Last full day in Greece on this 15-day trip.
Yet another crappy sleep. Greek hotel beds have not been particularly comfortable and with dearest F’s penchant for the polar vortex no comforters in any of the hotels have helped create a good night’s rest.
The usual top notch Poseidonion Grand Hotel Breakfast. T usually has a double Greek coffee as part of his breakfast routine. How can he be so calm!
We had a huge walk to and around the Old Harbour. So many beautiful houses on the way although a pile of garbage here and there and a mound of abandoned boat engine parts in more “out of the way” side streets. But plenty of boats in this once thriving harbour.
A long walk brings with it a hearty appetite but simply couldn’t find a restaurant to our liking so we had a lovely lunch on the terrace of the hotel and took the shuttle to the Aero High Speed to return us to Piraeus. Our luggage followed in a van. The boat was on time so we presented our phones and showed our “tickets”. These damn nuisance apps. It is so much more convenient to show a paper ticket instead of standing phone and luggage in hand locating the “ticket” on your phone. The app may be the sellers most convenient mechanism but for the buyer well that’s another story.
The Aero High Speed was packed so we had to sit in our assigned seats. Lots of day trippers returning to Athens.
Arrived some three hours later as darkness approached and speaking of approach we were approached by a legitimate taxi driver saying he could load all the luggage and people (4) in his Skoda station wagon. Amazing that he did it. More space than the Land Rover we had spent a few days earlier in.
Off to Sofitel Athens Airport Hotel in a blur of taxi driver conversation;
- Immigrants are flooding into Greece taking all the jobs from young Greeks who are too busy playing on the computers all day dreaming of being social influencers
- Trump Iran war driving up cost of petrol and heating much of which is powered by diesel fuel
- Iran has threatened to attack the Greek island of Crete due the presence of American bases there
- Greece has lost ownership of most of its infrastructure to foreign interests mostly to settle it loans of the past
- American tourism to Greece is decreased due to you know who. Americans are too embarrassed or fearful of being Americans
The 60 Euro price all in to Sofitel vanished as the driver said as he accepted the agreed to 60 Euros, “What no tip! No way to treat a taxi driver!”
Checked in to Sofitel and met T and I at Jenny’s Rooftop Restaurant for our farewell dinner. While American tourism is down in Greece the restaurant was packed with Americans some very loud, too loud. I had sea bass, delicious indeed. It struck me how often sea bass is on Greek menus. Greek waters are overfished and have been for years but sea bass and sea bream are commercially farmed and abundant as opposed to wild caught.
Back in the room I checked in online with Air Canada and I recall receiving a notice we should be at the airport at least three hours before departure time. Given the two hour wait to enter Greece from Toronto due to inefficient passport control I took this Air Canada notice seriously.
Strange that I had an excellent sleep. Was it the comforter..finally a comforter.
Photos of Spetses by R. Kennedy Stephen
