I have had a lovely Christmas and New Year at home with the family but now it’s the fifth of January 2018, time to start my new job and I am currently being patted down by a security guard at Heathrow airport Terminal 5 whilst trying to hold my trousers up because I have had to remove my belt. I have transgressed by leaving some money in my trouser pocket and it’s seems to have been flagged as a weapon of mass destruction.
I am heading to Athens to familiarise myself with the office and my new roles and responsibilities. I am pretty clear on these already and to keep it simple I am technical manager for a fleet of oil and gas support ships based in what can only be described as the less attractive and less safe parts of the world.
What can go wrong in Athens I thought as I settled into my window seat on a completely full British Airways flight. I was not hungry as I had bacon rolls in the BA lounge and it was good that I was not hungry because BA now expects you to pay for food in economy and it’s just over priced Marks & Spencer’s sandwiches. The second negative is travelling in economy so that means no space for my rucksack in the overhead locker because BA seem to allow some passengers to travel with huge hand luggage that means people like me need to squash their possessions into the tiny space that was meant for my feet. Yes you go ahead and put your huge trunk in the overhead locker, I am more than happy to stand on my rucksack for the entire flight. What is even worse is that my rucksack and jacket were in the locker but the wonderful BA cabin crew instructed all persons with small bags and jackets to remove them and put them under the seat in front just so that the ignorant idiots carrying the kitchen sink in oversized bags can squeeze them in. Nice one BA, penalise me for sticking to the rules and keep on reminding us that the plane cant take off and we will be delayed because its a full flight. Maybe there is an engine start inhibit switch under the seat in front because it seemed incredibly important that my poor rucksack was right underneath before we could take off. I can just see the relief on the pilots face ‘ok start engines, seat 13C has now got his bag exactly where his feet should be’. I am not sure how many times we were reminded that it was a full flight but it was numerous and tedious. I have never heard them announce that a flight is practically empty and that they will be hiding behind their curtains doing bugger all for the entire flight. You may be aware that the flight had not started very well and then the man in front reclined his seat fully, his head was so close that I could almost inhale his dandruff. Oh yes, another example of the joys and romance of air travel! Having sworn that nothing would make me pay for food and drink on a plane, I promptly ordered two gin and tonics to ease the pain.
I shall say nothing more about the flight i.e. the boredom of being incarcerated in a tiny space with no entertainment other than a small screen at the front row. Just over one thousand pounds for a return ticket to Athens and this is what you get. Oh yes the cabin crew kept reminding us that there is a coat hook on the back of the seat. What use is this hook and if you should use it how would you put your table down to enjoy the expensive sandwiches. Nice one BA!
Athens airport is small and quiet in comparison with Heathrow and after landing, my suitcase arrived quite promptly so I was soon out of the building and in a taxi. Despite the office being in the business section of Athens (Vrilissia) my hotel is on the coast in an area called Palaio Faliro with views over the Saronic Gulf and Kastella Hill. Well I noticed the Saronic Gulf but I must admit I have no memory of seeing Kastella Hill.
I am heading to Athens to familiarise myself with the office and my new roles and responsibilities. I am pretty clear on these already and to keep it simple I am technical manager for a fleet of oil and gas support ships based in what can only be described as the less attractive and less safe parts of the world.
What can go wrong in Athens I thought as I settled into my window seat on a completely full British Airways flight. I was not hungry as I had bacon rolls in the BA lounge and it was good that I was not hungry because BA now expects you to pay for food in economy and it’s just over priced Marks & Spencer’s sandwiches. The second negative is travelling in economy so that means no space for my rucksack in the overhead locker because BA seem to allow some passengers to travel with huge hand luggage that means people like me need to squash their possessions into the tiny space that was meant for my feet. Yes you go ahead and put your huge trunk in the overhead locker, I am more than happy to stand on my rucksack for the entire flight. What is even worse is that my rucksack and jacket were in the locker but the wonderful BA cabin crew instructed all persons with small bags and jackets to remove them and put them under the seat in front just so that the ignorant idiots carrying the kitchen sink in oversized bags can squeeze them in. Nice one BA, penalise me for sticking to the rules and keep on reminding us that the plane cant take off and we will be delayed because its a full flight. Maybe there is an engine start inhibit switch under the seat in front because it seemed incredibly important that my poor rucksack was right underneath before we could take off. I can just see the relief on the pilots face ‘ok start engines, seat 13C has now got his bag exactly where his feet should be’. I am not sure how many times we were reminded that it was a full flight but it was numerous and tedious. I have never heard them announce that a flight is practically empty and that they will be hiding behind their curtains doing bugger all for the entire flight. You may be aware that the flight had not started very well and then the man in front reclined his seat fully, his head was so close that I could almost inhale his dandruff. Oh yes, another example of the joys and romance of air travel! Having sworn that nothing would make me pay for food and drink on a plane, I promptly ordered two gin and tonics to ease the pain.
