Greece, Day 2: An Exercise in Bladder Control

12 APRIL 2014

On the first full day of our Greek adventure, I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at around 5:15 am.  what jolted me to full consciousness almost immediately was the unreal colors of the sky.  Naturally, I had to take a photo.  But I also didn't want to wake up George, who was being all reasonable and normal and still sleeping.  So I did my best to quietly grab my camera and then sneak onto the balcony.  I was under the impression that I behaved like a ninja until I came back in and heard George mumble something about "elephants stampeding through the room."  Oops.

I stand by the fact that that was worth sacrificing sleep for.  The colors pre-sunrise were, I think, more surreal than those of the actual sunrise.

Rather than go back to sleep like a normal human being, I decided we were going to wait for the sunrise (which, according to my handy weather app, was at 7:03).  I jabbered at George for that hour and a half while he attempted to ignore me and sleep (I won).  I also should mention that the great irony of this story is that I chose the wrong moment to use the bathroom and ended up missing the actual sunset.  Thankfully, George was able to figure out my camera, so the moment that I missed is forever preserved.  It was stunning; more so in person, obviously.  Hard to beat the sun rising over the sea with Mount Olympus just over your shoulder.

The next order of business was breakfast.  We heard someone come in and start preparing it at around 6:30, so as soon as I was done fawning over the sunrise and the view from our balcony, we packed up our luggage, and headed down for food.  And were promptly blown away by the spread: eggs, rolls, fruit, Greek yogurt, olives, coffee, juice, jam, marmalade, sausages, bacon....and I'm sure something else that has escaped me.  Pretty much just imagine a table full of every breakfast item you can think of.

Actually, you don't have to imagine it.  There it is, in all its delicious glory.

And the most absurd element of this situation was that the entire table of food was just for the two of us.  We had mentioned that the hotel seemed very quiet the night before, but it wasn't until this moment that we realized we were the only guests in the place.  It was unbelievable.  This was just the beginning of their season, but still...the massive room upgrade was now partially explained (I still think the owner liked us).  

George said we had to eat all the food.  So we did.  Minus a few of the olives...you can only have so much salt at 8:30 am.  We also then felt ill for a good portion of the morning on account of our gluttony.

And here is the "after" picture.  We made quite a dent.  There's George polishing off the last of the coffee.  

With our bellies full, and a (mostly...) refreshing night's sleep behind us, we said good-bye to Litochoro, and what would prove to be one of our favorite hotels of the trip.  Almost a shame we were only there a night, actually.  It also ruined me for a lot of the other places we stayed (George is not quite the snob I am, or at least he's not as vocal about it).

But that balcony....

Hotel Villa Pantheon....highly recommended.  Also, there's our little Chevy Spark.  Not so recommended.

Our first destination of the day was Meteora, the famous tabletop mountains (and World Heritage Site) that is home to several monasteries.  It was about 2.5 hours from Litochoro.  The drive was rather uneventful, aside from the few times that our GPS tried to send us onto roads that weren't really roads, and that one time we were overtaken by a police car (only in Greece...).  There also may have been an incident where I saw a Border Collie-ish looking dog walking on the side of the road and tried to convince George that we should adopt it (thankfully, he did not cave in to my demands).  It was a pleasant drive; the sun was out, we were surrounded by mountains, and we were on the first full day of our vacation.

The one key error that I made (repeatedly) was to drink copious amounts of water and coffee at breakfast.  For whatever reason, I did not take into consideration all of the driving we had ahead of us, and also the fact that most gas stations in Greece do not have bathrooms.  Hence, towards the end of the drive, and during our (rather brief, thanks to me) visit to Meteora itself, I couldn't think of much other than how much I had to pee.

That being said, Meteora is spectacular.  I would definitely go back, and I would allot enough time/not drink so much liquids to allow for going into one of the monasteries.  We had a pretty tight schedule to keep, so my lack of common sense didn't affect too much, but I'm sure I would have appreciated it a a bit more had I been less uncomfortable.  So, I will let some of the photos speak for themselves.

After we made our way back down out of the mountains, we almost immediately found a café, where I used their bathroom and then we had another coffee before heading back on the road.  Neither of us was even remotely interested in food at this point; so so so much food from breakfast.  But we are both coffee addicts.  Also, the lack of sleep may have started to hit a bit, and I was getting the occasional "I told you so" from George.  

However, my key error (AGAIN) was the coffee.  It ended up taking us about four hours to get from the Meteora area to Delphi, and I had to pee starting about one hour into the drive.  George was in a similar situation but made a "nature" stop and thus enjoyed the ride (partially because it was gorgeous and partially because I think he enjoyed seeing me in pain).  I, myself, did not particularly enjoy this leg of the trip.  In hindsight, I should have just squatted on the side of the road, but I had (or at least thought I had..) my dignity.  So I suffered instead and again made a mad dash from the car to the nearest café once we finally arrived.  And then drank another coffee.  I wonder where exactly the learning curve is for me?

The good part about me being a royal bitch during the car ride was that once we arrived and I relieved myself, it was as if I was a new person.  Delphi is incredible.  We first looked at the Oracle and Temple of Apollo before choking up all of seven euros apiece to see the stadium, amphitheatre, and assorted other Greek and Roman ruins.  This was also the moment in the trip where George I think finally fully realized that he was, indeed, stuck with an American for ten days straight when I referred to the ancient ruins as "old stuff".  I will never live that down.

