Greece Diary, Part One - Getting There

Note about this diary: I travelled with my boyfriend Ben to the Greek island of Skyros from the 4th-19th June 2012, but I wrote this diary afterwards in one go. There are few dates and a lot is quite general; it's not a daily record! Just wanted to clarify that in advance.

Ben and I set off from Whitehaven train station at about 8am. Due to a diversion we had to change trains six times (including travelling across London) and only just got seats on one of them despite our reservations because a train with too few carriages had been sent out. We stopped in London overnight with my cousins, the Slaters, and watched the Queen's Golden Jubilee concert.

The next morning we flew from Gatwick to Athens. We were picked up at the airport by Janet, a woman originally from the North of England like us who now owns a B&B nearby which we were staying in since our flight wasn't until the following morning. We had gone for the cheapest flights possible but in future it might be worth considering whether getting a more expensive flight later, and staying in the airport, might be cheaper than staying over in Athens. Janet however treated us as if we were family friends and we felt right at home! Her beautiful house had a real orange tree (we marvelled at that for a while), feral cats wandering around and a lovely pool which Ben immediately went for a swim in. I was anxious to visit Athens while we had the chance so I managed to keep myself out of the water. The heat was intense though!

The garden of the B&B

Janet gave us a lift to the local metro station less than an hour later and bought us tickets for Athens. The tickets were valid for 90 minutes from the time they're stamped (and you stamp them yourselves with the time as you enter the station) so we had a second set of tickets to stamp on the way back. There were no seats on the train and after 20 minutes of standing we were both starting to feel quite faint. Finally we arrived in the central square where we half-heartedly searched for a Greek restaurant before settling on McDonalds. One thing we noticed right away is that there is no respect for the queue in Athens! You have to be assertive to the point of aggressive to be able to get to the till and then you need to have some knowledge of Greek. We'd done our best to learn some but it wouldn't have helped much - fortunately the lady at the till confirmed 'I speak' in a very cheery voice so we were able to order.

From there we went to the Acropolis and took a quick photo, but we were both feeling pretty wiped out by the heat so after popping into a souvenir shop to buy an evil eye necklace (to appear in later photos) we took the metro back out of Athens, called Janet and headed back.

The extent of our exploration of Athens

I found it difficult to get to sleep that night. I could hear someone swimming in the pool which was a lovely sound (that's sincerity) especially in the dark with the pool all lit up. There was a strange chorus of animal noises that I've never heard the like of; dogs barking, dozens of cats mewing, and insects. So many insects. Earlier that evening Ben and me had seen a huge wasp-like creature with two long legs hovering outside our window which we had dubbed the 'leggy beast' - it was like something out of Doctor Who. We would be seeing a lot more of these guys over the next couple of weeks.

I must have slept eventually but at 4am we were up again to meet the taxi Janet had kindly ordered for us. The moon was out, the road was empty and the strange chorus of animals was still going. I felt very edgy standing at the side of the road with all our belongings at 4.50am but the taxi found us eventually.

Ben and the moon at 4am in Greece

At Athens Airport we spent half an hour queueing to drop our baggage before being told we were in the wrong line (Frankfurt, not Skyros). We were now in a bit of a rush but there was absolutely no queue for the Skyros baggage drop. We ran to the gate but were a couple of minutes early.

Empty plane

There were four people on the plane, including us. An airbus. It was unbelievable. We were offered orange juice but turned it down before realising it was complimentary. We weren't exactly used to the Aegean Airlines service, being more used to Easyjet. We were given complimentary chocolate croissants which we fortunately didn't turn down and we moved a few rows back for an unobstructed view of the Aegean Sea. We levelled out for all of five minutes before we began our descent; about 20 minutes total. From the air, Skyros was bigger than we'd anticipated, expecting to be able to see the whole island from our windows. I doubt we'd have been able to land on it in that case. The pilot seemed to overshoot the runway so he had to do another circle before we could land. The 'airport' is actually a Greek Air Force base which also turned out to be only ten minutes from the farm; we'd see other planes coming in to land throughout our trip, some huge, and so close. The hangars were built into the hills. 

Amanda (another English expat - how at home we felt!) picked us up from the airport in her white van. I remember thinking to myself as I loaded our rucksacks into the back, 'so that's the kind of place this will be'. I mean this in a positive way. The back of the van was filled with hay, and I knew at once we were staying with real horsey people. We didn't bother with seatbelts - there was barely anyone else on the narrow roads. The landscape was arid and hilly but Amanda surprised me by saying the land wasn't usually so green at this time of year; the sun had usually burnt it all off by now. When we reached the farm we were introduced to a newborn foal, Dionni (soon to take a place in our hearts), and then escorted straight to our room so that we could get some sleep. I was so grateful for that; we were both exhausted. We met our fellow volunteer, Coleen, briefly before collapsing onto the bed to sleep alongside a couple of farm cats.

End of part one!

Related links:

St Thomas B&B (where we stayed in Athens)

The Unsettled Texan (Coleen's blog)

Friends of the Skyrian Horse (the farm)