Day 6-Sunday, May 30, 2021 - Sunset

Bye Athens. Hello Santorini.

Our slow boat to Santorini was scheduled to leave Piraeus at 7:35am. The company (Blue Star Ferries) asked all passengers to be at the dock an hour before, that would be 6:35am. We needed to ride a metro train to the dock, a 20 minute ride. We had to walk to the metro station a 20 minute (1 mile) walk. You do the math. We had to get up at 4:45am to get to the dock by 6:35, allowing a little time for unforeseen circumstances. So we did.

Greece still has an 12:30am to 5:30am curfew, so we could not leave the apartment before 5:30. We walked out the door at exactly 5:30am, packs on our backs, headed to the metro. 

They had washed the streets overnight so they were a bit slippery. They must be disinfecting the pavement because the faint smell of chlorine permeated the cool morning air. The metro was running.

 We arrived at the dock (E7) at 6:25 and found the ship backed up to the landing already loading cars and trucks. We walked up the passenger loading ramp, handed over our COVID health papers, flashed our electronic tickets at the scanner and rode the escalators to deck 6 to begin our 7 hours cruise to Santorini. 

We walked to the back of the ship to watch the loading process and found a table and chairs a few feet from the railing to plop our packs and butts in. We removed them (butts) from time to time over the next 8 hours, but generally remained planted, enjoying the views, the fresh air and our introduction to the Agean Sea. The boat stopped at Paros, Naxos and Ios to deposit and take on cars and people, then cruised into the caldera that Santorini encloses and backed up to the quay to disgorge us onto the island.

We found a public bus parked nearby, and after ascertaining that it would come close to the Lodos Hotel, we put our packs in the hold below and boarded. Once underway, the ticket seller collected payment from the passengers, 2 euros for the ride. The road switchbacks up the inside wall of the caldera until it reaches the rim.

 Once on top, we made our way north toward Thera, the main city on the island. The driver dropped us at a bus stop adjacent to the Lodos Hotel. We walked down the access road and into the registration lobby to meet Renos. A half an hour of conversation and instructions and we were in our room.

Sally and I were thinking this would be the low point in accommodations for our month in Greece, but to our surprise we found it comfortable and more than adequate. A quick shower and a few moments of organization and we were out the door and hoofing it up the road to Thera.

When I was researching places to stay I read about the 3/4 mile walk up to town, but when cruising over it in Google Earth I could not see sidewalks and imagined walking on the shoulder of a fairly busy road. In reality, the fairly busy road gets upgraded to very busy, but there is a sidewalk. Luckily, the hotel is off the road, so the noise is a bit distant.

Bill Caldwell, this is right up your alley. Across the highway is a bakery that is open 24 hours a day. Only 100 yards away! 

We stopped in to sample their offerings on our way up to Thera to explore. We found they also have deli type items, including a to-die-for spinach pastry.  OMG was it good. With pastry consumed, we walked up to Thera to find it mostly empty, just like everywhere else on this charmed trip. We walked the length and breadth of the town, taking in the hundreds of restaurants and trinket shops with employees idly looking for non-existent customer. 

But, what our eyes were really drawn to was the tremendous beauty of this expansive and exquisite volcanic caldera that lay 1500ft below us. What a spectacular geologic feature! It is fascinating to see how enterprising humans have built right on top of the ridge, extending their habitations and businesses as far as possible down the inside of the near vertical crater wall. All are painted blindingly white with blue trim. From the boat they look like snow on the ridge line. 

This volcano is dormant, but not dead. A few good earthquakes could dislodge many of these buildings from the rim and send them sliding down to the sea. Let’s hope they were built under the inspection of earthquake codes. 

We finished up our tour about 7:15pm, had a gelato and decided to stay for the sunset, which is the main attraction for the island. We checked our phones and found it occurred at exactly 8:30pm, about an hour to kill. 

Rick Steves warns in his book of the tremendous crush of people that fill every vantage point on the ridge to secure a prime viewing spot. He warns to pick your spot an hour before sunset and defend it vigorously. 

Our “crowd” was about 25 people milling about or passing through. The 100s of tables in restaurants all along the ridge were 95% empty with waiters standing around twiddling their thumbs (this is a mental image-I didn’t actually see any of them twiddling their thumbs).

By 8:10pm all the benches along the open area were full (6 benches, 2 or 3 people to a bench) with about 2 dozen others milling about. At 8:20pm the sun set into a cloud bank. A few people who had read their phones to find the setting time showed up in the next few minutes only to disappointedly walk away having missed the show. But! The sun re-emerged below the clouds and put on a fine display as it glowed red and sank to and finally below the horizon. Show over.

We walked the 3/4 miles back to the hotel, stopping at the 24 hour bakery to get a treat (a cookie each, a slice of a chicken pie like pastry, another helping of spinach pie) and then to home and to bed. What a wonderful day!

