Athens - The heart of Greece

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Athens...Well after a huge day of transit through Austria & Germany (6 trains one plane and a Psycho taxi ride) I am here....

You know when you are in a deeply religious city, when you get into a cab at the airport (A F&^%$g SKODA) - I thought they only used these things for boat anchors!!! This thing had more friggin shakes than a McDonalds store on a Bloody McHappy day!!! Especially when the driver hammered on down the freeway at 150kph using every lane including the emergency lane, no indicators etc.... Yep this bloke had to have a great deal of faith in God (I have now too)....

Spent the next day doing the sights of Athens - An incredible place with real history you have to actually see and feel to fully appreciate it...

Heaps of photos, but again having a dram at the internet cafe I am at in down loading... (I'll catch that up later)....

End of day, heading to the marina.... Got off the tram after a grueling 1 hour in packed public transport (No air cond) loaded up with the pack, hot and exhausted, I took my wallet out of my pack at a bar for some water only to be told that I had another 1.5km to trek to the other end of the marina... Foolishly, I slipped my wallet back into my pocket instead of my pack jumped back onto the tram for the next 2 stops and, yep - no wallet by the time I got to the marina....

Urgent calls to Oz (thanks Big Sis), then onto the banks for emergency funds (we are sailing firtst thing tomorrow)....

Met our team for the cruise - first impressions are really good... I got a leave of absence from the food shopping and minor boat preparations so I head off into Athens at 6.30am to be on the doorstep of Westen Union as soon as they open.... From there, to the local police and joined the queue of other (some more unfortunate victims) of the increasing theft and assult problems on tourists currently in Athens...

Rob & Yvonne (in our group) were caught up between the police riot sqad and an angry mob, pushing for the removal of tourists from their city....

This one down to experience and with a dent in my pride and holiday, we left the harbour around midday and pushed on out into the Aegean Sea....

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