How did I want to go on vacation this year, I asked myself last year? Olives. I want a trip about olives, but light on the gelato and high on the debt crisis, so we ended up with Greece. I also wanted an excuse to stop over in London and to maybe take some trains through Europe because I do love me a good train journey.
The original plan was to train straight from London to Greece, but due to the migrant crisis, the border between Bulgaria and Greece may or may not be closed and the train replaced with a bus. I will not tempt the bus curse gods with a bus through eastern Europe after being on a train for two days, so I said not today, bus curse. We ended up spending a bit of time in Munich instead and flying into Greece from there.
The man next to me on the plane to London was Very Definitely British. Early in the flight, his leg accidentally grazed mine while he was shifting around in his seat and for the remainder of the flight, we never even came close to accidentally touching. We also had the pleasure of sitting behind a dad traveling with two young children, who did his best to exert mind control over his tiny children to silence them, but regrettably could not control them. At least this was not a redux of the flight from hell that was returning from Lima on a redeye with a screaming child whose parents just ignored it. 😐
We landed and wandered around King’s Cross and Camden Town in a sleepy haze. It was…sunny?! I donned my sunglasses (?!) and naturally had to get some of the world’s best hot cocoa from Chin Chin labs. We also picked up some extremely tasty fish & chips along the way.
I also accidentally happened upon a glasses shop and discovered that I could purchase prescription frames for $180 instead of the normal $600+ for my glasses. Black magic. Apparently they get quite a lot of tourists from the states and Canada who stop by and buy glasses in the UK since it’s so much cheaper.
After spending an inordinately long time ordering my new pair of glasses from an extremely chatty shopkeeper who taught me the sign language for Donald Trump (it consists of you using your hand to mimic his horrible toupee, less rude than I imagined but extremely apt), we went back to crash for a few hours before we got evening dinner and then planned on falling asleep very early.
Stopped by a pub for a quick bite and some drinks to help us sleep, and also ended up finding the angriest building in the world.
Tomorrow it’s off to Paris very early!
Our predominantly Grecian European trek is as follows:
- Beginning in London, take the train to Munich via Paris
- Entirely accidentally (mainly because I can’t read dates), spend three nights in Munich
- Fly to Thessaloniki in northern Greece:
- See Mt Olympus and other things in the north such as possibly Vergina (hehehe)
- Train south to Meteora and check out the mountainous monasteries (presumably while blasting Linkin Park)
- Train further to Athens
- Check out Delphi
- The acropolis!
- Turkish bath?!
- Fly to Crete and be lazy beach creatures, potentially also seeing lots of old things and hiking
- Fly back to London where I will fill up on tea and Cadbury chocolate and pies and fireworks before heading home.