Day 5-Saturday, May 29, 2021 - Free Form Day

How can you top the Acropolis?  Once you’ve seen the best, the rest are second best, right? So, was today a let down day?  Heck no!  We had a list of things to see, the question was, which to do. The Ancient Agora site was high on our list, as was the Olympic Stadium. Everything else, Hadrian’s Library, Psyrii (a district in Athens), the National Archeology Museum, the National Gardens and others held about equal sway in our choice of things to see and do. We didn’t lay out our day like usual, we just decided to see the Ancient Agora site and then see where the day took us.

We moved the hands on our body clocks forward another hour and awoke at 7:00am. We were out the door a little after 8:55am. We walked down Ermou Rd to Monesterika Square, slipped out its backside and soon were at the Ancient Agora site by 9:30am. 

The Agora site is directly below the pass between Mars Hill and the Acropolis. The path the people of Athens took up to the Acropolis from this, their town site leads right up the hill and is called the Pantheanic Way. Yesterday we explored the top of this road that leads to their Gods, today we explore the bottom half of the road where their city was, Athens.

We plugged one end of our earbuds into our ears and the other into our iPhones, brought up the Rick Steves Agora Tour, hit the play button and found a comfortable 2500 year old cut stone to sit on and listen to the introduction.

We visited the entire site, guided by Mr. Steves narration and really enjoyed the experience. At one point, while viewing the Thalos, we sat on some flat stones to listen to the narration. After a minute we heard someone yelling at us. Oops. Don’t sit on the ancient stones, whether roped off or not. We moved to a bench.

After two hours we both felt we really had a good understanding of life in Athens between 550BC and 200AD. With my eye, I could follow the Pantheanic 

Way up to the Parthenon and imagine the procession up this road, thru this amazing marble town once a year to bring a wool blanket to their God and patron saint of the town, Athena. Super interesting. With the climate, olive trees, fresh air, stunning views and open country I can see why people liked living here.

Did I mention that we were literally the only ones here? There were docents and such spotted around the open fields of the Angora and the Stoa of Atalos, but no other visitors. Just Rick, Sally, me and the docents. As we were finishing up we did see a family near the Stoa, but that was it. We are spoiled beyond measure. It will be hard to suffer a crowd in future trips.

Agora. Check. Now what?  Tomorrow we catch a ship to Santorini. We have our tickets, but not our required health form. I am able to download it to our phones, but can’t fill it out nor print it. With the subway to the port, Pireus, right here next to the Agora, we decided to do a dry run of our early morning journey tomorrow, go to the port pick up the health paper and check out the dock. 

The metro only took 15 minutes and the Blue Ferries office was right across the street from the subway station. We waited almost the length of the subway ride in the office to get our form, then returned to Monestrika via the Metro. One hour elapsed time and a little peace of mind for our early morning run tomorrow.Sally had read Rick’s description of the Psyrii district, adjacent to the Monesterika Square. His book has a written tour, so with digital copy of the book in hand, we waded into the Psyrii district. Well worth it!! He has picked out the amazing things to see in this seedy yet gentrifying area. We had amazing bread rings at the bakery that supplies this area of Athens with baked goods and had the most amazing pastries/meat pies on the  open square. We toured the open fruit and vegetable market and the open meat and fish market (amazing!) then began to head back to Monesterika Square when we realized we were fairly close to the National Archeology Museum, a must see according to Rick. Also, I noticed my phone was no longer getting data. It appears I had used my 3Gb allotment in 2 days. Wow, that went fast. This was deja vu all over again. I now remember having this same trouble on other trips. I hate running blind without data (maps, info, etc). Sally still had data. 

We used her phone to navigate toward the museum, about a mile away. About halfway there we walked past an independent phone shop. We stopped in to see if the owner could interpret the texts I had gotten from the provider as the nearest Compote store was a mile in the wrong direction. He read through it all and said I must go to the store where I bought the data to refill my data. He pointed through his wall and said it was right behind his store. We walked around the block and found a branch of the chain store I had purchased the SIMM card from. We bought another 5 Gb each for 20 euro each and were back on our way. It was nice to have data again, especially as we are leaving Athens tomorrow morning and finding a shop to up our data might be difficult.

 I went through the system settings on both our phones and turned off all data sucking apps, then put both on airplane mode, vowing not to take it off except for super brief intervals to access necessary data.

We arrived at the back of the museum and circled it to find the entrance. We checked my pack outside the entrance, entered, paid, used the restroom and then began our tour, again guided by Rick’s excellent audio tour. We had arrived at he museum about 3:30pm. It took us about 2 hours to do the tour and inspect the artifacts in the museum. It was wonderful and amazing! And . . . 

