Dani is a story all in her own and definitely part of our Athens story!

Back at the accommodation, we had to wait while Dani tried to help her elderly mother wait and then into a taxi. Much confused Greeklish reigned, lots of smiling and head nodding, something about Budapest (I honestly have no idea what Budapest had to do with anything) and we air kissed her nonna goodbye, and it was time for us to finally head towards our room.

Dani told us that our luggage is already upstairs, and we all piled into the lift and up to level 3. When we got there and stepped out of the lift, Dani pointed to a small futon bed just outside the lift and said "All of this, this level, yours. You sleep here." Dan and I looked at each other. I was like "Ahhh, ok...! And the bathroom?"
"Basement downstairs. Like before."
"Oh. Um, ok." Thinking to myself, "she is gonna get one hell of a bad review!"

Then she lost it in fits of laughter, saying I was such a good girl and no, our room is through the door to the left. Tricked! And fell for it. Although she then told us stories of other people who had been tricked too, so I'm not the only gulliable one! It was true that this whole level was ours, and when she opened the door she led us into a room that was bigger than our entire apartment in Berlin. The floor was adorned with mismatching rugs of various sizes, colours and materials. On one side was a single bed and the other, a queen bed, and there was also a small kitchen and a large sofa. There was even a balcony, and if you opened the window and leeeaaaaannnnned out you could see the corner of the Acropolis.

It was bright and vibrant and had as much personality as our host. She kept chuckling to herself about my reaction (maybe I was the first to be like...oh, ok? Instead of FUCK no!) and showed us every corner of the room and how everything worked (including showing us the new mattress and how clean everything was).

At the bathroom, Dani stopped and said "This I can say in perfect English." Pauses for effect. "Do not put the paper in the toilet." If you haven't been to Greece you may not know that you can't flush toilet paper there - the pipes and sewage system is so old and so small that paper clogs it very easily. And no one wants an overflowing toilet! There are always large bins placed nearby. It takes some getting used to but after a day or two you're in the swing of it (and most places have signs to remind you).

Dani offered us a coffee and has we had denied one earlier, this time we said yes. She repeated that she was good woman, good mumma, and if we need anything to shout "Dani! Mumma!" And she would come help. After some time she left and we were able to collapse in a fit of giggles. She returned a short while later with our coffees, which were actually delicious.

At this point I decided to look up how to get to ancient Olympia on the morrow and realised that I may have made a grave error. You see, Dan has done basically all the transport planning (I do most of the attractions and I do all the food planning) but for some reason I had looked up Olympia. In essence, I had a timetable - but absolutely no clue where to catch the bus from in Athens. The timetable had a ticket office address on it and opening times from 7am the next morning, so after panicking considerably Dan convinced me that we would be ok - we would go to the ticket office first thing in the morning and work it out from there.

Dan had wanted to see the new old Olympic stadium in Athens from the 1896 first modern Olympics. We could walk, but that would take us through the dodgy area again so we decided to catch the metro. This was a great idea as we bought 24 hour tickets which we DEFINITELY got our money's worth out of in the end! We left the accommodation with Dani asking, "When will you be back?" You see, they stay awake for their guests, "1am?" Dan and I both burst into laughter - we could barely stand right now and it was 5pm, let alone going out and partying all night. 9pm is more like it for this old couple...

We left and metroed one stop and, popping out, realised we were in front of parliament with lots of people on front. Maybe the guards are changing? We wandered over and the guards were doing their amazing dance routine (if you've seen it before, you know what I'm talking about!) I don't even know how to describe what they were doing and I have absolutely no idea of the history behind it (or their costumes). In essence the two guards walk towards each other slowly, kicking one leg up and flopping a pom-pomed foot around until they eventually meet in the middle. Then the touch outstretched pom-pomed feet, and do some funny twirl things before returning to the other side, occasionally pawing their feet like bulls. It's truly amazing and I love it - I need to find out what it's all about!



Happy we had caught this, it was time to go to the stadium. It closed at 7pm however we hadn't intended to go inside as you can see a lot from outside for free. We walked through the botanic gardens and got a bit lost as we hit a fence when we thought we could join the main road again but after a short backtrack we were on the right path again.

The sunlight was a gentle yellow lighting up the stadium just before 7pm when we got there. We took a bunch of photos and returned via metro to the main square where we were going to find dinner.

Riding the metro is not a relaxing experience in Athens. The metro, in particular, is EXTREMELY bad for pickpockets and I have heard a lot of horror stories. I desperately do not want to become a horror story, so I keep my belongings held tight to my body or push my back up against the door or wall, outing myself even further as a tourist, no doubt.

I had googled best cheap eats and came across Tylxito Greek Wrap that was super close to our accommodation. It had little indoor seating, most was on the pedestrian street and we luckily found a little table slightly away from the crowd so we could feel a bit more comfortable with our bags and also people watch.

