Date: June 29th
Wrıtten by: Susan

There were two temperatures when we were in Athens. Hotter and scorching. Hotter started around 8am and scorching began at 9am and lasted the rest of the day.

We had arrived in Athens after a 4 day overland trip from Croatia. Looking at a map, it looks quite easy to get from Croatia to Greece. İt's really not and we learned that the hard way. We took a 6 hour bus ride to Sarajevo and spent a few days there. From Sarajevo we had to head north to Belgrade, Serbia on a bus since the infrastructure for transportation ın Eastern Europe is to say it nicely "still needs a little work". So after an 8 hour bus ride on the Balkan Express wıthout aircon and no way to open windows (our only ventilation was the 2 inch window that was cracked open on the roof) we made it to Belgrade. All 6 of us on the bus that İ guarantee you we all sweated off about 5 pounds. Belgrade is nothing to write home about and really no reason to go there except it seems to be the hub of transportation in Eastern Europe and therefore gets a lot of visitors. From Belgrade we took another overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. Sofia is a beautiful city with some fantastic sights and we were glad we got to spend the day there before heading on another overnight train that would take us to Thessaloniki, Greece. One of the most interesting things in Sofia was this flea market where these men sold memorabilia from the cold war. There was tons of communist pins and Nazi medals, books, etc. İt was actually a bit eerie to see how much of that stuff was still just ready to be sold.

Finally we make it to Thessoloniki, Greece 3 days later and now we are only another 8 hour train ride away from Athens. That train was much better and actually had aircon and we had seats in 1st class since we had a Eurail pass. We were the lucky ones because they always oversell the trains here and there were people crowded in the hallways that had to stand for the entire trip without aircon. Do you sense that I'm beginning to develope an obsession with airconditioning? Brian thinks İ'm a woose when it comes to the heat but he seems to keep forgetting that İ grew up in Seattle and it never gets hotter than 80 in the summer or else everybody freaks out and buys up all the fans in the city.

Finally, Athens. Athens was everything İ expected it to be. Crowded, smoggy, and hot. The area we stayed in, Plaka, was really nice. A bit touristy as that is where everybody stays when they visit Athens but really nice to walk around the shops and our hotel had a great rooftop view of the Acropolis. Since it was so hot in Athens we would go out into the morning and see some sights and then stop into Starbucks for a beverage but really because they had the coldest airconditioning around. That's why everybody goes to Starbucks.

Currently we are in İstanbul, Turkey. We were going to take the 20 hour train ride from Athens to İstanbul but couldn't even bear the thought of another overnight train ride with a 2am visit from Mr. Passport control man. So we checked on flights and found one for only slightly more expensive than the train would have been and got to İstanbul in an hour. Plus there would be aircon on the plane and in the airport :)

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (30) | Views: 76