You guessed it, Sally, me, Rick and the docents (plus about 5 other people). The place to check your bag is huge with hundreds of cubby’s and racks to hold everything. There were three bags, including mine.

We left the museum about 5:45pm. Originally, we had talked about taking an Uber back to our apartment, but we found we were only a mile away and almost on our road, so we decided to walk.

A quick rest at the apartment and Sally started dreaming about seeing the purple trees in the National Garden that we had seen from the observation area at the Acropolis. 

We were back out the door about 7:15pm, in search of the purple trees. We walked to the National Garden and entered from the east side. It is surprising how thick the vegetation is in the garden, obscuring our view and making it difficult to spot a grove of purple trees. Sally started asking people along the paths if they knew where the purple trees were. From their information we got a general idea of which way to navigate through this 60 acre forest. After 20 minutes of searching we found the tree lined lane sporting these beautiful trees with purple blooms. A photography session ensued, but the lighting was not right to capture their beauty.

We walked home through the gardens, stopping for a Gyro sandwich and fries at a street side cafe in our neighborhood before continuing on to our apartment, arriving about 8:30pm. We both packed for a quick departure in the morning, then Sally researched more about the elements of our trip ahead and cleaned the apartment while I blogged. We were in bed about 11:00pm.

Our unplanned and incoherent day turned out fantastic. We learned about Agora and its connection to the Acropolis, got our sailing day tomorrow all prepared, visited the Psyrii district and ate amazing food, toured the Archeological Museum and explored the National Gardens and its amazing purple trees (Jacaranda Trees). We are so lucky, so spoiled, so fortunate. Life is good

Day 4-Friday, May 28, 2021 - Acropolomania

Greece. The birthplace of democracy. The home of the great thinkers and philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. The Parthenon. The Acropolis!  This is the day we visit the Acropolis. Literally, the city on the hill. 

Thursday night we spent time discussing which was better, visit the Acropolis first, then go to the museum or the other way around. See it, then have it interpreted or see the interpretation and then go see the actual. If we go to the Acropolis first we beat the midday heat and see it in the cool of the morning. That’s a plus. But will we be looking at stuff without knowing what we are looking at?  No context? The high temp for Friday was only 81°. Not bad, although there is zero shade up on top. hmmm . . . what to do?  We settled on Museum first, Acropolis second. Maximize the learning. 

We are still adjusting our internal clocks to 10 time zones from normal. Today we rose at eight, two hours earlier than yesterday, but still 10 o’clock at night Toledo time. A bit of a fight to wrestle the hands of our internal clocks to new positions, but we want to get in sync with this time zone. 

To save some time and steps we rode the subway from Syntagma station to the Acropolis station, then walked up to the museum. We arrived at 9:35am and found it closed. What?  We thought it opened at 8:00. Nope, 10:00 am. Rick was wrong!?!  Wow. That hasn’t happened before. We found a shady curb to sit on and read up on the Acropolis and the museum while we waited. A woman, mid 50’s, in a bright yellow cotton dress with yellow tennis shoes sat next to us.  She was from Russia. We saw her off and on the rest of the day as it was hard to miss her. She definitely stood out in a crowd. A bright yellow mass in a sea of other colors. 

The crowd at the museum entrance 

At 9:59am we stood and walked the 30 feet to the stairs leading down to the entrance to the museum, ready to merge into the throngs of tourists that typically gather at the entrance at opening time. There were 6 of us.

This museum has won awards for excellence. They are well deserved. In short, the first two floors are artifacts from around the Parthenon up on the Acropolis. The top floor is the clincher. It is the same size as the Parthenon, artfully built from stainless steel columns with the relics from the site held in their exact positions and recreations dotted here and there, allowing us to see how it looked 2500 years ago. All the while, the walls of the museum are nothing but windows allowing you to see up to the Acropolis and out across the city of Athens. Wow! And, an excellent movie showing the history of the Acropolis and its changes over 3000 years.

Sally and I spent about 2 hours. We came away with an excellent understanding of the history, structure and culture of the Acropolis. Now, what to do next. You maybe asking, “What’s the problem?!?  Go to the actual Acropolis and see it!!”

Well, that’s a good idea, except it is 81º, there is no shade on top, it is now exactly midday and I am traveling with a heat sensitive red head.

We retired to a cafe for a Gyro sandwich and a Pepsi to discuss options. We could wait until evening and go up for the sunset (although the hill closes at 8:00pm and the sun sets at 9:00pm). We could go later in the afternoon, but it stays warm well into the late afternoon. hmmmm . . .

With food in our stomachs our minds began to focus - go now while the information from the museum was still fresh.  There was a gentle but steady wind blowing that promised to cool us and the high was only to be 81, not 100 or something!

We circled back past the museum and up the slope toward the pass between Mars Hill and the Acropolis. At the pass, we walked up on Mars Hill for a view of the Acropolis above and the city of Athens below. 

