Robbed in Athens

The difference between having a really good time and not having a really good time takes no longer than a blink of an eye and sixteen good days in Greece were swept away in an instant when a pickpocket struck on the Athens metro on 17th September 2009 and in that awful moment all of the hospitality and friendship that we had enjoyed on the islands disappeared in a cloud of anger, resentment and mistrust.

I have always considered Greece to be an honest and safe place and Athens has always been regarded as a safe city, where stealing from the tourists was unheard of, where people can be trusted and it isn’t necessary to take the same precautions as you would for example in Barcelona or Rome but what I know now, but didn’t at the time, is that the Trip Advisor web site places Athens in the top ten places in the World for pickpockets.  It seems that now Greece is in the EU and all sorts of different nationalities are arriving in town that this is no longer the case.

It was the last day of the holiday and we had spent a good day in the Greek capital, visited the Acropolis Museum enjoyed the buzz of the Plaka and had a final meal before collecting our bags and making our way back to the airport.  This was the fourth year of taking the metro and I have never felt uncomfortable or unsafe in any of the previous three years but this time something was different.  Syntagma station was busy and felt edgy and when the train arrived we had to force our way onto unusually crowded and uncomfortable carriages.

As soon as I got on board I knew something was wrong and this is how they did it.

At the very last moment a group of three or four young men rushed onto the train causing mayhem and confusion and pushing and shoving and moving other legitimate passengers around.  In the melee we were separated so couldn’t watch out for each other and I knew instinctively that something was going to happen in that carriage.  In hindsight it is easy to see that we had been targeted, we had been on holiday, we were off our guard, weighed down with bags and the way that Kim was looking after her bag made it obvious that there was something inside that she would prefer not to lose.

One man stood by the door but then I sensed that he was determined to stand next to me and he pushed in and stood so close I could smell his body odour and it was most unpleasant.  I knew what he was doing but luckily I was wedged in a corner so I gripped my wallet in my pocket in a vice like white knuckle grip and turned away from him so that he couldn’t get a hand to my right side where my wallet and my camera were.  He knew he was rumbled, gave up and moved on pushing and shoving the other passengers as he went.

Kim was stranded in the middle of the carriage but I could see that she was clutching her handbag tight to her chest and I felt reassured that she too was being extra careful.  Suddenly I noticed that she was bothered by something and was examining her ring.  One of the thieves had placed a bit of wire around the stone and had pulled it so hard that it had bent the ring and it had hurt her finger.  She said that at the time she thought it had been caught in a zip or a strap from someone’s bag but this must be a well practiced diversionary tactic because at the moment she reacted he managed somehow to open the zip of the bag and remove the first thing that he found.  All of this happened so quickly and at the next stop they were gone and so was Kim’s camera.

Apparently the Athens metro has become notorious for thieves so wouldn’t you think the police would do something about it, these guys are so easy to spot.  Instead they prefer to swagger about in groups walking around Monastiraki and the Plaka and being completely ineffective.  The Foreign Office web site now advises “Most visits to Greece are trouble-free, but you should be aware that the tourist season attracts an increase in incidents of theft of wallets, handbags etc. particularly in areas and events where crowds gather”.  I can’t imagine that this is good for tourism and I am surprised that Greece isn’t tackling this problem and cracking down hard on offenders but it seems that it isn’t a priority.

I suppose it might have been worse, the thief didn’t get her purse or our passports that were also in the bag and without those we would have had an extra night in Athens to endure but for Kim the loss of her camera with all of her holiday memories was a real Greek tragedy.  Even the camera was unimportant except for the little chip inside with over seven hundred pictures that cannot be replaced.

I console myself with the thought that hopefully the thief wasn’t a Greek and he was disappointed to only get a camera when he probably hoped he had stolen a purse.  I hope he has a short, painful and miserable life (preferably behind bars) and when he finally gets to Hell (as surely he will) I hope he has to spend eternity in a nasty dark corner with his head in a bucket of excrement!

A Blue Star Ferry to Naxos

I was conscious that we had to get up very early and consequently I had a restless night and woke prematurely sometime before the alarm because it was on my mind that we had to catch the seven-thirty ferry to Naxos.

It was still dark when I got up first at about six o’clock and then used my banging about and switching the lights on technique to wake the girls. Not very sophisticated I have to concede but it worked well enough.  Packing a rucksack is quite straightforward and the girls had already perfected the back-packers art of cramming without folding so it didn’t take long to get ready.

The Blue Star ferry was much bigger that I had imagined it would be and we made directly for the top deck and found ourselves a nice seat next to a young German couple. The sun wasn’t up yet but dawn was spreading in a rosy-fingered sort of way that Homer would have recognised across the already busy port and the first bit of early morning Mediterranean sun was bathing the boat with a teasing morning warmth and solar cheer.

The ferry left precisely on time and cast off was accompanied by the sun rising majestically over the city. Unfortunately as we left port it disappeared on the other side of the boat! Being some time since I was in the Boy Scouts and not having a compass with me I’d misjudged our position and direction of travel and set us down on the western side of the deck. It was a bit chilly in the shade and we had to wait about two hours before the ferry and the sun synchronised their position in our favour and we were able to fully enjoy the warm rays of the morning sun.

It was a good journey and the German couple were very entertaining. They were on their way to Santorini and had arrived the night before on a flight from Hamburg and had spent the night drinking in a bar in Piraeus, they hadn’t slept a wink all night and were in a very bad mood with each other. We couldn’t understand German of course but there is an international language of grumpy and we could comprehend that well enough.

