On the Move Once Again..

Waking up to face another day after the enjoyment of my appointment with Barcelona yesterday evening, you can imagine I was very much not impressed by having to wake up at 7.00am to begin my travels to Athens.

I figured that I would have some breakfast and then beginning travelling on my way to the airport to catch my flight at 11.30am.

Things turned out slightly differently.

Now let me say this first of all. I was slightly puzzled on Friday when briefly checking my emails before heading down to St Neots I had an email from Vueling Airways to confirm my flight. Bear in mind that I happened to stumble across this email having gone into my junk mail, and just about every detail in the message seemed from my destination, to the time, and including my name being spelt with one ‘l’.

I was slightly puzzled by this but my mum re-assured me that the card which paid for the trip had only been charged once, so instead I concentrated on enjoying my time off rather than what appeared to be a phony email.

Having let myself down by not getting up for the hotel breakfast yesterday morning (Sunday) I was rather glad to have stayed in bed for those extra few hours as that the hotel constituted as a breakfast (it’s free remember –not complaining) was rather less than I expected. Some small pastry type biscuits and a cup of hot chocolate was all that I found waiting for me in the empty reception lobby, not sure if it was the time or the quantity of what was available that put the rest of the hotel guests off.

Anyway, at least I had a little something and was now ready to hit the open road to Barcelona Airport.
I was pretty wary that setting off at 8am, I was likely to be travelling at the same time of the majority of commutors who travel from the area I was staying into the city, so I braced for the worst.
Aside from avoiding one tram this morning, and being able to catch one two minutes later I have to admit that it was a relatively successful journey to the airport with few hitches.

It was from there that things started to go wrong.

Making my way across the airport terminal on a bus to the departures lounge of Barcelona airport I looked, as you do, on the departures board for my flight. Staring at the electronic messages for a few minutes (as if that was going to help) I was rather disturbed not to find my listed on there.

Waltzing over to the Vueling Airways desk, the woman behind the desk serving me immediately picked up the phone after talking to herself for a little while and clearly struggling to find my booking, and before too long it became clear that something wasn’t quite right.
I was shunted from her to another lady who made another phone call and then informed me that the flight I was booked on had actually flown yesterday (Sunday 20^th) at the same time and asked if I had been informed via email.

From there she instructed me to speak to the Vueling Customer Services department which was in another part of the airport and the person who dealt with me there said that the flight had actually been cancelled on 14^th January and that I should have received an email to confirm that happening.
Considering I check my emails everyday, unless another message from them on the date they gave me had landed in my junk mail box (which I rarely check) then I hadn’t been informed.

My initial idea was just to get a flight back to England, but I decided against cutting my losses in this instance and headed back to the departures board. I managed to find another flight with a different airline that was setting off that afternoon and made a beeline for their customer services.

Thankfully I was able to book on a flight to Athens which set off at 12.15pm this afternoon so after all that a disaster was avoided. Due to the last minute nature of the flight that I booked, there wasn’t much sitting around in the lounge before coming here, and it was a case of getting myself a quick sandwich and finding my departure gate.

I was relieved to discover that unlike Easyjet’s budget decision making to cut the frills out of flying, there was food on this plane and I tucked into some rather nice pasta for my lunch before naturally falling asleep.
For once, however, I didn’t sleep through landing, and my eyes opened just in time to see the terrific view out of the window that appeared to be Athens.
The sea around the outside was a fantasy greeny-blue whilst there seemed to be hills and mountains almost everywhere you looked.

Once disembarking the plane and having to wait until 2^nd last to get my back, I was rather alarmingly stopped by the ‘airport police’ and questioned about my visit. I presume that the check was just done at random, maybe they don’t take too kindly to solo visitors from Barcelona.
No idea, but I didn’t take it personally, and eventually I was on my way again looking for the Metro Line to make my way into Athens itself.

Spending a few minutes looking around the airport I couldn’t actually find a clear sign or anything which said ‘Metro’ on it, so I just followed the signs for trains and busses. As it turns out I had actually headed the right way and in the same place as the suburban train was the metro service. I had my direction written down and it was as simple as just buying one ticket and then heading to where I needed to go.

The ride from the airport to my first stop, Syntagma, was about an hour long, and just like in London if you reach the outside bits like Southfields where I used to live, it’s more overground than underground. Once you get into the city it turns more into a metro and the stops become more frequent. At Syntagma I had to change from the ‘Blue Line’ to the ‘Red Line’ and then just another two stops down the line and I was at my destination.

With the experiences of Barcelona in my head, I contemplated getting a taxi, but looking at the state of the traffic and also the distance to my hotel, I decided to walk it following the careful directions I had written down. It took about five minutes on foot through the busy city streets and eventually I turned up at my hotel at about 6.15pm local time

The travelling has once again drained me and I doubt that I will be participating in many activities this evening except sleeping and eating. Such activities will prepare me just fine for tomorrow of course when I begin exploring Athens.