We were a little hungrier than a normal gyros so we got a pita each and a half carafe of wine and it was all delicious. Highly recommend this hole in the wall! While under the influence of the wine, we formulated a plan. Before we left the accom we had grabbed my tripod as I had said we should try to take some night photos of the Acropolis if we could. We googled best places to go; I had wanted to climb Mt Lycabettus, which I referred to as the Boob because it's kind of shaped like one but the climb was rather intrepid for nighttime adventures and the view not overly great. Dan found the Philoppapos Hill and the views looked pretty speccy- also it was a little closer and on a path we already knew. So off we went!

We climbed back up to the ticket offices at the Acropolis but this time turned right and started climbing up towards the monument on the hill. There was no light here but we weren't the only ones making the trek. Every so often in a clearing a few people were set up with beers or cameras just surveying the scene. We kept going and eventually found a little nook of our which offered spectacular views. I set up my tripod and Dan set up on a rock and we spent some time trying to take pretty pictures of the Acropolis with the theatre in the foreground.

By now we were very weary - it was almost 10pm and we had been up for over 36 hours. Time to call it a night. We returned to our accommodation, said our good nights to our hosts, set our alarm for early the next morning and collapsed into bed.

Til next time
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 16: Tirana - Athens

Already time to check out of our apartment! We made our breakfast and lunch like yesterday, packhorsed ourselves and walked to the Choose Balkans Apartment offices. The lovely lady wasn't there but a young man greeted us warmly and let us leave our stuff. I happened to mention that the lady had offered us some home made raki, but it was a little early in the morning so we would try it when we collected our bags.

Our first stop today was return to the pyramid so Dan could climb it. My shoes are too slippery - it would have been a disaster! I set up my cameras and away he went - the "third" slope is the easiest as it is the least steep. He got a good amount of momentum and was on the top in no time! Another guy was trying at the same time and neither he nor his girlfriend were having much luck. I took a few photos of Dan on the peak before he slid down - literally. I took a video and I couldn't stop giggling - he slid down like he was on a slippery slide! I'm sure most people just try to run down - this was far more sensible. Only made his pants a bit dusty. He inspired a big group of teenage girls who started trying once he got down.

Next we needed to find magnets and postcards. We had seen only one place that sold them so we returned there. The selection wasn't great but it'll do - they're not totally geared up for tourists just yet! It was good not having crappy tourist stores every second shop.

We walked down the leafy street until we came to one of te stops from yesterday and we remembered it was an art gallery with artwork from communist times. That sounded interesting and upon inquiring at the price, only 200lek we grabbed ourselves some tickets.
We both find communist propaganda so interesting. It's just mind boggling. Here were all these painting of stoic, happy people - each painting sends a message of strength, unity, happiness, togetherness when in actuality life was none of these things. The paintings go from realistic (pre- communism) to cartoonlike and stylised. Just fascinating. As our guide had said the day before, "look at these weird paintings. Well, I grew up with them and they weren't so weird then."

We had heard of a fast food chain called kolonat which was like a fake McDonalds. On that note - there are no Maccas in Albania. They got their first KFC two years ago - not even a Starbucks...yet. Anyway the kolonat had a kind of "frie" logo and we went looking for it. Where it was supposed
To be was all closed off. Bugger. There was supposed to be another near the bunker park that we wanted to go return to do we gave that a go.



And Lo and behold we found it! It no longer had the cool logo - probably legal action from Maccas did this? And they only take cash. This was a problem. We had come all this way and we only had 400lek on us. This could buy us two cheeseburgers so we thought we would compare it to Maccas cheeseburgers. It was tasty! And pretty close.

We took some photos in the bunker park and made our way back to the Choose Balkans offices to collect our bags and hopefully try some home made raki!



At the offices he seemed to have forgotten about the raki but when I paused in the collection of my bag he then asked. He poured three shots (one for himself as well) and offered to the others in there and cheers! Down the hatch. It wasn't too bad - I didn't shudder wven though it was very strong. The American who was being served took it upon himself to tell us in great detail the method for making raki, and then the Choose Balkans guy poured us another little one. He said it's tradition to have a photo with it, so we posed and downed the next one.

This would numb the pain of having to walk to the international bus station - at least about 25 minutes away in the muggy warmth. We had one small pause with 10 minutes left on the walk but made it there relatively easily. We will be having to do a lot more of this over the coming months!

At the bus station I checked us in and asked where the toilets were. Squat toilets, my favourite. Our bus was already waiting and when it hit 3pm (we had been quite early) we could put our bags on and soon after get on the bus.

