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Monday 18 June 2012

Day 13: Cosmos European Masterpiece: Patras - Olympia


Well we all met in the self-serve restaurant for our breakfast.  What an experience that was.  There was a wide selection of food available but we could only have what was given to us (bread roll… or was that a rock?, croissant, bacon and eggs and coffee and a juice).  If you wanted anything extra you had to pay for it and someone in our group got yelled out for taking an extra knife.  So this is travelling Greek-style during the economic crisis?

The rest of our voyage was spent just sitting around contributing to the Greek economy (4 euro for a coffee) relaxing before it was time to disembark and rejoin our bus.

First impression of Greece?  Olive trees!  Second impression…. Lots of unfinished / derelict buildings.  Leo did explain to us that people start building houses but don’t complete them because then they have to pay a tax; and the Greeks appear to be excellent at avoiding paying tax!

We made it to our hotel late in the afternoon and we greeted by the Greek version of tapas and a shot of ouzo…. NOW WE’RE TALKING!  That impressed me straight away.  After our welcome we went up to our rooms and well this was the best hotel so far on the tour.  Andrea (my roomie) and I had the most room since the start of the tour and we had a balcony.  I went out onto our balcony to admire the view yelling out to Andrea “OMG the view!” only to notice down on the street was Rocco looking up at me.  I state now I WAS going ape over the view…. Not the fact that Rocco was downstairs cleaning the bus in his tshirt and black lycra bike pants.

Of course then there were the internet issues.  We were told there was free wifi in our rooms.  About 7 of us all tried (including Leo) and it wouldn’t work for any of us.  We all ended up down in reception with our laptops and the beatch at the counter tried to tell us it was working perfect for her and that it wasn’t working because of our settings because we were from another country.  Errr we’re all from different countries and our computers have been working in other hotels.  In the real oddity of the situation I tried later in the night in my room and it worked.  Yet Andrea was in her bed next to me and it still would not work for her.  Go figure!

The night was ended by a Greek buffet in our hotel.  A lot of people were saying it was the best meal we have had on tour.  I’m not sure about that.  It’s up there with the tapas in Barcelona.

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