Day 20 - (Travelling to) [T]hessaloniki
Trains, Planes, and Buses
Today was a travel day. As usual, the anxious traveller was in attendance, worried that all the arrangements would work out as planned. Fortunately, it all did, largely. The fast train to Milan was smooth and fast. The trains to Bergamo were ‘milk run’ trains, stopping at every stop and never travelling for more than 5 minutes. There appeared to be the potential for a large volume of fare evasion going on too, as there were no conductors checking tickets and folks weren’t tapping on that I saw. The bus from Bergamo to the airport was also very easy.
There was one hiccup when I was checking in to my flight to Greece. I was at the airport well before I needed to be (mostly because of the earlier problem with a full train that I’d booked). When I got to the service counter to check-in the RyanAir team member told me that I still had an hour to check in on the app, or she could check me in and it would cost me €55! I told her that I’d tried to check in online before and it had taken me to a website in Greek, that I couldn’t convert to English. She said, have you tried the app? Anyway, off I went (with plenty of time in hand) to download the app and try that.
The biggest problem that I had then was that my travel agent had booked the flight, so the booking reference was associated with an email that was not mine. I eventually worked that out, got the right email address, and had a boarding pass. Another example of the stressful (to me) process of doing things for the first time in a place with which I am unfamiliar (and language inhibited).
The RyanAir flight passed (on time) without incident. Standard procedures for flying in Europe are very similar to those in Australia (of course) but also subtely different. I was the first person up the stairs from the transfer bus onto the aircraft. I showed my boarding pass to the flight attendant and she scanned it with her mobile device; “Perfetto”. Then she didn’t look at the boarding pass of any other person who got on the plane. Clearly, she was humouring me.
The bus from Thessaloniki airport to the city centre was also very easy, but super-crowded. Initially filled with travellers and then added to during the journey with folks heading into town for their Saturday night. Lots of young Greek men wearing black tracksuits with razor-fade haircuts.
My AirBNB is in the centre of a busy district in Thessaloniki – Mitropoleous 53, FTR – so my 5 minute walk from the bus stop involved threading through a very busy crowd of folks enjoying their Saturday night at restaurants and taverns. There were some shops still open too, I think. I discovered, after getting into the studio apartment, that they were going to continue to enjoy their Saturday night right through to Sunday morning. Nevermind, the flat is very comfortable and I was able to get some sleep in spite of constant partying on the street.
| Daily facts: Location: (Travelling to) [T]hessaloniki Temp: 16-19 Weather: Sunny, with some overcast |
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