So anyway, we (or "I" rather) settled on Greece. We didn't intent to go for 10 days. It just happened by "accident" - more like Dylan's fault! We were in the middle of booking our flight and Dagan skyped in. Dylan insist on finishing the reservation while we were on skype, paying half an attention to what were doing. At the end of the skype call, we were stuck with a 10-night trip! It's a good thing I have many holidays to spare otherwise I would not be happy! You see, my initial research has led me to believe that Athens is not as packed with "sights", unlike Rome and Paris. I had wanted to spend 5 nights in Santorini....so 5 nights in Athens is just way too much. Anyhow, we made it work.
The trip started out disastrously, to say the least. We sat in front of a noise making toddler from Edinburgh to Amsterdam! We don't blame the child but rather the parents, for not stopping the child when he kicks the seat in front of him (my seat) continuously AND provoking the child to sing/say "e-i-e-i-o" in a loud screeching, high pitched voice every time the child stops!!! What in the world was the father thinking??? After an hour and a half of "e-i-e-i-o" and a vein and eye popping piercing pain in my eye socket and forehead due to a sinus infection and cabin pressure instability during landing combination, I was reading to eat the child for dinner!
Anyhow, we were just glad to be off the plane for transit in Amsterdam with "e-i-e-i-o" still ringing in my ears. The next leg of our journey on the flight was rather uneventful except for the same piercing pain and motion sickness during landing. Not to mention it was 2a.m. local time (midnight UK time) by the time we land. 10:30p.m. is usually my bedtime to give you some frame of reference! With all that going on, we (Dylan would say I) left our passports on the plane (seat pocket)! I didn't realised it until we left the airport and on the bus en route to our hotel. I seriously didn't think it was going to a big deal. Surely the cleaning crew will find it, send it to the lost and found, and we'll just pick it up the next day from the airport. No big deal. Wrong! In hindsight (which is 20-20), we should have gotten off the bus and went straight back to the airport had we known how inefficient and unhelpful KLM is in handling lost and found property.
Long story short, after visits to the various embassies, tons of international phone calls on our mobile phones, no thanks to KLM, we finally located our passports, not in Athens but in Amsterdam! We had to delay our flight to Santorini (another expense) so that we can have another working weekday in Athens. By Monday night, we finally arrived in Santorini - 4 days after our departure from Edinburgh!
That said, all was not lost in Athens. We managed to do some sight seeing in Athens. Sadly, like Milan, Athens is littered with graffiti, and box-like, distasteful brick built building. The "sites" were sporadic and spread very far apart with very little interesting buildings/things to do in between. Also, we didn't understand why there were so many stray random dogs and cats all over the streets??
Santorini....aaahhh....that's a whole different story! The island is breathtaking! It's definitely a must-visit if you can make it. It's hard to describe the beauty of the natural wonder of Santorini so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
