Getting to Athens

We left Tucson for our trip to Athens and cruise around the Greek Islands and Turkey on Monday, April 30, around 4:00 p.m. Drove up to Phoenix, where we parked our car for the duration at Best Western Tempe. First shock came when I double-checked our itinerary and discovered that our previously scheduled 7:15 a.m. departure had been changed to 6:00 a.m. Early wakeup call notwithstanding, we had a nice dinner at Marti's, a famous old restaurant near the ASU Tempe campus. Photo on left shows aircraft in Phoenix ready for departure.

No problem catching our first and second flights, but we had scarcely an hour and a half between landing in Paris and boarding our flight to Athens, and during that time we had to clear customs, go through a second security inspection, and walk miles through the airport and even outside to catch the bus that would take us to our aircraft. We made the plane with five minutes to spare. Harrowing.

Some marvelous sights in transit: dawn over France, with lights of the cities immediately below and sun rising in the East (left) and flying into Athens over Greece, seeing mountains in the foreground and the sea in the distance (right). After landing in Athens, we were met by representatives of the tour group Voyages to Antiquity and taken to the Hotel Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square.

En route, we were warned repeatedly that this was a first-class hotel in a convenient location, but--Syntagma Square, across from the Greek Parliament, had been the scene of repeated mass anti-government demonstrations. Since the national elections to choose a new parliament were scheduled for Sunday, disturbances could take place (more on the elections later). As it turned out, though, the one demonstration planned for the evening of May 3 completely fizzled--when we walked past the square on the way home, I saw only a few flares sent up as indications that anything unusual was going on. Our room was comfortable and cool. The accommodations were really first-class, particularly the breakfasts on the roof garden of the hotel and the friendly atmosphere of the bar in the evenings. After unpacking and showering, we felt ready to see the town--jet lag notwithstanding!