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VACATION IN GREECE

Monday 7th May 2001

Up at 7 am for an early breakfast. I went into town at 9 am; firstly to call into the mail centre and arrange for our mail to be held while we're away, then to the optician to pick up the spare pair of glasses I had ordered. These have much darker photochromic lenses than my ordinary pair, and do not have progressive focus -- only a small close-up piece right at the bottom. These will be used for outside walking, and the close focus for reading maps etc.

Joanna was there when I returned; we had coffee, loaded the car up with bags, and drove to the Rotorua airport. We were able to check our big bags straight through to Singapore; as usual, my case got the orange 'heavy' tag!

Our plane to Auckland was a Metro -- I always say that this is the plane in which I assume the 'crash position' just sitting in the seat. It zipped us up to Auckland quickly enough, anyway. We walked from the domestic to the international terminal -- keeping the circulation going -- and joined our group at the appointed place.
They checked us in, and we went up to departures. I visited the bank counter and bought $100 Singapore, to have something in hand when we arrive. Then through the passport control, and Xray to the duty-free area. Joan took the opportunity to buy a couple of bottles of Bristol Creme sherry, to keep her fuelled over the coming weeks . We boarded the Singapore Airlines plane, and were off right on time at 2.30 pm.

The flight was routine enough; the food was interesting -- Joan said, not a choice she would normally make though. Arrived on schedule, were bused into Singapore and allotted a room. The hotel was (like all tour hotels) adequate -- has once been good and now has seen better days. There are tile problems in the bathroom, but the beds were comfortable. We made a hot drink from the materials supplied, and crashed at 11 pm. But, getting ready for bed, I discovered I had completely neglected to pack any nightshirts; so wore my swimming shorts in default of anything better.

Tuesday 8 May 2001,

The party gathered for breakfast, and we caught up with my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and his wife. They had arrived ahead of us on a separate plane from Christchurch, and were in bed when we booked in. A good help-yourself cooked breakfast set us up for the day. Most of the party elected to take the 3-hour bus tour; we set off for Orchard Road to try and find something for me to wear at night. Joan inquired at the desk and was advised to go to a certain shop called Robertsons which had western sizes.

Down the road and into the MRT underground train system; 80 cents each took us two stations to the Orchard Road shops. While looking for Robertsons, we found a branch of Marks and Spencer which had something called 'lounging gear'. This turned out to be a t-shirt and shorts and they had only two sets that fitted me. We had an iced coffee: the Asians are literal -- we expected a milky coffee, but got black coffee over ice... Our next search was for a very specialised bit of gear I had been unable to get in NZ: a 'modem saver'. This is a device which plugs into a hotel phone and into your modem, and is intended to protect the modem from the high voltages of digital PABX exchanges which are commonly found in hotels. As usual nobody knew what I was talking about, but I was finally directed into something called Lucky Plaza -- which was a rabbit warren of small stall-type shops, a lot of which were electronic.

At last, I found a lad whose face lighted up at my request; he vanished elsewhere and was back in a couple of minutes with the exact item I wanted. At $SNG 95, it was pricey, but much cheaper than replacing a fried modem. While I was waiting, another very competent Chinese lady found me a converter (Z-ring) and a polarising filter to fit the Nikon Coolpix. Another item difficult to obtain in NZ -- in fact, she said it was the only one she had seen.

We noticed that, having been up and down to Auckland a lot -- where there are a lot of Asians and Chinese, we did not notice much visible difference in the people, except not quite as many Europeans as at home. But it was noticeable that the locals don't seem to laugh or smile much, and the schoolgirls don't giggle like they do at home.

Back into the MRT for the trip back to our hotel. The short walk in the hot, sticky air made us glad to be back in the hotel air conditioning. We've had a rest and will get bags organised a little better for the next leg. We leave the hotel at 8 pm, and the plane leaves for Athens at 11 pm.

Wednesday 9th May 2001,

Duly left the hotel as above; the plane left a little late but arrived on time. The new International airport is still being fitted out, but is operational and very nice. No bags were missing; my hard work of painting orange stripes on the case corners has been brilliant -- the cases stand out from all the others on the 'band' as they seem to call the luggage carousel these days.

The bus ride into the city took an hour; and didn't improve my sore bottom either . Away from the new airport, the surrounding areas (that looked as if they had been undeveloped) had all been planted out in groves of trees in lines; we couldn't decide whether they were olives or not. Then we hit the city outkirts; they will have to do a lot of work before the Olympics -- most buildings were plain grimy, if not filthy.

Further in, there were gaps in the rows of old shops & houses where rebuilding was starting. We came into the city centre at about 7.30 am, and the traffic was starting to build. Suddenly, there was the Acropolis standing on its hill, dominating the city beneath. We dived into the old narrow streets (reminded me of central London) and pulled up outside the hotel. The Dorian Hotel has certainly seen better days, but it has what we need and is much cheaper than the up-market ones. We got our bags intalled in the room, then went straight down to the dining room for a breakfast. We had had a light breakfast on the plane -- but that was at 4.30 am and we needed something filling. Then back to our room for a bath (no high wall fitting for the shower attachment and no curtain).

