Greece – 1994

This was the 2nd leg of my first frequent flyer “score’”. I had some miles on American and somehow I got a buy-one-get-one-free promotion on TWA. I don’t remember the specifics but we flew from Washington – Rome on American, took a ferry to Greece, and then flew a local airline from Athens to Cairo where I met up with friends. Flew TWA back to USA.

With the 15 lb statue we purchased in Rome in tow, we took a cruise from Bari to Corfu on an old ferry. I did splurge for a cabin rather than sleeping in the seats on the indoor deck. We left at night from Bari and all I remember about the next day is that it was too cold to be outside and I was doing homework (I was in grad school) most of the day inside. No real scenery either along the coast….this was not the Greek Islands in this area. After getting to Corfu, all I remember is that on the corniche there was people grilling animals on spits – we never resolved if it was a goat or a dog. Followed up with Moussaka – not my favorite either.

We picked up a rental car and drove to Olympia and saw the ancient sites of the Olympic Games, but we also learned Mt. Olympus was literally on the other site of the country, so we didn’t see the mountain nor Zeus.

We then headed cross-country to Athens where we stayed for a couple of days. Stayed in Plaka which was right below the Acropolis – great location for visiting all of the sites. We also came during a holiday period – was a great night out in Plaka and then people started playfully hitting each other lightly on the top of the head with sticks. However, after a couple hours of Ouzo, the hitting was increasing to the annoying level so we called it a night.

The next day we went to the Acropolis and everyone was flying kites – it was “Clean Monday’ – the first day of lent (btw – did a lot of googling and couldn’t find out why the night before involved the sticks). Good day to walk around and explore all of the sites.

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For some reason, we decided to forego a couple of more days in Athens and fly to Mykonos for two days – maybe because the ferry trip wasn’t scenic. Was relatively expense flight plus rental car there and generally wasn’t worth it. First, it was still a bit cold and out of season and second we had assumed it would be similar to the stereotypical Greek Island pictures that you see – like Santorini.

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We found a place to stay in the middle of town, probably pretty cheap since we were the only people there visiting. I recall going for dinner and then hard to find an open bar afterwards. This was March – who knew so cold in Greece – and was not the European party scene we were expecting.

We left the next day, flew back to Athens and then changed from the domestic airport to the International Airport and flew some sketchy airline to Cairo….statue still in tow.

(This was written during the Great Shutdown of 2020. My memory isn’t this good, used internet searches to fill in a lot of holes. If there’s huge fat foot below me, it not my fault – that an advertisement I can’t control).