"I went down to Piraeus..."
Okay, I haven't quite made it yet, and we will not be accompanied by Glaucon, but I couldn't resist...
The big trip to Greece launches this afternoon.
We're headed over courtesy of KLM this time. I've never flown one of the big old 747s, so it ought to be interesting.
This time, if all goes somewhat according to plan, we'll be hitting the Cyclades chain -- specifically, Naxos, Amorgos, and Paros. We'll start from Piraeus (where we'll stay overnight to catch the first ferry out -- there is no other good reason to be in Piraeus), and see where we wind up.
As an aside, I happened to catch a Rick Steves show on PBS this past weekend -- he was in Greece doing what he does, and at the end there was a campy scene for the camera in which he asked a Greek tourist information desk if he could get the brochure of ferry boat schedules to the islands. Umm, right! There's no such critter, and it wouldn't fit on a brochure if there were. The ferry boat schedules are always a work in progress, especially during low season, and can change radically from day to day. The online schedule is pretty good a few days out -- but about the best planning you can do is really informed guesswork. You'll get where you want to get eventually, but you can't really do tight scheduling. And who wants to be frantic about Greek island hopping anyway?
Last time, I couldn't be bothered with a full-blown laptop, and I wound up not writing as much as I would like. This time, I'll have the eee, and may post a few updates along the way. Or I may write more about it when I return. Either way, I hope to have much more to say about the trip this time. Travel writing is a nice way of remembering the details of a trip.
Here's wishing everyone a nice two weeks! See ya on the other side (if not sooner)...
UPDATE (05-03-2008): So, KLM reservation got all screwed up because of a flight delay on their end, and they wound up breaking our party of four into two parties of two and routing us to Athens on different routes/carriers because of availability issues. We all finally got to ATH only to find a public transit strike, but used a trick to avoid waiting in an hour long line (at least) for a taxi to Piraeus. Finally got a bit of rest in Piraeus and caught a morning ferry to Naxos, which is an amazing island. Life improved considerably when we were able to ditch the airport for the open seas. Off to explore further now...
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/30/08 10:52 | Travel | Technorati
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Comments
Have a great, relaxing trip!! Can't wait to hear all about it!
Posted by Evelynne @ 12:34 on 04/30/08
So, no time to upload some pics on the EeePC eh?
Hope you're having a good time.
Posted by Cory @ 09:17 on 05/14/08
Internet access was pretty limited most of the time, and we stayed so busy that I was okay being unplugged most of the time. :)
The eee did come in EXTREMELY handy for checking out travel info here and there, though, including one wifi connection on board a ferry boat to an island where we hadn't yet figured out a hotel (the satellite broadband on the boat was surprisingly good). It's the ultimate travel machine -- didn't weigh me down at all, yet fully capable of doing what I needed to do.
I'll be backfilling the blog here with daily travel notes eventually, and the flickr pages with photos. But I think I have about one more day of conquering the jet lag first... :)
Posted by Kevin @ 09:17 on 05/15/08
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