I shall say nothing more about the flight i.e. the boredom of being incarcerated in a tiny space with no entertainment other than a small screen at the front row. Just over one thousand pounds for a return ticket to Athens and this is what you get. Oh yes the cabin crew kept reminding us that there is a coat hook on the back of the seat. What use is this hook and if you should use it how would you put your table down to enjoy the expensive sandwiches. Nice one BA!
Athens airport is small and quiet in comparison with Heathrow and after landing, my suitcase arrived quite promptly so I was soon out of the building and in a taxi. Despite the office being in the business section of Athens (Vrilissia) my hotel is on the coast in an area called Palaio Faliro with views over the Saronic Gulf and Kastella Hill. Well I noticed the Saronic Gulf but I must admit I have no memory of seeing Kastella Hill.
The name of my hotel (Coral) presents an image of white sandy beaches, and blue sea merging into an even bluer sky. Reality was something different as it was dark, rainy and cold. Yes it came as a shock to me that Athens gets really cold in the winter. It is a long way south so how can the temperature get down to four degrees and sometimes it even snows. Well anyway it does and I entered a hotel that was obviously designed by someone who was equally ignorant of the low winter temperatures in Greece. I walked past the restaurant that is in the holiday season al fresco but now temporarily enclosed in glass and plastic for the winter and it was freezing. Reception was also a pretty uncomfortable temperature but at least the staff seemed friendly. From the map above you can see that the hotel is separated from the beach by an incredibly busy dual carriageway and the only ways to cross are to wait for ever for the pedestrian crossing lights or literally run when there is a minor lull due to traffic lights further down the road. I am not exaggerating, this is a life threatening activity and should be classed as a dangerous sport. I have included a few photographs below and they link to a gallery of photographs (such as they are) from my stay in Greece. Now that I have made the commitment to maintain this blog, I will ensure that on future travels I will take more useful photographs.
I hate the process of checking in at hotels but to be fair it was quick and I was soon waiting for the single lift to appear. It seemed to take for ever and when I got in the door closed but the lift did not move. The door then slowly opened and closed a number of times before the lift started to wobble and grate its way up to the sixth floor. Does this lift possess artificial intelligence and did it make a conscious decision to upset a tired traveller who desperately needed a pee. There was a camera in the lift and I can just imagine the lift thinking ‘this one looks tired and by the way he cant keep still, I bet he needs the toilet. I think I will fuck with him for a bit by doing the door opening and closing routine for a while. It’s alway good for a laugh’.
Thank God the door key card worked first time or the carpet would have been swamped. That’s another thing I hate, door cards that do not explicitly show you which way they need to be inserted and become erased if put within six feet of your mobile phone. How many times have I arrived at a hotel room to find that a little red light flashes to say that the card is scrambled. Back down to reception to be scolded for daring to have the card close to a phone. The words ‘not fit for purpose’ come to mind. Can you imagine if you had a house key that stopped working if you put it next to your phone and you could not get into your house. It would be really stupid and you would change the lock immediately, but hotels no, the fault is not the key sir it its your phone. Anyway I digress as this key was marked clearly and it did let me in before any carpet damage occurred.
The room was small and there was an incredible noise from the traffic thundering past on the dual carriageway below. I am at the back of the hotel so God knows how noisy it is at the front. I did not have a view of the Saronic Gulf, all I could see was scaffolding and another building that seemed so close that I could almost touch it. Ok its not an expensive hotel and I am only going to be here for ten days so the basic facilities will not be a problem. Actually it is a problem because this is supposed to be a four star hotel and it most obviously is not!
