8th May - Greece Athens -> Larissa

Well we were originally going to be heading to see this Mt Olympus but decided that it was probably highly over-rated and we needed to save some time to make sure we made it to the other countries we plan to visit.

Leaving Zorbas, turns out Cassie was not aware.

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Athens Pan of Parliament.

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After wandering around the last bits of Athens that we hadn't seen we finally headed for the train station. That in itself turned out to be much more of a mission than we originally thought. We asked several people for directions yet they all looked very confused at the thought of a train moving above the surface! We were aiming to get to the train station for around 12:00, instead at around this time we were still wandering around looking for the darn thing. You wouldn't believe the difficulty we had in just explaining what is was we were looking for, only to be eventually told that they didn't even know where it was.

After masses more confusion we eventually found a station, annoyingly this turned out to only be a tube station, much like the one we'd left the other side of the city 2hrs ago. Problem being is all the stops are in Greek (obviously) and we can't read it. Finally when we had pretty much given up we strolled into a pharmacy which boasted a sign "English speaking staff here". Again though the staff didn't really know what we meant, fortunately a customer came in with near perfect English, and gave us directions. Turns out you need to take the tube to the metro, then the metro to the train station. Painfully we were at the metro about 2.3hrs ago, but couldn't read the word for train station!!!!

Leaving Athens train missions to Larissa.

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There was plenty more confusion with something as simple as seats on the train. Who would have known that there is some cryptic logarithmic algorithm to calculate which seat you are supposed to be sitting in. So we / I spent a good couple of hrs having to move around the train every 20mins or so when someone came to kick me out of their seat!

Larissa bumped from first class on train.

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Larissa train bumped seats again!

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By this time there was no chance of making the mountain so we booked into Larissa, quite a simple place, hardly a touristy place. We found accommodation literally 100m from the station, sounded good to me!

Larissa hotel it has a balcony!!

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We spent the afternoon and evening in Larissa which was clearly a town and far less chaotic than Athens. In fact it seemed to be deserted. It transpired that this is because the entire population appeared to congregate in the one main square and enjoy a cafe/bar area that was actually quite modern. There were still maniac drivers and, for that matter, pedestrians but not to the same extent as in Athens. Otherwise you could the overall style of Larissa resembled the chilled out relative of energetic Athens.

Larissa the travel plan enjoying the balcony.

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