The few people getting on were all squashed up the back (us included) - I figured we would pick up a few more people along the way. As usual my travel sickness pills knocked me out almost immediately so I indeed up missing durres! Dan assured me there wasn't much to see from the bus. Unfortunately this hour is about the sun total of sleep I got on the journey.

At one toilet stop was a particularly hikarkous cat. He had plonked himself right in the doorway to get inside the snack bar and toilet and would flinch but resoultutely stayed put. He shied away from all advances and Dan only managed a brief pat. What a silly place for an unsociable cat to stop! Someone everntually kicked him out of the way.

When we set out I was a bit apprehensive about our 15 hour bus journey and sitting on a bus for nigh on 15 hours. This isn't what actually happened. What I hadn't bargained on was the border crossing. Now there was a song and dance!

Three hours it took to cross the border from Albania into Greece. This three hours must be quite standard because we got into Athens at the expected arrival time. The first thing that happened was we pulled up behind a convey of other buses and stopped. Immediately had we come to a standstill and our doors were open, the bus was flooded with people. Were these people security or police or border control? No these people were shop owners and selling things. Everything. From bread rolls to pot plants, salespeople piled onto the bus from every available door.
Outside of the bus was a cafe, bar and lots of shops. Obviously they knew that there would be a wait...

Eventually after about an hour and a half, our driver passed down the bus to collect passports. I'll mention here one of our delightful fellow passsengers who insisted on talking with people on her phone on FaceTime or speaker for the duration of the journey so far. Then when time to hand over passport she wasn't ready. We had been sitting here for almost and hour and a half and she somehow wasn't prepared.

After another age we all piled off, grabbing our belongings. This was very confusing as some people were moving and others weren't but it just turned out They were moving very lazily and not hastily. I grabbed most of my stuff and hopped off the bus, where everyone had collected their luggage and was opening up.

Wut. Really. We have so much luggage this is gonna take an ice age. By the time we even found space on a table a lot of people had already been checked and so we opened every bag and waited patiently. The man had long moved on from our position and I was certain we would be last. Another man appeared from nowhere and literally patted my bags, but his Hand slightly inside Dans big purple bag, patted the top and moved on. Seriously we had gone to all that effort for that? So we struggled our bags closed and our locks back on, and were one of the last people back on the bus.

This whole spectacle started at 8.10pm and ended at 10.10pm. Two hours. And it wasn't quite over yet.

Back on the bus we received our passports back and drove through the Albanian border crossing. And stopped on the other side.

Piling back out of the bus again it was time for some performance on the Greek side. We all made a mass near the building office, some hanging back others pushing to form a bit of a queue. Eventually our driver starting calling out names and we realised we needed to line up in our seat order (to make it easy on security I guess.)

About halfway through our driver read out a name with no response. He looked puzzled and continued reading a couple more names, including and ending with Dans name. Not everyone's name had been read out as we watched or driver go back on the bus, find a bag and take it off and bring it through security...I think we may have left someone somewhere!

Phone lady was infront of me but pushed herself forward so she could lean on a wall. Eventually it was time for me to go up, pretty quick and easy - this time we got a stamp for entering Greece (no Albania stamp sadly!) and Dan and I were officially in Greece.

As is my wont I needed to pee and so we circumnavigated a nearby building eventually realising the door being guarded by a troll was in fact the toilet. He was shouting all sorts at us (I think it may have been about the toilets) but I was too scared to go alone so I made dan come trough with me and go to the men's. The troll ran up behind us which gave me a fright but it was just to show which one was he men's and which the women's.

This is a bathroom worth mentioning. Along the mirror was the remains of about five sinks, all smashed in with buckets trying to collect some of the water flowing out of the taps. The entire floor was flooded and I was presented with some questionable squat toilets.

I tried to spend as little time in there as possible and literally ran past the troll on my way out - dan had given him a couple of coins.

By the time we were all back on the bus and through the border it was well after 11pm, bringing the whole shemozzle to approx 3 hours.

Over the next few hours I dozed but mostly just willed the time to pass. At about 5am someone up the back of the bus started shouting extremely loudly and persistently. When he got off about a half an hour later I realised that Mr Shouty had wanted to be let off before the Athens stop. No discreet walking down the bus to the driver, no, let's shout up and down the bus. I was fully awake now (as awake as one can be on no sleep) and just sat there waiting to arrive into Athens.

From my googling I thought we would arrive into the international bus station which was a 40+ minute walk from our accom, or deal with metro or taxis at 6.30am after no sleep. This was a stressful thought. Now we were in Greece our phone data works again (yay, EU!) so Dan checked and actually we were somewhere else only about a 15 minute walk!

I shall leave this post here as our accommodation in Greece deserves a chapter of its own - it was *quite* the experience, so I will finish with the picture of us walking through the streets of Athens in the pitch black before sunrise, laden with all of our luggage.

Til next time
xx