I decided to eat and ventured down to the restaurant. There were three fairly large tables full of people smoking heavily and having got used to no smoking in buildings this seemed particularly intrusive. No problem, I am not going to get grumpy, I will ask for a non smoking table at the warmer end, away from the drafts and noisy road. A middle aged waiter was dashing around in a rather ineffectual manner and appeared to be ignoring me on purpose. When I did manage to get his attention he informed me that all the non smoking tables were booked and I would have to sit in the frozen smoky wastes of the hinterland between the two sections. Don’t be grumpy Steve, I know there is nobody at currently sitting at the non smoking tables but I am sure that a horde of hungry customers will arrive and occupy them soon. I chose from what was labelled the Greek section of the menu even though it did not seem very Greek. Grilled chicken and fries? I did imagine that it would be cooked in a Greek style, maybe with aubergines or a Mediterranean inspired sauce. I ordered and the frantic waiter told me he was very busy and ominously he headed to another large smoky table to take their orders before doing anything with mine. A young man did bring me a glass of wine and then the long wait began. I think it was about forty five minutes before Mr Frantic came out of the kitchen with a plate of food. He carried it high on the upturned palm of his hand as if he was delivering a culinary masterpiece and I was so so relieved. He went straight past me to the rows of smokers at the tables near the windows. He offered this plate of food to just about everybody in the restaurant before remembering that it was for me and plonked it on my table. There were two things that I desperately wanted to say to him but trying to upbeat I restrained myself. Firstly the meal in front of me looked awful, a flattened pale chicken breast and some boiled potatoes with not a hint of Greekness at all. No salad, no tomatoes, no vegetables, no nothing. The second thing I wanted to share with him was a question. Why is there hardly anybody in the non smoking section and I have now been here secondary smoking and freezing for approximately one hour. Never mind, the boy brought me more wine and I hungrily ate my anaemic chicken and potatoes.
I have an early start in the morning so I asked for the bill and then I asked again and again. After about 20 minutes of being told how busy he was I appealed to the wine serving boy but he was unable to operate the electronic till so I just kept waiting. With Mr Frantic not making an appearance I stood up and told the wine youth that I was going to walk out of the restaurant and complain at reception. As I had already been asked for my room number I said 'please just charge the meal and drinks to 609'. Frantic hurriedly returned and told me once again how busy he was but he would be with me in a minute. I sat back down and eventually he arrived with a card machine and my bill. He was by now extremely flustered and when I said I would just sign for the meal he announced that this was not possible as the restaurant was a different company from the hotel. Once again I restrained myself and did not ask the obvious question. ‘Why did you ask me for my room number?’. I used my debit card. This has now taken about two hours and there were still plenty of tables in the non smoking section. The hordes of hungry Greek diners had not arrived.
I waited for the lift to taunt me with the door trick and it did not disappoint, they ponderously opened and shut a number of times before finally closing and allowing the lift to jerk upwards. I can only compare the noise to a train passing through a station with a dog wheel bearing. Worrying! Ok I was not going to be in bed as early as I wanted because of the chicken fillet debacle and there was no point trying to sleep now because there seemed to be a party going on in the corridor and in the next room. The walls are, I believe made of rice paper so the noise was incredible and sleep impossible. Trying not to be grumpy I dressed and went down to reception to ask them to do something about the noise. To be fair one of the staff came up with me and tried his best to curtail the corridor runners and the next door shouters. It made no difference and I was dressed again at 0200 and back down in reception asking for a different room. There was considerable shrugging of shoulders and they said that there were no quieter rooms because they had football teams staying and despite spending all their time going up and down trying to shut them up it was to no avail. ‘They are uncontrollable, they are animals’ said one of the reception staff.
I went back to my room and between 0300 and 0330 wrote a blistering review of the hotel and restaurant on Trip Advisor. Even football hooligans need to sleep and eventually there was silence at about 0400. My alarm went at 0600 and at 0630 I headed for breakfast but there was nothing. Breakfast is not served until 0700 sir. Just perfect for a person who was being picked up to start his first days work at precisely 0700.
