Day 33

Kaliméra,

This afternoon we arrived in Athens.

We awoke this morning in Agrigento, drove back towards the traffic mad city of Catania, parked the car in long term parking and flew to Athens. While it was an easy, quiet, uneventful journey, there are not many pictures to share, sorry.

We arrived in Athens at 5:00pm local time. (There is a one hour time difference between Athens and Italy).

The Greek economy has been a disaster since 2008, when Greece had to be rescued by the European Union. Part of the rescue package involved a lot of cost cutting by the government, and so

times have been tough for the people of Greece, with the unemployment still about 10%.

Italy’s economy (which is much larger than Greece’s economy) is now in very dire straits and Italy is either going to have to accept serious cost cutting measures, or it may decide to leave the European Union.

Arriving in Athens, we both immediately felt different, better, happier. Our initial first impressions were that Athens had itself together and was going places.

First of all, Athens is clean. Italy is very dirty, and in some parts of Sicily it is absolutely disgusting. It is not unusual in Sicily to see bags and bags of household rubbish dumped by the side of the road. The Autostrada’s are in dire need of repair, and the roadside foliage is not trimmed or mowed. As we were driving into the city of Catania this afternoon, the trees in the median strip were so over grown, the branches took up half of the fast lane on the Autostrada.

As we were driving through Italy, Grandma would often comment “don’t they care about what their houses and properties look like?”. This was especially evident in the larger towns and cities. The small villages and farms were often very neat. But then you’d come across a pile of rubbish dumped on the side of the road as you drive out of town.

From Athens airport we took the Metro (subway) into the city. This was clean, quiet, modern and fast. It was easy. From there we walked to our hotel.

It was just on 6:00pm as we walked from the National Gardens to our hotel in Plaka. We know we are staying in one of the better suburbs right in the middle of the city. But as we walked there were restaurants everywhere, filled with fashionably dressed young people, tourists and locals. The place felt vibrant and positive. And the people smile! Something we saw less and less of in Italy as we went further South.

Our hotel is nice. It is modern (ironically, this means the rooms are a bit smaller than in an old building), but big enough for the three of us and in a perfect location.

We had dinner in a restaurant we had walked past on our way to the hotel. Lovely meal, great service, surrounded by lots of happy people speaking Greek (no American accents!).

There is a new dangerous food for Koro’s tummy - Baklava!

Yummyness wrapped up in featherweight filo pastry and soaked in honey.

We’ve only just arrived in Athens, but already we feel so glad we made the effort to come to Greece.

Love to you all from Grandma and Koro and Buzzy Bee. XXX OOO