Leaving Athens, Greece and arriving in Rome, Italy

My timings for leaving the hotel and arriving at Athens airport was spot on. I caught a metro to the main bus terminal, then with barely a couple of minute to spare I caught the X95 bus back to the airport which arrived a little after 7am and plenty of time to check in.

Regrettably the airport McDonalds did not have free wifi, which puts it behind most other countries and I have no idea why the security made me open my laptop up and boot it up, I guess I looked extra dodgy with my british passport but wearing a Hawaiian blue floppy hat!

I managed to doze a little during the flight but it was the arrivals and subsequent travel to the hotel that threw me totally off guard. Firstly the misposted our flight so we had to ask where the bags were being unloaded and then I somehow managed to totally skip through customs and immigration without even having to get out my passport, very weird especially as I was on inbound from an International not a domestic flight.

Once into the main terminal I made my way to the information desk where I spotted that a shuttle to the city centre could cost me anywhere up to 115 euros, with a tout loitering outside trying to undercut their lowest price to offer it to me for just 35 euros. Somehow I managed to hide my disgust long enough to be shown where I could get the train for a mere 11 euros and then headed off in that direction, which ended up being up an esculator, a very erratic lift and along a few lengthy travelators.

Finally I was able to join a queue and buy a ticket to the city centre although I still had no place to stay but I figured that I would just try a few cheat hotels or hostels near the train station til I find a place. Famous last thoughts.

My rucksack at the moment, including laptop and rear detachable bag, probably weighs about 13 kilos but this is without most of the straps and padding that it originally came with making it a whole lot more cumbersome and problematic to carry around. After a few failed tries I took to going to an internet place and was totally baffled when I had to register my passport details in order to use a terminal at an internet cafe as per new Italian laws!

An hour later and I realised that arriving with no plan or prearranged place to stay in Rome is probably like dangling your privates in a barrel full of paranas and then pouring blood over yourself. There may be hundreds of places to sleep within the city limits, but with no reservation, travelling alone, for 3 nights and only able to pay by credit card there were few and none were cheap.

Even ignoring anything over a 3 star I was still looking at having to book an entire room to myself, with no places left in the dorms and of those almost all that were left said "payment to be made in cash in full upon arrival", which pretty much threw me at the mercy of the select few that were left.

Finally I booked a place that was near, less than 100 euros per night per room and not for the first time I wished that I had done all of Europe when I had time on my side to make the bookings and when the exchange rate between the euro and the pound was much more favourable. The walk to the hotel passed some very nice looking buildings and if I could just get over the fact everything cost an arm and a leg and keep in my mind that I will probably never be coming back so to make the most of it then I could end up enjoying myself.

A whirlwind tour of Athens

My plans were to do a quick reccy of the historical sites in central athens, then go for an afternoon trip to the coast and then back for a meal and traditional greek dancing extraveganza, but as they say the best laid plans.

I walked to the nearby tour agency that I spotted last night, and asked about going on a couple of their trips however the night time dancing program from the brochure that I had picked up was aparently not on tonight and so they I could not book it.

I was more than a little surprised that the salesman made absolutely no effort to arrange a substitute or interest me in anything else and just went back to reading his newspaper, leaving it to his newly arrived assistant to point me in the direction of the Plaka, a region where I could turn up to a local taverna and see some if I wanted to do it on my own.

Once booked I headed on foot to the Acropolis, after buying a map from a street vensor who then had the cheek to upsell it to me for double the price saying "sorry my english is bad" but no matter how bad your english is you know the difference between one and two euros! It was only that I was in a good mood, and partly that I momentarily forgot that the exchange rate was now so bad, that meant I didnt tell him where he could shove his map and demand my money back.

Enroute to the Acropolis, which is easy to spot from downtown as its the big lot of famous ruins on the tall hill in the distance, I passed a few other archaeological sites and decided to buy a one ticket visits all sites entrance ticket for 12 euros which I dont think saves any but at least you get a nicer ticket stub as a keeper.

Having already been to one or two tourist sites I was shocked at how many people were here, as it was probably the most crowded of places I have ever seen. The place is impressive and not exactly small, but it was swamped by hundreds of tourists as bus after bus disgorged its charter of passengers and everywhere I looked they were there, and what is worse is as it was up a hill the slower ones were blocking up all the steps.

The Acropolis was magnificent and offered an unrivaled panoramic view overlooking the city and it was easy to cast my imagination back and think of how the city elders must have felt as they cast their gaze down at the domain over which they ruled.

Sadly I did not have enough time to summon forth the mighty zeus as I was on a deadline to get back to the tour office by 2pm, but I did have time to take a quick walk through down some of the other sites that I spotted from the top. It was a pity that I missed going to see the stadium as it looked very impressive, but I hope that the postcard I picked up will be some consolation.

Walking back through the city I passed a erotic cinema, I think only the third I have seen travelling all around and clearly a dying breed. The advertising fliers showed very cute girls and the price was only EU $5 but judging from the look of the building it had clearly seen better days and besides I have never liked an audience for this sort of thing so I passed it by and just noted it down for posterity.