I went back to my room and made a cup of tea and with my last Euro coins went to the vending machine at the end of the corridor to purchase a KitKat for my breakfast. The machine whirred, the chocolate bar moved closer and closer to the edge and then stopped. If anybody was watching on the CCTV they would have seen an irate Welsh person frantically shaking the vending machine and swearing loudly. I had no KitKat, it had anti gravitational powers and refused to budge. Do you think the machine also has AI and the lift told it to do this? This is a travel blog so I will not mention my work other than to say that I felt like shit all day.
The remainder of my stay at this hotel was relatively uneventful but noisy due to the rice paper walls and traffic outside. Mostly it was talking, loud enough to be annoying but not quite loud enough to understand apart from one night when my neighbours put on a highly audible and lengthy bedroom performance that was easy to understand. Screaming is the same in any language but I worked out that they were English speaking due to the repeated phrase ‘f... me harder’ and from the crescendo of howling, I think he did.
I have a new rule and that is to never submit anything negative to Trip Advisor whilst still staying at the hotel or there is a possibility that you will return in the future. On my third night it was raining outside so I decided to brave the restaurant again. I entered and it was almost empty apart from a few dedicated smokers. I had hoped that it would be a different waiter but no it was Mr Frantic and he quickly told me that all non smoking tables were booked. There was absolutely nobody sitting at them but I accepted a table on the border and ordered soup and a very Greek sounding dish. The soup arrived quickly and it was nice but Frantic then asked my name and whether I had posted on Trip Advisor recently. I confirmed that I had and he said that the Hotel management had instructed him to apologise and my meal would be free of charge. I of course informed him that there was no need and he then went and spoiled things by stating that of course there was no need. I ate my main course worried in case terrible things had been done to my dinner by upset kitchen staff. I did not eat there again! I have included a photograph of my Greek main course below so that you can avoid it if you happen to dine at this establishment. I used to believe that black holes were the most dense objects in existence but now I am not so sure, I think the mass of my main course may have been sufficient to deform space and time or maybe its just that the service was exceptionally slow again.
Thank God the door key card worked first time or the carpet would have been swamped. That’s another thing I hate, door cards that do not explicitly show you which way they need to be inserted and become erased if put within six feet of your mobile phone. How many times have I arrived at a hotel room to find that a little red light flashes to say that the card is scrambled. Back down to reception to be scolded for daring to have the card close to a phone. The words ‘not fit for purpose’ come to mind. Can you imagine if you had a house key that stopped working if you put it next to your phone and you could not get into your house. It would be really stupid and you would change the lock immediately, but hotels no, the fault is not the key sir it its your phone. Anyway I digress as this key was marked clearly and it did let me in before any carpet damage occurred.
The room was small and there was an incredible noise from the traffic thundering past on the dual carriageway below. I am at the back of the hotel so God knows how noisy it is at the front. I did not have a view of the Saronic Gulf, all I could see was scaffolding and another building that seemed so close that I could almost touch it. Ok its not an expensive hotel and I am only going to be here for ten days so the basic facilities will not be a problem. Actually it is a problem because this is supposed to be a four star hotel and it most obviously is not!
I decided to eat and ventured down to the restaurant. There were three fairly large tables full of people smoking heavily and having got used to no smoking in buildings this seemed particularly intrusive. No problem, I am not going to get grumpy, I will ask for a non smoking table at the warmer end, away from the drafts and noisy road. A middle aged waiter was dashing around in a rather ineffectual manner and appeared to be ignoring me on purpose. When I did manage to get his attention he informed me that all the non smoking tables were booked and I would have to sit in the frozen smoky wastes of the hinterland between the two sections. Don’t be grumpy Steve, I know there is nobody at currently sitting at the non smoking tables but I am sure that a horde of hungry customers will arrive and occupy them soon. I chose from what was labelled the Greek section of the menu even though it did not seem very Greek. Grilled chicken and fries? I did imagine that it would be cooked in a Greek style, maybe with aubergines or a Mediterranean inspired sauce. I ordered and the frantic waiter told me he was very busy and ominously he headed to another large smoky table to take their orders before doing anything with mine. A young man did bring me a glass of wine and then the long wait began. I think it was about forty five minutes before Mr Frantic came out of the kitchen with a plate of food. He carried it high on the upturned palm of his hand as if he was delivering a culinary masterpiece and I was so so relieved. He went straight past me to the rows of smokers at the tables near the windows. He offered this plate of food to just about everybody in the restaurant before remembering that it was for me and plonked it on my table. There were two things that I desperately wanted to say to him but trying to upbeat I restrained myself. Firstly the meal in front of me looked awful, a flattened pale chicken breast and some boiled potatoes with not a hint of Greekness at all. No salad, no tomatoes, no vegetables, no nothing. The second thing I wanted to share with him was a question. Why is there hardly anybody in the non smoking section and I have now been here secondary smoking and freezing for approximately one hour. Never mind, the boy brought me more wine and I hungrily ate my anaemic chicken and potatoes.
