Twins and Trains

It's a sad day as we are leaving our lovely temporary home and starting the next leg of our journey. But we're getting ahead of ourselves......

Sunday was a special day. We met Philippa's old friend Katerina and became acquainted with Thomas, her husband, and her three month old twin girls, currently known as Baby A and Baby B. This is a strange concept for us to get our heads around but apparently it's the Greek custom to name the children at their baptism, until which time they are assigned a number. Katerina and Thomas are still pondering what the names might be. Surprisingly, Rhiannon and Adele aren't on their list. 

We had arranged to meet at their flat in a suburb of Athens close to the coast. Having consulted Google Maps, we were about to enter unknown  territory: the bus network. According to Google, we needed to catch the A2 bus from Syntagma Square, alight after 16 stops, then walk about 400 metres to the flat. Of course Google Maps doesn't tell you where to get the bus and there are x number of bus stops at y number of locations in the Square.

'Let's get a bus map' said Philippa. 'They're sure to have one at the Metro station'. But it was Sunday and all the information points at the station were closed. The guy selling tickets shrugged his shoulders and told us that there was no Athens bus map. So we were on our own.

One of the many bus stops at Syntagma was the departure point for the no. 2 bus, not quite the A2, but near enough, we thought. So we bought tickets and hopped aboard. The bus swung away roughly in the right direction but eagle-eye Dec then spotted a real A2 cruising past us. Time to get off the obviously wrong no 2 bus and on to the undoubtedly correct A2. Our error
was soon sorted out but the keen reader will spot that we now had another problem. We had no idea where we were in the sequence of 16 stops!

Our careful pre-journey research proved invaluable. Like very sad people, we had written down a list of the roads we would be passing which saved the day and enabled us to get off at the correct stop. Well, *we* were impressed. Once again, precise planning and perfect preparation prevented poor performance.

Baby A (L or R) and Baby B (R or L) Who knows?

Katerina and Thomas have a lovely flat and two lovely babies. They're just getting to the stage where they start to become interested and therefore interesting. Baby A likes to sleep a lot whilst Baby B spends most of the time looking around and taking in her surroundings. Who would have thought that twins could be so different at such a young age?

After some time catching up - it's been several years since we last met - the plan was to go for a coffee at a marina and then have lunch at a nearby traditional Greek restaurant. 

It lacks modern security features. Like doors.

When we arrived at the marina, we found ourselves attending a classic car concourse. with a display of lovingly restored British, European and American cars, mainly from the 60s and 70s with a few beauties from the thirties. Philippa's favourite was the Austin Mini Beach Protoytpe. Dec is still in love with the E-type Jaguar. Is it true that the Greeks have never made cars? Thomas and Katerina thought so, but weren't sure.

After a coffee and a stroll in the blazing sunshine, we headed for the restaurant where we were treated to a fine meal of Greek dishes including gyros, souvlaki, tsatsiki and kebab. If you don't know what they are by now, you haven't been paying attention. Lunch went on until after 6, when
we said our tearful goodbyes and caught the tram back to Syntagma. After such a blowout we couldn't face another night on the tiles, so we spent the evening in the apartment, relaxing and packing our bags for the next phase of our odyssey.

Monday dawned and we headed for the Metor station at Syntagma. Before long we were at Athens' main railway station, confusingly called Larissa. After a Greggs-style breakfast - cofe and a greasy pie - we boarded the train for Thessaloniki.

Thesaloniki is in the far north-east of the country, a journey of more than five hours. We will draw a veil over the details except to say that the scenery is not that fascinating, and we are now considerably better read than hitherto.

Thessaloniki lacks the glamour of Athens, but has pretty much the same issues with respect to traffic - think Oxford St on a very hot Xmas eve, crossed with the Great Western Rd. Luckily, we're only here for the night, more of a stopover than a proper visit. After checking into our hotel we went in search of the bus ticket office, so we can leave tomorrow for Sofia. The bus company's web site is absolute crap. The ticket office listed as the place to buy our tickets is a kiosk about a mile from the hotel and is open until 4pm - we found it at around 5. After a thorough exploration we found plenty of nice bars, but no alternative sources of bus tickets, so we headed for a restaurant and then back to the hotel for an early night.

An interesting little side street

Tuesday stared with a decent hotel breakfast, followed by a stroll through the city and a tour of the markets. We found lots of interesting little side streets. Thessaloniki is blessed with several markets which sell everything from fresh fish - lots of it - to hoodies, tools and olive oil. We bought fruit and sandwiches for our trip to Sofia - it's a 5-hour trip. Then we went back to the infamous kiosk to buy our coach tickets. It was open, but the lady said we don't sell those tickets here. Go to the next kiosk - she pointed - you can get them there. At the next kiosk - about 400 metres away - the lady said, we don't sell them here. You can get them at the RAILWAY STATION. Frankly, by this time we had walked halfway across the city on a HOT SUNNY day and were willing to risk turning up at the bus station without tickets, which turned out to be the correct approach.

After a thrilling taxi ride - did we mention that all Greek drivers are crazy? - we arrived at the bus station, bought our tickets and as I write we await departure for Bulgaria! Stay tuned...