Once off Mars Hill we headed toward the entrance station to the Acropolis. We could see the winding cattle gates used to hold the crush of people clamoring to be let in. We could also see that the ropes down the center had been removed allowing us to walk straight to the ticket taker. There was NO ONE here. 

We had our tickets scanned and began the final climb up to the city on the hill. We stopped a little ways up to look down into the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a 5000 seat amphitheater built into the side of the hill in 161 AD.  A few photos and on up to the entrance to the Acropolis, the Propylaea. 

This is a massive marble entrance with pillars and roof. Of course, 2500 years and many government and conquering civilizations have taken their toll on it, yet enough still stands to create the same imposing entrance.  Of course, this whole time we are listening to Rick Steves tour as he puts the whole scene into context. We cannot say enough good things about his recorded tours, corny, topical, very informative, just long enough and with just enough information to peak your interest but never overbearing.  The best way to visit a site like this.

At this point we are on top with the Parthenon ahead and off to the right and the Erichtheion with the Porch of the Caryatids off to the left. We shared the “City on the Hill” with about 10 people. 

We did the appropriate amount of oohing and aaaahing at the massive, yet terribly degraded structure while standing in the sun eyeing the details as they are pointed out in the tour, then retired to a shaded bench on the side of the water closet to listen to the detail, take in the view and avoid the sun. 

We walked around the Parthenon to see it from all sides, then over to view the ladies holding up the roof of the porch of the Erichtheion. 

Robby, Sally and I had watched a video on Greece before we left. When talking about this structure, they dressed 6 women in the same attire and marble color as the carved statues supporting the room, colored their exposed skin the same as the marble and had them stand still on a recreated set. Then, later they had the women dancing in place, as if the statues had come to life. Robby really enjoyed this optical illusion. We made sure we got good picture of the real recreations in place up here on the Acropolis to share with him as well as the originals now housed in the museum below.

More ogling from the top and we started down. We stopped in the shade of the olive trees for a break from the sun and ran into the Ukrainian couple we had talked to while up on top. We chatted in the trees for about 15 minutes, then they headed for a bus to the airport to participate in a tennis tournament in Crete. We headed down the hill, stopped to check where we wanted to go, climbed back up to the Mars Hill pass, then walked down the Theories path until we could drop down into the Plaka district. We wanted to have the seafood dinner at the restaurant when the patron had shared his food the day before and were headed that way, but we were both thirsty. The sodas at the restaurant are $2.50 for a 250ml bottle. I knew I could drink at least 1000mL and wasn’t interested in paying $10 for the honor of doing so. A block before the restaurant I spotted a hole in the wall mom and pop quickly store and stopped to buy 3-330mL cans of Diet Coke 2 for me and 1 for Sally. We downed those pretty quick, then entered the outside seating of the restaurant for shrimp, mussels and calamari. About 5 or 6 tables were occupied, yet the waiters recognized us from yesterday and came over to chat. We had a great meal, a little expensive for my taste, the headed for our apartment, about a mile away. We got back about 5:40pm. I took a shower and typed on the blog, Sally rested and researched tomorrow’s activities, creating a list. 

I thought we were done for the night, but Sally rallied and suggested we walk out and see the Parthenon lit up after dark. Yes!! We left about 8:00pm. Not dark yet, but we had to figure out a good vantage point to view the Parthenon. Although clear on the opposite side, we settle on a view from Mars Hill. As we walked back through town, retracing our steps of a few hours earlier we heard operatic singing coming from the ruins of Hadrian’s Library. 

We walked up to the fence overlooking the field where the library once stood and found a full orchestra and a slip of a girl in a flowing dress singing magnificently. We stopped at the fence to listen and ended up in a conversation with two Israelis and a just graduated college kid from Arkansas, out traveling for the summer. We discussed traveling, school, careers and life in general, all agreed we were spoiled and very very lucky, then Sally and I began climbing the stairs back up to the path to Mars Hill.  By now it was dark and the Friday night crowd of locals were out. Crowd is a little strong for the term to describe the scene. Be it said, we were not alone. Especially when we climbed back on Mars Hill. This is where the lovers come to view the city lights, hang with friends and spend the late evening. We FaceTimed Robby to show him the Parthenon lit up at night, took a few photos, then headed down to the Acropolis Metro Station to ride home. In doing so, we had completely circled the Acropolis. When we got to the turn off to the metro station we decided walking home would do us good and the night was so warm and perfect who wanted to go underground and miss it? We walked back through the tourist district, pass the bars and restaurants, up through Syntagma Square and back to our apartment.  It was now about 10:45pm.

What a great day!!  About 9 miles covered, lots learned, great experiences, and the Parthenon and Acropolis. Wow!!