As I walked along the road to my hotel I was stopped by about six armed police who demanded to see my documents and I so I figure that perhaps some of the locals had objected to the tarts in the area, but they didnt wait around for long and by the time I had dropped off my stuff in the room and changed my camera battery they had gone, and in their place the tarts had returned.

Despite being told to meet at the tour agency at 2pm we spend an hour going round in circles picking up passengers from various hotels and it was not until after 3pm when we finally left the downtown area and headed off towards our destination.

Many people have commented about Amsterdam, LAs Vegas and Bangkok as being places known for their sex industry, but after already noting the explicit porn magazines and dvd's on display at street venders and of course the erotic cinema, I was surprised at how many stripjoints and hotels with entertainment lounges there were on the route from the downtown area to the beach

And even if I hadn't spotted them for myself I would not have been ignorant for long as our tour guide took a weird delight in repeatedly mentining that this area was noted for its lively night clubs and more!

I would suggest that if anyone is going to take the coach to visit the temple of Poseidon that they sit on the left side of the coach as it was an hour journey and the aegean sea view is were far better on that side than the boring right hand side which is nothing but barren fields and rocky hillsides.

My big mistake was not getting something to eat before joining the bus as I was famished by the time we arrived and I was almost ready to eat anything no matter the cost when I finally arrived at the temple and my enjoyment was marred by the fact that I wanted to visit the place as quickly as possible to return to the restaurant at the hillside entrance to quieten my stomach.

Poseidons temple is much smaller than I had expected, but its location could not have been more perfectly chosen as it sits atop a high outcrop almost raiased from the seabed for exactly this reason.

Apparently the first temple was built of stone but was burned to the ground and so it was rebuilt by later Athenians and this time in marble. I often wonder how anyone managed to set stone on fire, with enough heat to make the very stones shatter and crumble, but I guess that they found a way.

Out stop here was only an hour, not even the same time as it took to take us here and with the entrance fee only being US $2 per person ( free for students ) I take it the EU $40 we all paid was just for a brief tour and to be transported from and to downtown Athens.

About now I felt that a visit to a cinema, a game of ten pin bowling and a trip to a Greek night club or strip club to sample theri particular brand of eroticism was very much in order but I had not been keeping too close an eye on the old pennies and so after paying in cash for the cinema and bowling I didnt have much left so took a trip to the ATM and was denied even taking out EU $40.

I wracked my brains trying to find why, as I didnt have my cellphone on me to call and ask why it was declined, and then I suddenly remembered that my mortgage, telephone bill and the erergency hotel in Cairo had all been paid through my debit card within the last few days and so I must have reached or exceeded my limit.

I knew that I still had some on my credit card but only to use for direct transactions and no longer for cash advances, and I didnt want to start putting night club drinks and entrance fees through my card so I just jumped on the metro and headed on back to my hotel.

The cough syrup that I had bought was having littlle effect, being not much more than honey, lemon and paracetamol and I knew that one of the first things I have to do when I get back to the UK is take a trip to get some antibiotics from my doctor to clear my now present chest infection.

I finally fell asleep around eleven with my alarm set for just after 5am in order to reach the airport for my 9am flight to Rome tomorrow morning.

Listening to your body in Athens, Greece

I knew when I went looking to see the belly dancers in Cairo that I was burning the candle at both ends but regretably they didnt start til 01:30.

I knew I would regret my caffeine overdose at 1am the next morning when the airline booked the flight for the wrong day but I was too awake to get any sleep.

I tried to have an easy day on the last day in Cairo, I dozed in the airport and again on the flight over to Athens but I could not deny that my body needed sleep.

My body was fatigued, my head ached and my intelligence dimned so when I finally got a room at 9am the first thing I did was strip and fall asleep, not waking up til around 5pm.

Hunger and thirst drove me to go out into the city and find sustinence but I knew still felt rough and frayed at the edges so it was nothing more than a quick pit stop before returning to my hotel room.

By now my brain was clearing up and starting to work, but my body couldnt match it, so I used the laptop to record the most recent ideas and thoughts, thus emptying my mind of anything it needed to remember or think about and then went back to bed.

It worked as I then slept from 10pm right through to 8am.

Regrettably this means that I have been delayed or slept through almost my entire time here in Greece, one of the places that I was really looking forward to visiting before my arrival as fewer places are deeper in the history, culture and philosophy that has shaped my life and imagination since a small boy, but on a trip such as mine there will always be casualties.

Today, after a shave and a shower I hope to venture forth to see as much as possibly if the rain keeps off before an afternoon tour to Cape sounion followed by an evening show with folk dancing, bouzouki music and a meal thrown in. All in all not a bad days itiniary by any means and considering my condition, circumstances and time I woke up I doubt that any save a local could do better.

I also need to try and find a chemist so that I can get something for my cough / cold as I fear it is developing into a lungs / chest infection.

