13/4-14/4 Post Naples: Athens to Mykonos
Greece Part 1 – Athens and ferry to Mykonos
So our train ride from Naples to Rome was without incident, and we then headed to on the train to the Rome airport which is next to a small seaport town called Fiumicino where we stayed overnight before we caught our flight at 6.40am to Athens. Not a bad flight even though we were flying with easyjet, Europe’s budget airline. The only problem with easyjet is that the seats are not allocated so as soon as boarding is called everyone lines up to get on the plane, except that they forget that everyone gets on a bus to go to the plane, so you may have been right at the front of the queue and end up with a rubbish seat on the plane all because you were in a bad spot on the bus. So you have to be strategic.
Mark and I split up on the bus, he stood near one door and I stood near a door on the other side of the bus so that whoever got off first “ran” to the plane and picked the best seats. So we managed to get emergency exit seats with slightly more leg room which was nice. Our flight was fine and after much confusion about which train to catch we headed off on the train, which progressively got busier and busier at each stop as more people got on. Then we had to change trains at a particular station and all was going well. But the trains were absolutely packed so much so people tried helping us with our bags onto the train and we were so crammed in. But we eventually found our stop and heading off following Mark’s Mum’s directions and found Bev near our hotel.
Soon after this though we discovered Mark had been pickpocketed on the train. They hadn’t taken his wallet just his cash and they left everything else in his wallet including my photo he keeps in there. We worked out that there was about 100 euros in cash missing so not the end of the world but pretty devastating nonetheless to discover we were pickpocketed whilst on a super crowded train where we had nowhere to move and no way of really protecting ourselves from such pros as these. Let’s just say we’re being more careful now, even though we have been our whole trip, but Mark is no longer carrying much money on him for this reason.
Anyway onto a happier note, Bev and Ed were very happy to see us almost as happy as we were to see them. I think we were more than a little homesick after almost 3 months travelling so seeing familiar faces felt so relieving particularly in a country where the signs have confusing greek letters!
For the rest of the day we headed off to the Acropolis to see the ruins of the Parthenon followed by the Acropolis museum to see the various amazingly ancient artefacts that are housed there away from the elements on the top of the Acropolis. Bev and Ed were very helpful with giving us more insight into the artefacts as they had spent the last week or so touring around Olympus and Delphi with a guide who informed them of all the history.
So although we were very happy to be with Bev and Ed we were all painfully aware of how dirty Athens is. To us who had practically just come from Naples it felt like Naples. I even made a joke and said to Mark “I didn’t realise that we were in Nathles”, clearly there appears to be striking similarities between the two cities largely based on the amount of rubbish everywhere and the runned down old buildings. But we survived and had an early dinner because we wanted an early night before our early start the next morning.
Early morning start began at 5.30 to get ready to catch a taxi to get to our ferry on time. When we got on the ferry we didn’t realise at first that there was allocated seats until we looked at our tickets again only to discover that the 4 of us were not sitting together so we attempted to ask the person sitting next to Bev if she would like to swap, but she declined at which time Ed disappeared. He reappeared with new tickets to the business class lounge. The cheeky one had upgraded us. So we all sat in the nice exclusive business class enjoying the view through the windows at the front of the boat. We all took our travel sick tablets and thought this will be a piece of cake.
This happiness didn’t last for long unfortunately as we discovered that the boat ride on this massive ferry which we all hoped would be smooth was not to be and we and everyone else on board decided it was not a good idea to walk around or even sit, lying down was the order of the day. We watched as one by one people disappeared off to the toilets and the crew started bringing sick bags around. Bev went for a walk outside in the fresh air, Ed went for a walk and Mark ran off to the toilets. So here I was lying in the business class lounge with about 5 bags and nowhere to go if I was to be sick.
Luckily I survived and once everyone re-joined me we headed up onto the deck to the fresh air at which point Mark lay down on my lap, Bev lay down on the bench and Ed went and got some sick bags. After about 3 hours on the boat Mark and Ed were doing a lot better. Bev felt better after a chuck and another lie down and I felt fine the whole time or thereabouts. So after 3 hours we arrived in Syros where people disembarked and others embarked, we then headed off to Pyros (not sure of the name) where more people hopped off, and after about 5 hours we arrived in Mykonos and got picked up by our transfer to the hotel.
Mykonos is beautiful. All white buildings with mostly white roofs or some blue ones. So we had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around taking photos and enjoying the confusing little streets in the old part of town and mostly just admiring the place before a nice dinner.
Tomorrow heading to Delos a nearby island to see the ancient archeological ruins there.