However, I did come away a little disappointed. Somehow in my mind I had this impression that the Parthenon and Athens was the seat of democracy. I think it was a holdover from Disney depictions in their Sunday nights shows I watched as a kid and what I picked up in school when not paying the attention I should have been. It was a little startling to realize they expended all that effort in mining the marble, shaping it, transporting it 16 miles, lugging it up to the top and erecting this geometrically proportioned and optically illusionary perfect structure for a religious deity!  Really? You carved a 40 foot high stature of her and put her inside instead of housing a legislative body or enshrining a constitution or creating a institution for study and advancing the world’s knowledge? Really!? I thought the world’s greatest minds, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and the rest would put their intellect to greater use. I agree with Vencini from the Princess Bride, “You’ve heard of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato? Morons!” 

Day 3-Thursday, May 27, 2021 - 70 minutes = 7 hours.

It has become our habit to always do a Rick Steves tour of the city we enter as our first action. His walking tours help us to understand the layout of the city, its history, the points of interest we will want to explore in depth later and a taste of the culture. The free tours are usually about 70-80 minutes long, available as a podcast or downloadable from his “Europe” app. Knowing jet lag and time zone shift would be an issue on our first day in Athens, doing his tour is the only activity we planned for today. Sleep in, do the tour, see how we feel, prepare for a bigger day tomorrow.

However, even with our lack of sleep across the three flights of the previous two days, sleep did not come easy the night before our tour. Exhausted, we had climbed in bed about 9:30pm. Unfortunately, that is 11:30am Toledo time, which our bodies were still operating on. Even though we were super tired, we lay there only resting, trying to will ourselves to sleep. It was well past 2:00am when we fell asleep, but I didn’t wake again until 9:45am. That was later than I had hoped, but the extra sleep couldn’t hurt.

With phones, earbuds, downloaded audio tour, extra battery and a little sunscreen, we headed out into the streets of downtown Athens. 

Before we began our tour, we had critical work to be done. We needed to get active Greek SIMM cards in our phones so we could access the Internet with its maps, messaging, information, etc without incurring a $15 a day charge from ATT. We found the shop Athina had suggested. 5 clerks, no customers. We were instantly helped and given 10 Gb of data, 300 minutes of talk and unlimited messaging for 30 days for 21 euros. Eat that ATT. With our phones active again, we headed out to begin our tour.

Our tour began in Syntagma (SEEN-dag-ma) Square, where we got off the subway yesterday. The traffic through the downtown streets was heavy. We threaded our way through the cars, trucks, lights and mopeds and arrived at the square. A lot of the tour is standing in one place getting the history and the geographic connections to the next places. We sat in the shade of a bus stop shelter and listened about how one of the big attractions in Athens is the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier, which was right across the busy 6 lane street in front of us. With luck, it was happening right then and we watched it from a distance from our bus shelter. We both giggled at the description of “one of Athen’s biggest attractions”. Including us, there were 8 people watching, 6 on the other side of the street and us. THERE IS NO ONE HERE! We were hoping to “thread the needle” between the opening of Greece from its 6 month lock down due to COVID and the return of the tourists and cruise ships. This was our first hint that our thread had found its mark. We walked down Ermou Street, a pedestrian only roadway as we listed to Rick in our earbuds tell us about how crowded the street is;  lined with busy and exhausted shoppers. All we saw were a couple dozen locals and shop keepers standing in their doorways looking for customers.

 A small Orthodox Church is part of the walking tour. I enjoyed seeing the inside of one for the first time, the layout of the building, the iconography painted on the ceilings and wall, the small intimate space. Back outside, we passed down a lane with small mom and pop stores lining it. We stopped to eye some Greek style dresses outside one of them and the owner came out, bubbling with excitement when he learned we were from America. He offered everything in his store at 50% if we would just “PLEASE” buy something. He told us how he had to layoff 7 girls that worked the two adjacent shops, how he couldn’t afford to keep his credit card reader account active. We spotted a Lapiz pendent that Sally has been searching for and purchased it for 30 euro-50% off. We had seen the same in Mexico for $130, so we felt good about the price. He was even more excited to have 30 euros in his hands. “GOD BLESS AMERICA!” he shouted as he bumped elbows with us as we walked out of the open air shop. 

We stopped at two more churches on the tour, one large, one tiny, then Sally spotted a Pepsi logo on a restaurant and we had to stop in for her first Pepsi in Athens.

The proprietor greeted and sat us, brought us our Pepsis and we then began a long discussion about just opening, no customers, hope the Americans come in July and August. We were only one of two table occupied in this outdoor restaurant of 40 tables. The discussion turned to seafood and he began describing their calamari, mussels, shrimp, etc. 