I have an early start in the morning so I asked for the bill and then I asked again and again. After about 20 minutes of being told how busy he was I appealed to the wine serving boy but he was unable to operate the electronic till so I just kept waiting. With Mr Frantic not making an appearance I stood up and told the wine youth that I was going to walk out of the restaurant and complain at reception. As I had already been asked for my room number I said 'please just charge the meal and drinks to 609'. Frantic hurriedly returned and told me once again how busy he was but he would be with me in a minute. I sat back down and eventually he arrived with a card machine and my bill. He was by now extremely flustered and when I said I would just sign for the meal he announced that this was not possible as the restaurant was a different company from the hotel. Once again I restrained myself and did not ask the obvious question. ‘Why did you ask me for my room number?’. I used my debit card. This has now taken about two hours and there were still plenty of tables in the non smoking section. The hordes of hungry Greek diners had not arrived.
I waited for the lift to taunt me with the door trick and it did not disappoint, they ponderously opened and shut a number of times before finally closing and allowing the lift to jerk upwards. I can only compare the noise to a train passing through a station with a dog wheel bearing. Worrying! Ok I was not going to be in bed as early as I wanted because of the chicken fillet debacle and there was no point trying to sleep now because there seemed to be a party going on in the corridor and in the next room. The walls are, I believe made of rice paper so the noise was incredible and sleep impossible. Trying not to be grumpy I dressed and went down to reception to ask them to do something about the noise. To be fair one of the staff came up with me and tried his best to curtail the corridor runners and the next door shouters. It made no difference and I was dressed again at 0200 and back down in reception asking for a different room. There was considerable shrugging of shoulders and they said that there were no quieter rooms because they had football teams staying and despite spending all their time going up and down trying to shut them up it was to no avail. ‘They are uncontrollable, they are animals’ said one of the reception staff.
I went back to my room and between 0300 and 0330 wrote a blistering review of the hotel and restaurant on Trip Advisor. Even football hooligans need to sleep and eventually there was silence at about 0400. My alarm went at 0600 and at 0630 I headed for breakfast but there was nothing. Breakfast is not served until 0700 sir. Just perfect for a person who was being picked up to start his first days work at precisely 0700.
I went back to my room and made a cup of tea and with my last Euro coins went to the vending machine at the end of the corridor to purchase a KitKat for my breakfast. The machine whirred, the chocolate bar moved closer and closer to the edge and then stopped. If anybody was watching on the CCTV they would have seen an irate Welsh person frantically shaking the vending machine and swearing loudly. I had no KitKat, it had anti gravitational powers and refused to budge. Do you think the machine also has AI and the lift told it to do this? This is a travel blog so I will not mention my work other than to say that I felt like shit all day.
The remainder of my stay at this hotel was relatively uneventful but noisy due to the rice paper walls and traffic outside. Mostly it was talking, loud enough to be annoying but not quite loud enough to understand apart from one night when my neighbours put on a highly audible and lengthy bedroom performance that was easy to understand. Screaming is the same in any language but I worked out that they were English speaking due to the repeated phrase ‘f... me harder’ and from the crescendo of howling, I think he did.
