I have arrived

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Here I am in Thessaloniki, Greece. The flight went well. I watched Charlie Wilson’s War (great film, despite starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Tom Hanks is one of those actors though - you may not like him, but some of his films are fantastic) and Jumpers (very ordinary, which was not a surprise as it starred the young Darth Vader, whatever his name is) plus a whole bunch of doco’s. Tried to get some sleep, but just as I dozed off I seemed to always be awakened by someone walking past and kicking me, or the guy next to me elbowing me in the ribs. Good times.

We landed in Athens 10 minutes late, and I had a limited amount of time to collect my bags and then check in for the flight to Thessaloniki. I was told to ask at the transfers desk. The lady there was very helpful, gave me my boarding pass and then said my luggage would be transferred. That was great! I made my flight with plenty of time to spare.

But you know the old adage - If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The luggage transfer seemed awfully efficient, but as I had given her the sticker from when I checked it in in Sydney, I guessed (and hoped) that electronic tracking was good enough to handle something like this.

It wasn’t.

When I arrived in Thessaloniki, sure enough, my bags were not there. The lady said to go to the non-EU carousel as I had come from Sydney and Singapore, but still no dice. So we went through the process of reporting the lost bag.

To be honest, I wasn’t that worried. I figured that it had not been intercepted and had been sent straight to the carousel in Athens. As I didn’t collect it, I figured it wouldn’t be too hard for them to find and then send to my hotel.

So I had little to do but head to my hotel. Without a change of clothes, all I could do was shower and put the old ones back. Still worked a treat though and I felt like a new person.

I decided to have a bit of a walk around town and get something to eat. The concierge showed me a map and I discovered my hotel was a little bit out of the centre. He said it was not walking distance - about 30 minutes. Ha! I thought. I’ve had hotel staff try to tell me what I can and can’t walk before, so I set out.

I think walking around town is much better - you miss less and it is harder to get lost. Not impossible to get lost though, as I discovered. Actually, I took a wrong turn and walk 2 blocks the wrong way. No big deal. It was kind of funny though, as I think I was in the sex district. Being Easter Monday, the Erotic Mega Store was closed. Bummer.

The first discovery I had though, was the Allied Cemetary, as the map called it. It had a very nice monument in the centre, and the grounds were nice to walk around. Something I would not have found had I taken the bus.

My first destination was the harbour foreshore. What a view! I reached it from the western side and could see the White Tower in the distance. I have to be honest; the suburbs of Thessaloniki look a little run down. There is a lot of buildings with paint pealing, etc. But get to the city centre and you can see that it is a very beautiful city.

I had lunch at a café in a very busy piazza. I had a delicious “Mediterranean” baguette - basically fetta and salad - washed down with a coke and continued walking around. It was about this time that I saw the rain clouds in the distance. It was about a third of a second later that I remembered 2 items that were in my lost luggage - my umbrella and my rain jacket.

I decided to risk it and press on. I made a route via some Byzantine churches and other sights that would get me back to the road to the hotel. The churches were nice, as they often are in Europe, but I did not go inside any. There was also the arch of Galerius and parts of the old city wall.

The rain came and went twice, but I managed to avoid getting too wet as most of the buildings have small eves. Arriving back at the hotel, the concierge said my bag had arrive and would be sent up, and she had the details of travelling to Vergina that I asked for. Despite my exhaustion, I was pretty damn happy right then.

It was about 5 o’clock and while I had no interest in doing anything that involved moving, I wanted to stay awake for a while for the whole sleep pattern regulation thing. The tv channels available in the hotel is all in Greek, despite indications that BBC world and CNN are available. So after some channel surfing (where I saw an Australian documentary on snakes which I could understand some of) I watched episodes 2 and 3 of John Adams and went to sleep about 8:30.

Blessed sleep. Thus ends day 1

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Photos

The White Tower
As seen form the foreshore

A church
Sorry, not sure which one is which

Another church
Right near the arch. Note the Starbucks umbrella in the foreground - there seems to be a lot of them here.

A Greek Orthodox Easter
I think this church was decorated for easter.

Comments

[Liz Vincent]

great photos
Sounds a fascinating place, great photos looks warmer than her in Oz this morning 3 degrees