The other occupied table was obviously a local and had a spread of just this seafood. We went to inspect. We returned to our table. As we sat down, we noticed the waiter grabbing calamari and shrimp off the other customer’s platters and putting it on small plates which he brought to us. What!?!  It was delicious! We went to thank him for sharing a sampler of his meal and another discussion ensued. Such warm and friendly people.

On our way again, we walked through the “busiest tourist street in Athens”, selling trinkets and such. Again, maybe . . . maybe 10 people in the 1/2 mile long stretch. Amazing.

We visited Hadrian’s Arch, then walked down the the highway to a bank machine to get cash. Most shops were asking for cash, having turned off their card machines. We visited with a nut vendor on the street and two restaurant owners as we made our way up toward the Acropolis. 

The tour does not hit the Acropolis, that is a separate day, but veers into the Anafiotika section clinging to the side of steep hill below. 30 feet up the path into this unique area of Athens we found a 69 year old retired man now a street musician under the foliage strumming his mandolin type instrument. Sally was ahead of me by a few paces as I was taking a few photos of Athens below. By the time I got there they were in full discussion of world politics, AirB&B, immigrants and grandkids. We talked for 15-20 minutes, getting the Greek view of the world before he serenaded us with “Never on a Sunday”. I left 2 euro in his case and we moved on.

Hopefully, it is beginning to become apparent why the 90 minute tour was creeping close to 4 hours. 

We toured the Anafiotika neighborhood with its narrow passageways, white 

buildings and lush vegetation before emerging out the other side, then dropping down into the Plaka area - tourist central of Athens - at the base of the Acropolis. 

We had dinner on the sidewalk, snared in by a Greek waiter born in Brooklyn. We were looking for dinner as it was not 5:30, and this turned out to be a great spot. We were the only ones served in the 50 minutes we were there. Much conversation ensued between us and the 5 idle waiters as they scanned the street for non-existent customer. Mousaka and Greek Salad. Delicious. 18.00 euros. 

We finished the tour at Monistirika Plaza, walked to the entrance to Agora to buy museum passes for tomorrow (it was now 7:30pm) and then we headed for home, about a mile and a half away. Our path took us back through Syntagma Square.  It was now filled with hundreds of people carrying red flags with the hammer and sickle.  

It was a massive communist party rally. The fiery speaker bellowed at the microphone while loudspeakers, the cone shaped ones reminiscent of Nazi germany blared all around the square. We mingled with the communists, took a few photos, tried to remember a successful and fair communist government, couldn’t, rejected the notion and headed for our room. 

We stopped at the local grocery and purchased eggs, yogurt, cheese and pop to carry us through Saturday night, then continued to our flat about a block away. It was now 8:30.  Another sleepless night, neither of us falling asleep until well after 2:00am.

What a great introduction to Athens. So many friendly people. We both went schizophrenic. We loved being the only ones in town, able to see and do everything without a crowd, while at the same time felt terribly sorry for the locals, so dependent on tourist money that is non-existent. Hopefully, when we leave, the tourists will come and save the Greek economy.

Day 2-Wednesday, May 26, 2021 - Amsterdam to Athens-Getting Tired

Amazing. Usually, when you board an airplane the airline employees are very controlled and orderly in getting everyone onto the airplane. Not this flight. The attendants at the gate seemed confused and disorganized. They didn’t make announcements on the intercom. The crowd waiting to board was all standing and milling around, yet no announcements were made. The crew seemed fixated on a few people off to the side of the gate.  We were already past the boarding time by about 10 minutes. Sally and I stood up and approached the gate. No one waved us away. We stepped up, scanned our own tickets at the machine and walked onto the plane. No one took notice. When we reached the plane I jokingly asked, yet really wanted to know, “This is the plane to Athens, right?” As no announcements were made. The attendant laughed and said yes. We found our seats and settled in, noticing the plane was nearly empty and we were five minutes from our scheduled take off time. It took another 15 minutes for people to filter onto the plane. It filled up. We could see the baggage handlers outside taking bags out of the plane. Really? The 30 something kid next to me in the window seat was Greek, returning home from LA where he worked in the movie industry. His accent was thick, he talked fast and with the face mask I could barely understand him. He was fun with sparkling eyes, but conversation was nearly impossible. 

It was 1:00 in the afternoon, Amsterdam time. That is 3:00 in the morning Toledo time. We’d been up 23 hours. We were getting tired. The fully loaded plane finally took flight 45 minutes late. Sally fell asleep and slept the whole flight. I amused myself watching a movie I had downloaded at the airport and trying to play solitaire on my phone, but found my mental acuity was really off.

Once on the ground in Athens we passed through one check point where they wanted to see our vaccination card, then we were on our own. At this point it seemed too easy after all the other impediments.We found the metro line, paid 9 euros each and found our way to the platform. The ride to Syntagma Square took an hour.  

It is always a little disorienting coming up from the underground in a new city, but the sun was setting in the west, making it easy to find our way NE toward our B&B. 