Arriving in Athens, Greece

After the debarcle of the flights and the most annoying taxi drivers in the world, I finally caught a free shuttle service to the airport from the hotel, which in fact took longer for them to ride than it took me to walk the same distance, however at almost midnight I did not feel safe walking with a rucksack through remote unlit side streets.

Cairo airport has a maximum three hour waiting period, where if you arrive before then they will not even let you past the first line of security, so to kill the last few minutes I went downstairs and had a pizza and fries, all the while trying to avoid being myself ate alive by mosquitos.

I was a little miffed that despite buying a meal in the restaurant in order to use their wifi I had to pay extra and was more than a bit glad that I am leaving as I fear I am fast on my way to racially dumping Egyptians in the same 'generally best to avoid' category as I have done with Indians.

However proving that not all Egyptians are to be avoided at all costs, in the airport lounge a friendly female local who was happened to be on the same flight came up to me and started chatting to me, and by the time we were due to fly we were almost chummy, and her talking was the only thing keeping me awake at that point.

As soon as all the air stewardesses had passed and straps themselves in I immediately unbuckled myself and thanks to the luxury of being on an almost deserted overnight flight I was able to stretch out and was probably snoring before we even reached the standard cruising altitude.

For about the hundreth time I wondered why the air stewardessses felt the need to disturb me in order to tell me, not ask, to lift up the window blind and I dearly hope there is a red hot poker in hell waiting eagerly for the posterior who thought that one up.

One of the many benefits of being a European citizen was that while all the other passengers were forced to queue up in the very slow moving lines through immigration I was able to start my own line of one in the EU section and literally waltzed through with barely an upward glance. True this way you dont get to have your passport stamped this way, but there is more to life than stamps and not being stuck in a line for ages is a worthwhile trade off.

Having completely spent my time in Egypt without being rained on I had began to feel that my weather jinx has been broken, but with Athens almost underwater I soon realised that in fact it was just the exception that proved the rule.

My friendly Egyptian traveller was still with me on the way to the city centre and we shared a bus as far as it went when we were forced to part company as her hotel was in one direction and mine was the other. Had I any of my business cards left I would probably have given her one so that we could keep in touch, but alas my supply was now all spent and I was far too tired to think so I just said farewell and then opened the door to her taxi.

A few minutes later I caught my own and was a little surprised when thirty seconds later he opened the door and accepted a second life, and all I could think of what that at least he was an old man and thus less likely to be a mugger.

Although it was barely 8am my day was still going downhill as when I did arrive at my hotel they had cancelled my reservation after I had failed to show up two days ago and were not full. I briefly argued that I had contacted them by email twice, but I was still too exhausted to mount any real enthusiasm and so I just asked if he could help me find another hotel. "There are many hotels" with much theatrics and gruffness to his voice and I could tell that he hated his job and was only waiting for his next glass of wine and a chance to relax.

I declined the suggestion that I could stick around til after eleven ( almost three hours ! ) to see if they received any cancellations, already knowing that the further away from him and his hotel the happer I would be, and also I felt on the verge of deciding to get a taxi to the nearest 4 or even 5 star hotel if for no better reason than they would cut through the crap and let me have a bed post haste.

As luck would have it there were plenty of hotels nearby and on the second attempt I found a slightly grubby one in a rather shady location but it was dry and cheap and that was all I cared about at the moment. The rickety old lift was so narrow that with my backpack on I could not even turn around and so had to reverse out into the hallway when we reached my floor.

I passed a concom vending machine in the hallway and when I reached my room I found a spirit level lying on my bed. With no view at all from my main window I went to the bathroom window to see if the view was any better in there and could see only an alleyway where two leather clad hookers ( one a transvestite I bet, even from this distance he was a dead giveaway ) were loitering for a passing trick to come their way.

After coughing my lungs up for the umpteenth time in 48 hours I tried to wash myself up in the basin only for the faucet to drench me and my legs, so far from my most auspiciuos start.

Dumping my clothes on the ajoining single bed, I layed down and passed out in moments, not waking up til 5pm, having just slept through the best part of the day and thankfully the rain had stopped.

I considered if it was worth trying to book a trip to Delphi tomorrow or even a nighttime trip, but with my cold and cough still lingering and the rain I felt it probably best just to instead grab a meal and see what the weather does tomorrow morning before visiting much more of Athens.

Even before I managed to get outside the hotel I noticed that the two hookers I saw from earlier had now been joined by a few friends and the whole group were pretty much filling up the whole doorway outside the hotel, which was met by total oblivion by the hotel receptionist so I am guessing that they are either in cahoots or just its not worth the hassle making a scene.

My card refused to let me take out more than 50 EU$ and I remembered that the exchange rate from Bahrain dollars to EU dollars was better than for pounds, so I am guessing that the GB£ might now be worth less than a EUS which is disasterous news for Brits, especially those abroad.

I managed to find a bite to eat in a little restaurant around the corner form the hotel, but with no map in the dark I didnt want to venture far and within the hour I was back in my room, tring to get some sleep.