Our digs for the next few days was in Voula a seaside suburb of Athens and has become THE part of the coast line to be. I had chosen this location because it was half way between the Port of Pireaus (pronounce that Pierarse) where we would have to get our transit log and the Port of Lavrion where “Panormitis” has just been put back in the water. As well we would be dealing with the 364kgs of gear arriving at the airport the next day or so. So the triangle of our predicted travelling put Voula at the top of the list.
Directions seemed straight forward. It is a main road to the beach suburb. I had previously had a look on the net and found Route 62 from the airport turning into Route 85 to the beach. Trying to confirm this at the Avis office had them saying they don’t use numbers for their roadways and proceeded to instruct me how to get on the correct road but under no circumstances were we to follow Route 92 to Markopoulou. When I queried them mentioning a number I was told they are used for major roads only. Beginning to think that the locals don’t know much about their local surrounds, as the signing out on the road was in both name and Route number.
We had a close shave with a bus leaving the airport precinct and again trying to cross an intersection for a left hand turn. With rear wheels up in the island garden we made the turn with some help from courteous Greek drivers and some horn blowing and words from the rest. Got ourselves lost a couple of times and after a phone call to out host for further directions we were rocketing along the esplanade. Turn at the hospital was mentioned so when one came in sight we turned. The streets are really something to see. Two way with cars parked half on the footpath( nothing like a real footpath but that’s what they are supposed to be)and the road, leaving only a narrow access for both way traffic including buses. We did what the locals do and just parked where we could and Glen and myself set off on foot to see if we could find our hotel. A line of taxi drivers outside the hospital provided what should have been fool proof directions.. I mean, if a taxi driver can’t tell you how to get there who can? Much collaboration in Greek between three drivers had the directions being “ down this road, turn right in the 3 road and when you see the big tree in the middle take that one”. Would dearly have liked to ask more questions but didn’t want to confuse what info we had. Back to the car and came down the road, turned right into a 3 lane road. Is this the 3 roads he mentioned? Soon there appeared a very large tree where 3 roads turned to the right with our hotel on the corner between 2 of them. Parked at the rear and Dimitri ( he was to have a name change to Manuel over the next few days) was in charge of checking us in, we were relieved to at last be at the hotel.
A quaint establishment to say the least. The reception and foyer area …very nice. The lift …room for one and a bag. The rooms… well Ikea has done very well in the decorating but nothing like the display rooms you see in store. Sometime recently there had been a bit of a makeover with the tiles and bathroom fittings new but all in the same place of an obviously outdated and badly planned bathroom. What a pity.
Directions from Manuel (remember Manwell from Faulty Towers?) weren’t reliable althought he always put a rider on his comments “but I’m not entirely sure” So we often found ourselves somewhere we hadn’t planned on being. We found a great eatery just a short walk away and the owner brought us tasting plates so we could decide and also see if we could identify the ingredients. Everyone enjoyed their dinner and headed back to the hotel for a hot (actually it was lukewarm) shower.