On the long train ride in from the airport I realized I had not contacted Athina, the owner of our AirB&B from the Athens airport to let her know we had arrived and that we were running an hour late. Once we left the airport we had no cell service, leaving us without communications. On the streets, we searched for a business that would let us log into their WiFi to contact her, but to no avail. Our AT&T service charges $10 a day for internet in an overseas country. I didn’t want to use it do to it’s outrageous price, but I knew Athina was waiting to hear from us so I flipped my phone off airplane mode and sent her a text while Sally and I stood outside Solonos 18. Within 45 seconds she opened the door and welcomed us in. 

I had forgotten we had rented a full apartment with kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. As Athina and her daughter showed us the place I was thinking, “Uh-oh, we only have the bedroom and these two have the rest of the space. It will do, but not the level of privacy we like. I was slow to realize all this space was ours. Not until they headed out the door did I fully understand we had the space to ourselves. Athina, the mom, did not speak english, so she had her late 20’s daughter with her to interpret. They were super helpful, giving us restaurant suggestions for the evening and finding a great place to get Greek SIMM cards for our phones.  As they prepared to leave I again apologized for not contacting them from the airport and making them wait. They dismissed my concerns and left. 

We connected to the WiFi, found a place to eat, cleaned up just a bit, and headed out the door to the “healthy” restaurant a block away. We had now been up for 30 hours and were ready to get some sleep. A nice meal and we were back for showers and bed.

Day 1-Tuesday, May 25, 2021 - Catch 72

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Portland Oregon en route to Los Angeles en route to Amsterdam 

CATCH 72

My apologies to Joesph Heller, although my Catch 72 and his Catch 22 have a few commonalities.  Both involve airplanes. Both involve flying over bodies of water. Both involve constantly changing government rules, regulations and restrictions.

To save money, we searched the Internet to find the cheapest flight to Athens.  We concocted the plan to fly to Los Angeles to catch a one stop flight to Athens, passing through Amsterdam. At $635 compared to $1400, it looked like a great deal . . . And it was. However, we neglected to understand the restrictions in place in the Netherlands regarding COVID. After we had booked the flights (PDX -> LAX, LAX -> AMS, AMS -. ATH) we discovered the Netherlands requires a negative COVID test to enter. No problem. But, they want the test taken 72 hours before landing. We booked our flight for a Wednesday landing (late Tuesday night Toledo time), meaning our test needed to be administered on Sunday. Kaiser, our healthcare provider is not open on Sunday. They suggested a Saturday afternoon test, but that would be too early by about 8 hours. We would land in Amsterdam 80 hours after our test. Switch to Rite-Aid for a Sunday morning test, no problem. Our test was at 11:00am.  60 hours before our landing. No problem . . . Except the test takes up to 72 hours to get results and maybe longer if they are slammed with test requests. Catch 72. The earliest we could get a test was 60 hours before landing. The test takes 72 hours to get results. Without the results upon landing in Amsterdam we are not allowed to get our connecting flight to Athens and must wait at the airport until the results come through. Catch 72. As of this writing we are 44 hours post test and still no results. We may vacation in Amsterdam for an extended period of time before we move on to Athens. Travel in the age of COVID.

Bill and Pat Caldwell offered to drive us to Portland Monday afternoon and deposit us in the Best Western Pony Soldier Inn, our jump off point. We thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet of our empty hotel room. We spent the afternoon reading, about Athens, the news, Facebook posts, the Corfu Trail, etc. Both of us were amazed at how exhausted we felt and relished the chance to lie on the beds, uninterrupted and semi-comatose.

Taking Flight

We were up at 4:00am this morning. We fell asleep at 8:30 last night, giving us 7+ hours of sleep. We felt rested. After a breakfast of oatmeal and apples in a cup and some Kind Apple Cinnamon cereal, a shower and a quick inventory of our stuff, we caught the taxi the hotel had ordered for us and headed to PDX.

Has something happened to cause the TSA agents to change from mean to kind? Everyone we dealt with was conversational, friendly and helpful.

We had an hour to hang around waiting for our flight to board. When they started calling up the boarding groups (A,B,C,D,E) we realized how empty our flight would be.  Only one person boarded for each group A-C, D had about 10 people and E (the cheap seats at the back of the plane-meaning us) had about 15 people. Lots of room on this flight.

I nerded out on the takeoff and climb to altitude, tracking our progress with a GPS app. 

Since hiking the PCT, flying over California has become an emotional trip down memory lane. I can see every foot of the trail, all the landmark geographic features, the lakes I swam in, the rivers I crossed, the mountains the trail skirts around. It brings back memories of the ecstasy I feel when out on the trail and the people I shared it with, including Derek from Ireland, EMT from Bellevue, Huck Finn, Top Notch and others. I have to get back on the trail next summer-any trail-as long as it is long both in distance and time.