The Oracle 

The Temple of Apollo

Roman Ruins (aka Old Stuff)

The Stadium at Delphi

After a lovely afternoon of wandering through the ruins at Delphi, we were back in the car at around 7:30pm, and set off on the 2.5 hour drive (I made sure to make use of the toilets just before we left) to our hotel in Loutraki, a small tourist town just outside of Corinth.  This may have been my favorite drive of the trip.  We were both in high spirits after an excellent day of sightseeing, and I was deejaying particularly excellent music (The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Star Wars soundtracks...even better to listen when you have someone with a degree in music with you).  The drive was uneventful, and we found the hotel right away (this was the only time that happened...).  We also had a good laugh at the Easter lights they put up in Loutraki.

Unfortunately, this hotel was fairly generic and not blessed with the views of the Villa Pantheon back in Litochoro (admittedly, this was partially our fault for not splashing up to the "sea view room" but what can you expect for 30 euros/night?).  But, it was clean, and somewhere to sleep, and we were both exhausted and dropped off right away.

And this was still only the beginning of our adventure...

Greece, Day 1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

11 APRIL 2014

From the start, this impromptu trip was shined upon by the heavens.  Our original plan had been to take a 10 am train from Stuttgart, which would put us in Baden-Baden at around 11:20, then we would still have a 15-minute cab ride from the train station to the airport (Baden-Baden is a smaller airport than even Stuttgart...hence why RyanAir flies from there).  Since our flight would depart at 12:40 pmm in this scenario, everything would be cut quite close.  That would have made for a very high-strung Meg.

But, thankfully, fate intervened.  The kids did not go to school that day (Tim was ill, and Caro took what we call a "mental health day" in the Gallimore household).  This meant we could take a 9 am train out of Stuttgart, making for a much more relaxed timeline.

And it all went off without a hitch.  George had the short end of the stick in that he had custody of our shared, giant suitcase, while I only had my backpack.  What a gentleman.

We arrived at the airport just before 11 am, checked our bag, cleared security (George set off the alarm on account of his belt...), then had about an hour to kill before our flight started boarding.  The Baden-Baden airport has a decent cafe and outdoor seating area, so we drank coffee and sat in the sun while we waited.  There are much worse ways to spend a Friday morning.

George and I had another lucky happening; for no apparent reason, RyanAir had given us "Priority Boarding," so we were some of the first people on the plane.  AND our seats were toward the front, which made getting on and off the plane a breeze.

I also just want to say, for the record, that my RyanAir experience was much more pleasant than I expected.  You hear a lot of horror stories about flying with them, but, based off of this trip, that reputation may not be deserved.  It's certainly not a luxury experience by any means, but when you look at their prices, how much can you really expect?  The service was friendly, and we made it from Point A to Point B on time.  That's all anyone really needs.

The one thing I will make note of is that if you are not a resident of the EU, regardless of if you are checking a bag or not, make sure you queue up at the desk and get your passport checked and boarding pass stamped.  For whatever reason, RyanAir likes to check non-EU passports twice (like Santa...hehehe).  They'll do it as you are boarding the plane as well, but you will be denied access if you don't also have a stamp from the check-in people too.  Yet another reason I was happy we arrived early.

We landed in Thessaloniki at about 4:15 pm, picked up our bag, then went to the Sixt desk to pick up our car.  That was an annoyingly long process, with us signing our lives away to the car and GPS (mostly the GPS).  Also, George thought that the guy couldn't figure out how to say "Meghann" or "Gallimore" as he referred to me as "the lady" throughout the entire process.  Apparently "George" is a bit more straight-forward.

We finally hit the road at about 6:15 in a light blue Chevy Spark that had clearly seen some better days.  There was a dent or scratch on nearly every part of the body.  Which of course, could only work in our favor; we didn't have to put on kid gloves to handle the car, or be QUITE as cautious about what roads we took.

It was just under a two-hour drive to Litochoro (according to the GPS...I think we made it in an hour fifteen...).  And even a drive that brief (in Meghann & George terms...) was enough to show us the insanity that is driving in Greece.  People cut each other off, speed, drift across lanes, ride in between lanes...it's absolute madness.  We also were confused as to why the GPS kept beeping randomly.  At first we thought it was a warning when another car was too close, as it was happening constantly.  However, we later realized that it went off whenever we exceeded the rather arbitrary speed limits.

Once we arrived in Litochoro, we began the fun task of negotiating through the labyrinth of one-way and very narrow streets of the town to find our hotel.  The GPS was already proving itsel fto be worthless and we ended up asking a very nice local woman for directions.

Despite the difficulties in finding the hotel, the Villa Pantheon ended up being worth the extra effort, and was one of our favorite hotels when we compared them all.  We were upgraded from a double room to a master suite, complete with a fireplace, living room, and kitchenette.  Not to mention, a MASSIVE balcony that had spectacular views of Mount Olympus and the sea.  Greece was already off to an incredible start.

By this point, we were both starving (or, in George's words "a bit peckish"), so we walked five minutes into the town centre to find some food.  There were a surprising amount of options for such a small place, but we had our minds made up for us when a lady from one of them came out and essentially shoved us inside.  There we tried our first Greek beer, Mythos.  It was nice; not quite German but still very drinkable (It reminded me of Corona, but George disagrees).  We split a Greek salad, George had a meatball thing, and I had veal. Both were delicious.  The chef, who had taken a liking to George on account of him being British (even changing the channel of the tv in the restaurant to the BBC news...) gave us a free feta cheese croissant thing, which was actually outstanding.  My mouth is watering at the thought.

Our cue to leave came when the place was invaded by, I kid you not, about thirty members of a single family.  All the tables started getting pushed together, and it was very loud, and we stood out as the non-Greeks.  So, we waddled back to the hotel and went to bed.  Already, it was an excellent adventure.

****I promise this will be the ONLY Greece post without photos.  I didn't really think about my camera on this first day, but I went shutter crazy the rest of the time we were there.  It won't always be just text.