Over the past few years, I have independently designed our holidays sans the use of tour agents. It is not easy coming up with the itinerary as there's quite a bit of thoughts to put into, the research to be done, the comparing of prices, aspects on safety and many others. At times my research came to a puzzling stop. Information I needed was no where to be found. I felt like giving up many times. So I'd stay low for a while and give myself a break and continue when I am inspirational enough to work on the itinerary again.
Coming up with the itinerary for our trip to Greece was equally challenging. Information was abundance but to fit our varried interests and to scale it down to the number of days for our trip was mind boggling. There were so many must dos and places to must see. It wasn't easy and most of all to ensure everyone is happy at the end of the trip.
Alhamdulillah...about two weeks before the departure date, I finally managed to finalize everything. All bookings for accomodation done and paid for. All information needed was captured into my 18 page itinerary. What a relief...and we were all set to go...yess!!
Our trip took us to big cities like Athens, Thessaloniki and Corinth. We also did Santorini island, Mount Olympus and a few other places that are rich with history and ancient finds. To Santorini we took a flight to safe time and for the rest of the trip, we moved in our rented car.
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| Like always we never know how to travel light. Two pieces of medium sized luggage and one large one. Our flight was at 2.20am on 14/12/2015. Imagine how sleepy we were when we boarded. Bye bye KL...see u in 16 days. |
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| 7 hours after we boarded Etihad Airlines from KUL - AUH. Arrival at Abu Dhabi Airport just in time for subuh prayers. |
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| New Abu Dhabi airport...so futuristic looking |
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| View of the very busy Abu Dhabi Airport....as we wait for our flight to Athens |
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| Arrival at Athens Airport at almost 1.00pm local time. By then we had traveled for almost 17 hours. Tired & jet lagged. But the adventure is just starting! |
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| Stop for coffee refuel at one of the cafes at the airport |
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| Free wifi...yeahhh!! Happiness!! |
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| One of the ways to downtown Athens is by bas from the airport. The X95 bus goes straight to Syntagma Square and from there we changed to the tram to get to our apartment in Athens. Ticket was 5Euro per person and journey takes about an hour. |
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| Our luggage on the bus. Had to exercise extra care to ensure that they don't slide away. An incident happened in the bus when one of the passengers didn't produce the correct ticket for the journey. I was not sure if he didn't have one or he used an expired ticket. He was fined 73Euro on the spot!! What a lesson learnt. Beli je lah ticket dari dikenakan such hefty fine. |
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| In the tram to get to our apartment in Athens. Tram ticket was separate and could be easily purchased from the ticket booth near the tram station. |
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| Them looking like locals already. Stop for the apartment was Syngrou Fix only 3 stops after Syntagma Square where we boarded the tram. |
1 comment:
Hi!
Saw your blog by chance while blog walking .;)
I was in Athens in November for the 1st time , stayed at one of the Airb&b
which was excellent ..somewhere near the Fix station. like you too..we had difficulties remembering the road names ..LOL !
Looking thru your photos made me realized the good times we had there . We used the bus from airport too.
We were in Santorini for 3 days , such beautiful jaw dropping views ..:) cant wait to see your photos there.
Such a great write up on your holidays!
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