Geia sas (Hello to Greece …)

Departing Italy was depressing, exciting, and surprisingly easy at the same time. Taking a comfortable and fast train to Rome was easy, and also cheap as we remembered to book well in advance when the few “special discount” tickets were available. Travelling with Aegean Airlines to Athens was a pleasant experience, it was the first time we had used mobile check-in and boarding passes, i.e. the details were on our mobile phones and these were just scanned in directly from the phones. No queues at the check-in desk nor at the gate where we were allowed onto the plane early for a comfortable and on-time flight. All was looking good.

And remained good in Athens where we hopped onto the express bus from the airport with 1 minute to spare after being almost first through the baggage claim and, of course, being the EU there was no immigration to contend with nor apparently any customs either.

Despite the rumours of recession and desperation in Greece, we were surprised to see numerous department stores and luxury car dealers on the way into the city centre. This was followed by the crowds we found shopping at the numerous shops within Athens over the next couple of days. We have to report that consumerism is alive and thriving despite what you may hear on the news! Later we were told that Greeks generally distrust the banks and tend to invest in property and land and keep the spare cash under their mattress, hence it appears that it is only the banks that are in deep strife here.

Like most big cities Athens is crowded and chaotic, and exciting and interesting at the same time. Our hotel was in a pretty working-class area (that might explain why it was so cheap – only 33 Euros a night), which meant loads of local cafes, rubbish, dirty, and major graffiti everywhere. The graffiti was generally very artistic and photogenic.

November is clearly the off-season as the tourist sites were very, very quiet – everyone must have been shopping instead. Even the Acropolis was quiet with no queues and it was even possible to get some photos without other people in them. The views over the vast – and very white and smoggy – city are spectacular. There is so much to see here, and not just the classical sites and museums (of which there are many), that we could happily have spent several more days here. It is as full of life as it is of shops, including one of the best-stocked photography shops we’ve ever seen. Recession? What recession?

We departed Athens via the easy-to-use bus station on a comfortable coach driven smoothly by a very un-Greek-like driver. The trip across the Peloponnese to Kalamata was very scenic and reminded me why a previous holiday here by bicycle some years ago wasn’t all that successful – the interior is very mountainous! There are a few classical sites to see along the way – the Canal at Corinth (if you’re not blinking at the time), some big stone walls surrounding the top of a mountain peak, and signs to the wonderful amphitheatre at Epidavros, if only you could stop. The smooth trip is aided by the wonderful new motorway all the way, and the very few signs of human habitation to be seen, apart from the huge cooling towers of the coal-fired power station at Megalopoli.

All good things come to an end, and ours was the three-hour wait at the Kalamata bus station for the local bus down to Koroni. Unfortunately the bus station is nowhere near the centre of town so there is nothing to do except sit in the rather good café and while the time away. This last stage of the trip was somewhat epic as we had a proper Greek driver at last. I was a little concerned with the speed we were going and taking the corners, often in the middle of the road, plus the driving right up behind any car before lurching out and overtaking it on the short straights. I was a little more nervous when I realised he was doing it all one-handed so he could concentrate on chatting to his mate in the passenger seat. Then he got onto his cellphone for a long chat which was marginally worse, but deteriorated again when he dropped it on the floor and spent the next 10 minutes fossicking under his seat trying to find it, all the while continuing to drive in the same fashion. At times like this it is best to concentrate on the scenery and your insurance …

We got off the bus at Harokopio (if you're looking for it on Google maps, try Charokopio - an alternative spelling they tried for a while to get non-Greeks to pronounce the name correctly), the nearest village to our new hosts at The Icon Painter. Michael and Maria were there waiting for us and took us to their local restaurant where we were ushered into the kitchen to choose our dishes, then back to a table to enjoy some wonderful food and lashings of wine. A very promising start …