The bath was short and narrow; consequently I needed assistance to get back out of it. I'll try a kneeling shower next . We had a short nap, then walked down the street to find a 'cambio', which is a foreign exchange converter. I swapped £100 into drachmae to give us a start. Back to the hotel, buying some small pastries on the way, and went into lunch. We had fish and veg, and then came back to our room. I'm going to break here and try to send this email; I tried in Singapore but the hotel switchboard detected I had put something in parallel with the phone and went into rapid beeping.

Hopefully better luck today.

Yes, the email send eventually worked; I am connecting to Wave using a special NZ phone number they gave me whch is intended for cellular phones. The POP refresh was quick, but the SMTP took about 45 seconds to handshake. All told, the connection took 2min 40secs -- don't know what it will cost me, but at least it works . We went up to the roof-top for a pre-dinner gathering; the bar dispensed us two glasses of fresh orange juice for 1800 drachmae = $NZ 12= $US5. We had dinner at 7.30 pm -- the Greeks dine late -- which was 3-course: a piece of Greek omelette, another round of fish (we should have picked a different lunch), and a square of cake with a syrup poured over it.
Then off to bed by 9.30 pm.

Thursday 10th May 2001,

The wakeup ring at 6.45 am found us already awake -- I was deciding whether to go up to the rooftop and take some dawn shots of the Parthenon, but there was a lot of cloud and I will try again when we return. After breakfast, we got luggage down to the lobby where the confusion was considerable, as there were two other tour groups departing at the same time. Loaded and away on time at 9 am to go through the Athens morning traffic. We were soon out in the suburbs and finally at the coast. The seaside suburbs were continuous; go round a point and there was another small town jammed full of summer houses and apartment buildings. Half-finished structures were everywhere; it seems the thing is to buy some land, put up a concrete shell with two or three floors, and leave it. They then wait for some interested purchaser, who can complete the building to suit. Some places have the bottom or middle floor completed and occupied, with the rest of the building gaping empty. Also most buildings have pieces of reinforcing sticking up on the roof to facilitate adding more stories.

There are a number of permanent residents in these towns, but the bulk of these homes are investments -- often by Greek expats -- or are rented out in the holiday season. Our first stop was at Sounos, to see the Temple of Poseidon (Greek God of the Sea). This stands on a point of land which is the southernmost piece of the Greek mainland. I should mention that we have a very good tour guide, speaking excellent English, who is very knowledgeable about Greek mythology and the local countryside. He told us all about Poseidon, and we walked round the remains of the temple.

The next stop was at Porto Rafti; this had much significance for the old soldiers. Bill (brother-in-law) took the microphone and described the place where the NZ troops were evacuated in boats to the waiting naval vessels. We are actually going back up the route of withdrawal over the next two days. Just down the road in the next bay, we pulled into a taverna for lunch. This had been pre-arranged; the interesting part was that the proprietor spoke little English, so the tour guide went round with him and helped with the selection of dishes. Joan had a dish called papoutsakia, which was egg-plant stuffed with mince and a cream sauce -- assessed as 'divine'. I had a meat ball and sauce dish with a rice salad. These together cost 3,400 drachmas -- about $NZ24, so it was very reasonable.

The bus carried on up the coast to Marathon. I should mention that the roads we had been travelling on were very narrow and winding -- and how the bus briver didn't scrape something, I'll never know. The guide mentioned that they were going to run the 2004 Olympic marathon over the original course; they're going to have fun coping with the traffic and crowds in Marathon and on the course unless they do something drastic in the next couple of years. We headed into the hills and went up a steep climb to the Marathon lake/reservoir. From there to a motorway and then to the island of Evia over a very modern suspension bridge. We bypassed Halkida and went straight to our hotel at Eretria. This is a purpose-built package tour hotel, and the room is cclean and adequate; albeit with no TV and aircon. We went out for a short walk round the adjacent complex and down to the beach before going in to dinner. This was a buffet-style meal, and the food was delicious. I'm going to finish this now; my idea was to send every couple of days, but this has been such an interesting day and I've written heaps. The temperature, by the way, was about 24 degC and we were comfortable all day.

Friday, 11th May 2001

We had another good night's sleep, and peeked out on the balcony at dawn. The air was chill and the sea calm, looking straight over to the mainland. After breakfast, we loaded the bus and drove off to the village of Eretria, where we stopped to let everyone change money -- with the weekend coming up, there will be few opportunities to do so. We drove back to the bridge between Evia and the mainland, then over to the motorway to head north. There was a long flat stretch, then we arrived back at the coast. The bus drove off the motorway to a small town called Molos; this has significance because the retreating NZ soldiers were fighting a fierce rearguard here. Further down the road was the Pass of Thermopylae -- here the steep hills come much closer to the sea, and this is the site of one of Greece's famous battles against the Persian invaders.

