Cyclonic Crunch!
We were up at 6:25 this morning to be greeted by heavy rain. We drove away about 15 minutes later each with a nice pastry handy for breakfast. It’s a 2 hour drive to Athens International at the best of times. However, today was not to be one of those times.
It was a bit dicey as we drove 30 kms north in the dark to join the freeway with the driving rain not particularly helpful. We fuelled up our Panda along the way before finally joining the freeway. At that point the rain generally stopped and was replaced by very high winds. Warnings of, VERY HIGH WINDS…SLOW DOWN, were flashing on the electronic freeway signs. I had already come to that conclusion although a few others were trying to travel at 130+ as the conditions continued to worsen.
As the wind buffeted our tiny car I began to wish that we had brought along 2 big heavy check-in size suitcases as well!😬 Ballast!
The winds continued to present a challenge as we neared Athens, but driving a bit slower allowed us to manage ok. An accident closer in delayed traffic by 30 minutes, but we had departed early enough to provide enough buffer for our 11:30 flight. Sitting still in all the traffic, I mentioned to Annemarie something about finding ourselves in the morning rush hour in Athens was actually another quite interesting travel experience.
I’ve noticed that the Greek drivers are better than they use to be. You still need to drive like a Greek when you are here. For example, the cars leave just enough room in their lane for the motorcycles to run along between the lanes. You literally have to watch all directions at the same time particularly on the freeways. That said, I always enjoy driving in other countries because our civic politicians at home have somehow combined to make driving ridiculously slow and so boring! There are a few of them who I hope get the boot in our upcoming civic elections which will happen while we are away. We couldn’t vote in the municipal or provincial elections before we left because it just wasn’t available yet. I checked.
Needless to say, we managed to make it to the airport rental car drop-off in time. Interestingly, in order to fill the fuel tank one needs to drive past the drop-off and head back towards Athens to find a petrol station. I think this was done deliberately, forcing people who arrive expecting to fuel up before drop-off to have to pay a fuel top-up fee. This is the first time I’ve ever had that experience. Our penalty was €24.🤬 Oh well. After the driving conditions this morning, we were just happy to have dropped the car off without an issue and then make it through security ok. OK except for Annemarie who famously manages to get pulled out of most security lines for a personal check.😅
We are now waiting to see if our flight will depart.
The flight has been delayed for now as Kos is getting nailed by the storm. The lady next to me said she is talking with her mother in Kos who said very heavy rain is falling there and that there is lightning as well.
I’d rather be sitting here than have a ticket on the typically reliable fast ferries. They may not even be sailing today, but if they are it will be a wild ride. The waves we saw on our drive this morning were already a very good size.
As a diversion while we sit waiting; we enjoyed a very nice meal last night.
I’ve been looking for a restaurant that serves a bit more authentic Greek food. Yesterday on our wander we found one! I was specifically looking for stofado, an excellent Greek stew, and they had it!😋 I make it at home from time to time and I was looking forward to tasting it here.
I almost had the complete typical meal. It’s traditionally served with lemon Greek potatoes. Not this time. Fries…🙄 Apparently I could have had rice with it which would have been much better, but the option wasn’t on the menu or mentioned by our waiter. I watched someone else order it as I ate my meal. Live and learn. Options are not always on the menu!
Our flight has a further delay…at 12:30 we will be updated. We can get out of here but not land in Kos. So we wait.
Yesterday we found out that a taxi from the Kos airport to Kos town costs €60 each way and that the bus wait is often very long and goes infrequently. I contacted my pal David and he came through with a 4 day car rental. We were going to rent one for a day anyway, so the 4 day rental only costs about €25 more than two taxi rides. On Sunday we have a quite early flight back to Athens for our connecting flight to Crete. Having a car will make things much easier that morning.
Annemarie doesn’t think we will get out of here until 18:00. I guess we will see.
But at 12:15 we are loaded into a bus.
It’s a smallish plane like the ones that fly between Vancouver and Victoria. They even give you a candy like they use to do with Air Canada!😅
So once we get our clearance it’s a 45’ flight to Kos. Travel days can be such good fun. But better to use a wet day travelling rather than waste a beautiful sunny day.
As we were getting closer to Kos the pilot told us that we had delayed because of a number of thunderstorms in the Kos area and that we had had to fly around a few.
Approaching Kos.
And we made it! Then it was straight to the car rental area, pick up our key and then head for Kos town where we are basing ourselves for 4 days in a nice apartment we found online.
The rain has stopped and the sun is poking through. I guess we will finish the laundry and then look for a place to enjoy dinner. Lunch didn’t happen today, but we had some trail mix from the Toronto airport free giveaway!😂
We are supposed to get sun tomorrow. That will be refreshing!
Cheers!
Geoff🍻
