Let’s go to Greece!
We finished the Camino midday Monday without a plan for the remainder of our time abroad.
Our rendezvous with the Gorga Family in Italy wasn’t workable with our combined schedules, so I begged forgiveness and listened properly to our middle children; they both suggested Greece.
We spent hours sitting in our rented apartment Tuesday making reservations for the next two weeks. It was a far cry from hiking all day, our legs ached from inactivity!
After a late lunch we swung by the cathedral and ran into two solo Camino women we had shared time with, Jeni from Sydney and Tamera from Poland. I talked Larry into attending late (Spanish) Mass with the hopes we’d see the Botafumeiro, a giant incense pendulum. They didn’t swing it.
Wednesday was a full day of travel from Santiago, Spain to Athens, Greece. We had the most glorious red sunset ever witnessed, on or off a plane - I think we were meant to visit Greece.
In all our planning the day before, I had forgotten to book a taxi offered by our lodging hosts. We stood late night at the immigration exit baffled at my oversight. Communication is near and dear to our hearts and this was a classic example of he said she said. I forgot to book the taxi. Larry assumed I had and kept talking about the man with our name on a card. I, in turn thought he had booked it with those card comments. Imagine our surprise.
We got a taxi who drove out of his way to increase the fare, his deceit backfired when he found himself on a country dirt road riddled with potholes. He was irate. Larry, Saint Larry the diplomat, defused the short, squatty man so we weren’t left on the side of the road in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
We drug ourselves out of the taxi, into the mediocre lodging (I booked), took quick showers to wash off airline grime before collapsing into bed. The clock struck midnight at the same time I heard Larry snore.
Today Larry had no interest to visit the famous Parthenon, much to my disappointment. He did locate the Archaeological site of Brauron within walking distance. Walking along the same country dirt road full of potholes, we saw orchards of olives, figs, and pistachios. After the dirt road we skirted a busier paved road dodging from the left side to the right side as deemed necessary around curves.
We visited Attica, a museum and dig site with prehistoric treasures, most from the Temple of Artemis during the 5th CenturyBC.
We met Teresa, exchanged stories and contact info too.
We hiked toward the coast in search of food. Up and down hills, dodging fast moving vehicles, we were both tired and hungry. (According to the Saint, I was hangry). At one point Larry took us down a sketchy alleyway where I had to level myself holding into a rusted fence, round a trash lined dirt road to the most amazing vision, besides the red sunset, a fish restaurant! The cook pulled out several iced drawers with squid and different types of whole fish for us to choose from.
About once a week the waiter will bring out free dessert and shots of the local beverage. It happened in Portugal, in Spain, and today in Greece. Usually it’s Saint Larry’s smile and unbashful attempt to say a few words in their language…but today, neither of us tried speaking rudimentary Greek, instead I fed two cats begging for food and the proprietor gave us free dessert and shots of who knows what. Both delicious. Larry two, Rebecca one. I’m catching up!
