• Mark Holmes
  • Mark Holmes

Greece March 2018

Een avontuur met open einde van Mark Meer informatie
  • Acropolis

    17 maart 2018, Griekenland ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    Had breakfast with some buddies this morning from the Group. Had said goodbye last night, but they were down for breakfast, so got a chance to day goodbye again! Had the usual incredible buffet and then caught a taxi to the Acropolis because it was quick. Cabbie ripped us off by charging 8 Euros rather than what should have been about 5, but he was much bigger than me, so....

    Spent maybe 90 minutes listening to Rick Steve tour us around the Acropolis and then descended towards the Agora, the ancient marketplace at the foot of the Acropolis.
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  • Ancient Agora

    17 maart 2018, Griekenland ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    Walked down from the Parthenon for about 10 minutes to the Agora, passing lots and lots of street vendors. Google maps was helpful in directing us the right way. Spent the next few hours walking through the Agora, once again helped my Rick Steve’s audio walking tour. After finishing up at the Agora, caught the metro to Victoria station, not far from the National Museum of Archeology. Kept a death grip on my phone while on the subway.Meer informatie

  • National Archeological Museum

    17 maart 2018, Griekenland ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    5 euro entrance fee pp. caught the subway from the Ancient Agora to here. Thank you Rick Steve for being our verbal tour guide through all these sites ( Acropolis, Agora, and National Museum). So glad I downloaded his app to our phones! Our last day here so had to make it happen! Now for a 15 min stroll back to the hotel and a dinner across from the hotel where we ate with Heidi and Dale, our new friends from Boston.

    I find it highly unusual but this whole group of Gate1 folks got along so well that they all want to do another tour together. Some really nice people on this tour. For the price we paid ($2800 for the two of us which included airfare and all excursions) this is definitely 5 stars.
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  • Dinner at restaurant near our Hotel

    17 maart 2018, Griekenland ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    Starting off with a Greek salad (delicious), followed by grilled Breem, mousaka and a tiny cup of yogurt with quince jam ( on the house).

    Going to bed at 9 to grab 3 hrs of sleep before catching an Uber to Syntagma Square where we will catch the bus for 6 euros each to make it to the airport around 3 am or so the plan goes. Now we will see if the Uber driver shows. Flight boards at 5:30 am for München. 5 hr layover there. Ouch!!Meer informatie

  • Stanley Hotel to Airport

    18 maart 2018, Griekenland ⋅ ⛅ 63 °F

    Up at 12:30 am for last second packing, shower. Uber (supposedly) to pick us up. Amazing number of people hanging out on street below. No idea why / probably a Saturday night thing

    Uber picked us up at 1:36 on the dot 3.5 euros to get us to Syntagma square to catch the airport bus. Driver was nice but quiet. Wanted to know why we just didn’t take Uber to the airport - told him it was cheaper to ride the bus. He said 29 Euros with Uber - at least 50 with a taxi. (Our cost with Uber and bus is about 15.5 Euros). 6 Euros each for the bus and we are off and running at 2:10 am. Seats in bus are hard as hell so if you don’t like hard or bouncy or multiple stops along the way , then Uber is the better bet.

    Arrived airport at 2:54 , so about a 45 minute ride.

    Boarded at 5:51. Turned our carry on luggage down and made us check it through to CLT. First time that has happened. (Turned out well - didn’t have to hassle with trying to cram it into overhead compartments. Didn’t mind doing this on the return , wouldn’t want to do it on the going part since this is our only suitcase)

    6:08 am departure
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  • München airport

    18 maart 2018, Duitsland ⋅ 🌫 25 °F

    Landing to snow on the ground and 25 degrees! Touchdown at 7:25 am. In long line at 10:30 to clear customs. Will see how long this takes. Just tried to go thru the Easy Pass line but my temp passport doesn’t have a chip on the front cover so back to the long line again :(

    Thru the passport control at 11:14. Officer questioned my temporary passport - wondered if I might have problem getting back into the States. I said, “well it’s too late now. If I can’t get in that’s the American Embassy’s problem “. Sure gives you a warm fuzzy feeling!
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  • Charlotte airport

    18 maart 2018, Verenigde Staten ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F

    Landed a bit early despite leaving Munich about 1/2 hr late. Went to the foreigners line in customs which wasted about 1/2 hr. Not really our fault - folks in charge of the line were useless. Despite the German passport officer’s concern about my passport, American officer could care less and hardly looked st it. Sigh of relief/ didn’t need an argument.

    Flight was smooth - watched two good movies - The Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water. Lunch was decent, dinner didn’t deserve the name. Picture below is our curry sausage “dinner”. Sorry Lufthansa, this is deplorable!! Actually Janet and I were laughing so hard when we saw it, we could barely eat it. Reminded us of a corn dog, except I think a corn dog ( shudder) is better.

    Made it home about 8 pm - traffic was light which was nice. Waze told me I-77 was 20 minutes faster than I-85 so I took it.

    Will be adding to this diary over the next few days so if you start over (my gosh, who wouldn’t want to ? - LOL). You’ll see more explanations, captions on pics and some videos that were difficult to upload because of limited bandwidth.

    Could easily have stayed another week - so many things to see and do!
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