Dan in Greece

For my second trip to Greece things would be different. This time it's a business trip, so I wouldn't have nearly the amount of time to see things as our trip a couple months ago. So after arriving, I spent my first day just walking around the Plaka district; nothing much new to report.

The only full day that I would have free would be Sunday. I booked a 3-island, 1-day cruise. And what a day. I was actually gone from 7am until 8pm. It turns out that the three islands are not quite as close to Athens as I thought; it took a long time to get from one to the other. And one other complaint: the boat was lousy - they packed too many people on board and the food was awful. (Woody Allen likes to talk about the Jewish Ladies complaining about food at a wedding. “The food is awful”, says one. “Yes, and there’s so little of it”, says the other.) But in spite of the long day and the not-so-good boat, it was a most worthwhile trip. Our first stop was Poros, where I walked around the picturesque harbor town. Poros is only about a quarter mile away from the Mycenae area on the mainland, but a long boat ride from Athens. Our next stop was the island of Hydra. It was even more picturesque, and there were some forts to explore in addition to the town itself. Finally we went to Aegina (aka Egina), where I booked an additional tour. I got to see the temple of Aphea, which rivals the Parthenon and Poseidon's Temple. (Also something strange: these three temples form an exact triangle - each is 25km apart. How, and why, did they do this?) We also stopped at an orthodox church that was cool as well. Finally, the Greek music and dancing on the boat was pretty entertaining. So yes, it was a good trip.

On the way to the boat I had met a father and his son. He asked where I live and when I told him, he asked, “is that near Strongsville?” When I told him, he asked if I’d heard of Beef O’Brady’s. I said that I’d just been there for the first time just in the past week. His name is Nick Voinovich, and he is the president of Beef’s and lives in Tampa. We talked a lot. I saw the two of them on the first island, but not afterwards. I thought it was strange that they didn’t get off the bus for the Marriott that night – I figured maybe they’d taken a cab. I saw Mr. Voinovich at breakfast the next morning. “You know when you were heading back to the boat and we were going away from it? My son said, ‘Dad, why’s the boat moving?’ We missed it and had to take a water taxi back to the third island, where we missed the boat again, and then had to get another boat back to Athens.” I had kind’ve wondered why they had been headed the wrong way, but didn’t say anything. I figured they knew what they were doing.

I can’t forget to mention Babis, my personal driver. I know this because he told me; he said, “I be your driver for your whole stay, boss.” That’s another thing: he calls me boss. Whenever I need a ride, anytime day or night, all I need to do is call Babis’ cell, and he comes. He’s from Crete, like Zorba – maybe they all call their clients “boss”. But he’s a wonderful guy. I’d recommend him to anyone coming to Greece.

For my last night I took a long walk up to a hill just below the Acropolis. I had a great view of the sunset and Athens at twilight.