LAX

Remember how this post started, all that talk of Catch 72? Well, we nearly got bitten by it.

We landed about 9:50, deplaned and walked for 40 minutes to get to our departure gate (221) through a labyrinth of passages under the airport.  The hallways were wide and well lit with interesting historical and geographical information artfully placed on the walls to distract us from the reality of walking the length of the airport in tunnels under taxi ways.

We were quite surprised to see NO ONE at the gate. Granted, we were three hours early, but I have never seen a concourse so empty (see photo). 

We chose a comfy seat by the big windows, ate our lunch of apples, cheese and sandwiches I had packed yesterday, and patiently cruised on our phones, waiting for our flight to board at 1:15.  

About 12:50 I heard our name called over the public address system requesting we come to the counter. Upon arrival, they asked to see our passport and the negative COVID test results.Uh-oh. Sally was in the bathroom at the time. I explained the Catch 72 senario in four part harmony with circles and arrows on the back of each passport and they stopped me right there and said, “KID, have you got a negative COVID test?” I said no, but showed them the email proving I had had the the test and was waiting for the results. Sally arrived about this time. The attendant, a man of about 45 was kind and patient and said I should call the lab and see when it would be done. I called Rite-Aid and was told there was no number to call, but was given an email address to use to request a status update. I fired off a quick email, then reconsidered and called Rite-Aid again to demand a phone number. He said he didn’t have one and the lab didn’t give it out or they would be inundated with calls. Sounded logical. I reported my findings to the attendant. It was now 1:00pm and they were making preparations to board passengers. He told me it would be up to his supervisor to decide if we could board. She arrived and said to pursue proof until 1;20, then return to the desk and they would decide our fate. At 1:10 I got a form email from PNWHealth with phone number on it. I called immediately. As the seconds ticked by the voice at the other end of the line said she was sure it would be completed by tomorrow and that if I really wanted to find out to call the lab, not PNWHealth. She did not have a number. 1:15. I searched the web for Biolab Research and found an office in New Jersey or Chicago-it is all a blur now. Didn’t see anything from Washington. I called, hoping to be transferred or given a proper number. The receptionist told me I had reached the right number and that she could help me. A country wide operation!  She searched her database for our names and could not find us. I reminded her we had the test in Centrailia Washington and she was on the east coast or mid west or something but she insisted I had the right place to inquire about it. The fact that she had no record of our test told her it had not been entered in the system and was probably waiting to be added. Not a comforting idea. I quizzed her repeatedly about the whole issue and came away satisfied that she knew her stuff, but dismayed that they hadn’t even looked at our test yet.

It was now 1:22 and time to face the desk. Sally had already walked over. I followed, ready to relay our findings. The clerk began to ask what we had found when the supervisor, out of the blue, said we were okay to board. huh?  I guess our proof of vaccination and elderly countenances found her pity bone and she cleared us for take off. After a few minutes of confusion with our electronic boarding passes, they issued us paper ones and we were walking down the jetway.

While on the plane, waiting to pull away from the terminal I continued to call and write pleading emails to the lab to expedite our tests so they would be complete when we got to Amsterdam in 10 hours. 

I even bought an hour of internet on the plane to continue my begging. What are our chances they will be done when we land. My prediction is zero. One big goose egg. We will see what sense of humor the Dutch authorities have.

While on the plane Sally struck up a conversation with a lady (Sally? Really?) and found out a man on the plane did not even try for a COVID test. He is traveling on to Nigeria after Amsterdam. Curiouser and Curiouser.  Catch 72. We are living it.

Amsterdam 

The flight seemed short.  How can that be, it lasted 10 hours. Smooths and uneventful.  After about 4 hours I found a row of four center seats unoccupied, lifted all the arm rests and made a full bed.  I spent most of the flight there, prone and dozing off and on. We landed in Amsterdam at 9:00am (Midnight Toledo time). Sally didn’t sleep a wink and watched three movies. We began to wonder what would happen at the gate.

We deplaned and walked up the jet way. A line had formed as it entered the terminal. We saw three airport officials checking passports and COVID vaccination forms. Uh-oh!

Sally surveyed their demeanors and picked the kindest looking man to engage, a man in his 60’s with kind eyes.  I quickly brought up the email that verified we had been tested, even though the results were not in. He checked our passports and then asked for our vaccination proof. Then he asked for our negative PCR results. We quickly explained that we had tested Sunday morning, but that our tests were not back yet. He surveyed my email stating we had gotten the test, asked if we were traveling on today. We said yes, in just a few hours. He thought a moment, closed our passports, handed them back and welcomed us to the Netherlands, with a smile. Really? We’re in? We love the Dutch. Kindest people on the planet.  Woo hoo, on to Athens.