I have a new rule and that is to never submit anything negative to Trip Advisor whilst still staying at the hotel or there is a possibility that you will return in the future. On my third night it was raining outside so I decided to brave the restaurant again. I entered and it was almost empty apart from a few dedicated smokers. I had hoped that it would be a different waiter but no it was Mr Frantic and he quickly told me that all non smoking tables were booked. There was absolutely nobody sitting at them but I accepted a table on the border and ordered soup and a very Greek sounding dish. The soup arrived quickly and it was nice but Frantic then asked my name and whether I had posted on Trip Advisor recently. I confirmed that I had and he said that the Hotel management had instructed him to apologise and my meal would be free of charge. I of course informed him that there was no need and he then went and spoiled things by stating that of course there was no need. I ate my main course worried in case terrible things had been done to my dinner by upset kitchen staff. I did not eat there again! I have included a photograph of my Greek main course below so that you can avoid it if you happen to dine at this establishment. I used to believe that black holes were the most dense objects in existence but now I am not so sure, I think the mass of my main course may have been sufficient to deform space and time or maybe its just that the service was exceptionally slow again.
Did I see any sights on my visit? Well the boulevard that runs for miles is a great place to walk and on the Saturday the temperature reached 16 C and there were people on the beach and even swimming. I ended up in a T shirt and strolled along to the Marina in brilliant sunshine, amazed at the multi million pound yachts lined up from one end to the other. Crisis what crisis! I decided to stop for lunch in one of the Marina restaurants. I ordered grilled squid, a seafood salad and of course fries. I am not allowed fries at home due to my wife being aware that my cholesterol is a bit high so I take every opportunity when I am travelling. The restaurant was fully booked but they managed to squeeze a small table in and I was soon drinking Greek beer from a glass so frozen that ice crystals formed in the beer as it was poured. This was the best bit of my Athens visit so far and then the food arrived. This was no small squid in batter, this was not a selection of tentacles or a few rubbery strips, this was the whole thing on an oval plate. Simply grilled to perfection and dressed with herbs and olive oil. My seafood salad arrived in a huge family sized bowl and was full of all sorts of crustaceans. Superb! I was now wishing I had not ordered chips and this was confirmed when they arrived on what looked like a metal hand shovel. You know the brush and shovel used to clean a fireplace well that was the size of it and of course loaded with chips. I have a phobia about not eating all my food at restaurants and I worry that the kitchen staff will be upset if too much is sent back so I was now nervous. I started with the squid and salad working on the principle that they are the most expensive items. What can I say, it was wonderful and I demolished the lot. I needed to pause so I ordered more super cooled beer and nibbled at the chips slowly until I had made a big enough dent in them not to cause offence. I walked rather more slowly back to The Coral and totally bloated fell asleep on the bed.
The Sunday was also a sunny day and friends drove me a few hours down the coast to a tiny fishing village and we watched the small brightly painted boats coming in with their catch. Most of the quayside restaurants were closed due to being out of season but one was open and we sat outside in the sun. There was no menu as such but we were invited in to view a large steel fridge with trays containing a variety of freshly caught fish. We settled on a cod to be grilled and some red mullet to be pan fried. Simple but amazing with a Greek salad and the obligatory fries to go with it.
I did not see a huge amount of Athens or the surrounding area whilst I was there but having stayed a week my impression is of a rather scruffy city that does not seem to have any planning laws. The buildings look partially complete and there is no consistent architecture unless scruffiness can be considered an architectural style. I think house and apartment owners must have competitions to see who can get the greatest number of TV aerials on the roof and these were vying for space with huge shiny cylinders for solar heating of their hot water systems. The people are friendly and the streets safe but I was repeatedly warned that in the city centre, homeless immigrants have increased crime and some areas are not as safe as they were. In the streets behind the hotel there were many fruit shops selling oranges but the whole road was an avenue of orange trees and they were lying on the ground untouched. Why would you need to buy oranges, they grow everywhere. Everybody raves about Greek food but maybe I was unlucky because the only memorable meal I had was steak and chips in a trendy bar.
That was my first Greek visit completed and I had an uneventful flight back to Heathrow courtesy of British Airways. Once again I was determined to avoid buying anything and once again I paid a Kings ransom for gin and tonic and a cheese and pickle sandwich. I live close to Heathrow so no drama getting home ready to enjoy a long weekend with the family before my travels would recommence on the Tuesday. Venezuela here I come!