Similarly, the NZers retreated to here and delayed the German advance as much as possible. We continued on to bypass Lamia and head into the mountains, rising to about 770 metres before descending to the plains of Thessaly and stopping at the outskirts of the little village of Domikos for lunch. We had taken the precaution of getting some food at a previous stop, as the previous day's lunch was too much. So we sat outside a taverna while the others pigged out inside, and enjoyed our roll and drink.

We then carried on without stopping, past Trikala and on to Meteora. This is a highlight of the trip so far -- the bus took us up a very steep, narrow road to the famous monasteries which have been built on top of the sheer crags of Meteora. Getting to the actual building took 215 steps, but both the view and the monastery were work it. The interior of their church was lavishly painted with saints and Bible story scenes. The views were breathtaking, and I took a lot of pix -- which probably need pruning as there are bad shots and duplicates.

We then went to a second one -- a nunnery, which we got to about 15 minutes before closing. Back into the coach and the return run back to Trikala to book into our hotel of the night. By the time we were in our rooms, it was time for dinner -- and we had two officers from the Greek Army, one a major general, to welcome us and present the veterans and veterans' widows with beautiful plaques in recognition of their war service. After dinner, Joan and I had a wander down the street; it was Friday night and everyone in Trikala (60,000 pop.) was out on the street too. The main drag had bars with tables outside about 4 deep from the building -- and on both sides of the road. No traffic allowed through of course.

We're back in our room now, very tired after the day. Joan is washing clothes in the bath, and I'll finish here and get off to bed.

Saturday 12th May 2001,

I woke a little before the wake-up call, because I needed to connect my camera to the TV set and check for duplicate and unsharp shots. It was a good opportunity to review what I've taken, and also for Joan to see them. We packed our bags to put outside the door and went down to breakfast. Away at 8.30 am and on the road through the mountains to Larissa and north through the gorge of the Pinios River. We had pointed out to us, the old road and bridge over the upper Pinios River which still had German pillboxes at each end, put there after the Allied forces had left.

Half-way through the gorge, we stopped to visit a church shrine where travellers once stopped to pray for a safe journey through the gorge and to the south -- they were scared of attack by brigands. Then out to he coast on a narrow minor road to visit Stomio. Here the allied soldiers were sent down from the front line to the north for rest and recuperation. We followed up the coast to Katerini, population about 50,000 now, but only a small village in 1941. We then drove out to the coast to our overnight stop at Paralia, a resort 'holiday club' place right on the beach.

Again, a place which caters for package tours like ourselves; basic facilities but comfortable beds and a restaurant attached. We are quartered in chalets in the grounds. We had a late lunch, then a rest before showering and tidying up for the evening meal. The army turned up again tonight: the local armoured brigade representatives gave a speech and presented more engraved tokens of thanks to the veterans.

We had a beautiful meal, which started with ouzo (Greek aniseed-flavoured spirit) and ended up with thin slices of fresh apple. When it was time to go back to our chalet, we found it was raining hard, so everyone got soaked in short order. We've been drying ourselves off, and getting organised for the morning departure.

Sunday, 13th May 2001

An early start today, as we have a long drive through very twisty roads. After breakfast, we got cases over to the bus and were on our way into Katerina. Today is the big day for the three old soldiers who were in the fighting in 1941. We quickly ascended into the hills behind Katerini and through to the Aliakmon dam and River. The road wound up and up to finally reach 1725 metres, which I calculate to be 5600 feet. The road then slowly dropped to the Aliakmon Dam, which we crossed to get to Veria. The dam seemed to be purely for water and irrigation, as there was no fall for hydro-electric generation. We then headed southwest and entered the next range of mountains to rise to 1640 metres before dropping to Kozani and down to cross the lake by bridge and enter Servia. My brother-in-law Bill Smith, again took the microphone and gave us a background talk about the area that the NZ troops were defending.

At first, the old soldiers were quite bewildered, as the area had changed totally over 60 years. But memories began flooding back as they recognised landscape features; although as one said, "We were in trenches being bombed during the day, and couldn't see anything at night!". The old road bridge across the Aliakmon River that had been blown up to slow the German advance, was of course under the water of the lake. Bill remembered where he saw German tanks advancing over the hills.

We stopped in Servia for lunch; this had not ben arranged, and we drove round a bit before letting the tour guide ask for likely places. They found a real beauty -- a restaurant that was open (on Sunday afternoon, don't forget) and prepared to cope with 31 hungry people on a moment's notice. I enjoyed some Greek sausages, and Joan had stewed goat -- I tried some, and was pleasantly surprised. Another long hill climb on the narrow road through the Olympus Pass took us over the route of withdrawal, to drop down to Elassona.

A final run though flatter country past Tirnavos, and we arrived at our hotel in Larissa. This is the same chain that owns the hotel we stayed at in Trikala, and is well-appointed and comfortable. We had another ceremony tonight, with the local army brass (a General this time) attending to present more plaques. For those with gastronomic interest: First course was moussaka (sort of cottage pie), then we were served tomato and cucumber on a side plate and stewed or casseroled beef with pastina (looks like rice). The dessert was a tinned fruit salad. Doesn't sound too exciting, but it was well-cooked and presented.