Being on the top deck of the ferry had kept us quite cool but when we arrived in Naxos it was one o’clock and really very hot. We got off and ran the gauntlet of the frantically animated Greek apartment owners all imploring us to choose their accommodation. The associated chaos was not dissimilar to a French bus queue and I’m not sure which part of ‘no thank you’ they didn’t fully understand but it was an entertaining passage from harbour to town nonetheless and we knew that we would have to go through the whole experience whenever we got off of a ferry again for the entire holiday. And we looked forward to it!

The sun was strong and we walked into town and choose a taverna using tablecloths as a primary selection criteria. We found what we were looking for, a nice green check, and I ordered a Mythos! To my complete surprise Sally and Charlotte choose a Greek salad so just to be different I had a Naxion salad instead. I don’t think I will be having another one! It was just smothered in a sort of cottage cheese, which was a bit sticky and there was an awful lot of it! I had to have another Mythos to wash it down!

We decided that it was time to find our accommodation so we looked for a taxi to take us there. We found one without any difficulty at all and after loading our backpacks in the boot I jumped into the passenger seat and burnt my arse on the red-hot vinyl that had been baking in the hot sun all morning. Sizzle, sizzle no warning or anything! I felt like a griddled steak and I noticed that the driver’s seat had a towel strategically placed across the seat to offer protection but there was nothing for the passengers.  In England we are so obsessed with health and safety that there would surely have been a warning on the dashboard or something but there was nothing here to advise that I might suffer 1^st degree burns just by getting into the taxi and sitting down.

It was just a ten-minute ride to our hotel, the Agios Prokopios, which turned out to be a good choice. Nice people and a very agreeable room with balconies front and back so that we could get the morning and the afternoon sun. We quickly unpacked (well not so much unpacked but threw our bags untidily on the floor) and went to the pool where we chilled out for a while.

The Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles

 ‘Dull is the eye that will not weep to see                                                                             Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed                                                     By British hands, which it had best behoved                                                                      To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.                                                                      Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,                                                        And once again thy hapless bosom gored,                                                                        And snatch’d thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!’

Lord Byron

At the Acropolis are the Parthenon buildings where the famous marbles used to be before Lord Elgin removed them on behalf of himself and the British Empire two hundred years ago when he simply hacked the statues off the buildings with blunt instruments and saws and sent them back to the England.  Looking at the damage he did in removing them he might just as well have used dynamite!  Elgin was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire who ruled Greece at that time and the Turks gave permission for the removal without consulting the subjugated Greeks.

Well, not surprisingly, now the Turkish invaders have gone (in 1821 actually), the Greek Government would rather like them back, and that seems to be a perfectly reasonable request; but the British in their retained imperial arrogance claim that the Greeks cannot possibly be trusted to look after such important antiquities and insist on keeping them in London.   Actually as it turns out we haven’t looked after them that well ourselves and they have been irreparably damaged, first when they were sawn into smaller pieces to facilitate transportation and secondly when British Museum cleaning staff used inappropriate cleaning methods in the 1930’s which seriously discoloured the marble.

To be fair it isn’t just the British Museum that has dubious ownership of important bits of Greek heritage and there are smaller plundered pieces at the Louvre in Paris and the Vatican Museum in Rome as well as other locations across Europe.

What we have to be careful of however is not applying modern political boundaries to the ancient world. The classical Cambridge Scholar, Professor M I Finley points out that “…Neither then, or at any time in the Ancient World was there a nation, a single national territory under one sovereign rule, called Greece (or any synonym for Greece)”.  If we accept this then it begins to construct a counter argument against the modern Greek claims. Even if they belong in Athens they have no relevance to modern Greece.

The travel writer Lawrence Durrell considers this argument and although seemingly accepting it comes to the conclusion: “Myself, I think I should have given them back and keep copies in plaster for the British Museum.  For us they are a mere possession of great historic interest.  For the Greeks they are a symbol, inexplicably bound up with the national struggle as an image of themselves as descendants of foreign tribes”.

Anyway the Greeks have a cunning plan and they have built a state of the art museum with advanced environmental climate control to house the marbles that is far technologically superior to anything in London, Paris or Rome and they are now even more insistent that they should be returned.  Until they are they propose to keep empty a specially prepared room in the hope that this will shame the British into putting the plundered treasures back into their packing cases and returning them forthwith.

Good luck to the Greeks I say!  They should be sent back immediately, they belong in Athens and the Acropolis Museum and if you ask me they should be restored immediately to the temples that were built for them and in a poll carried out in 2002 fifty six percent of British people polled agreed with me.

As a result of the economic crisis there is however another side to this because there is a question mark over whether Greece can afford the Marbles or guarantee their safety.  According to the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini, Greek archaeologists have revealed that funding for the country’s archaeological service fell by 35 percent to 12 million euros ($15.7 million)in 2011, and will be further reduced in 2012.  One out of ten Culture Ministry employees has been dismissed, and untrained temporary staff brought in to allow museums, sites and excavations to operate.

Greece’s financial difficulties and staff shortages did not take long to attract unwanted attention. In January 2012, a unique Picasso and two other artworks were stolen from the Athens National Gallery during a staff strike and a month later, two armed men stole over 70 objects from a museum in ancient Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games.  The National Archaeological Museum in Athens and the Museum of Byzantine art in Thessaloniki routinely shut down entire halls because of shortage of guards.

For the time being at least the Acropolis Museum continues to receive adequate funding but there are fears that it too could be ultimately affected.  If therefore the squabbling museum authorities cannot resolve the issue just yet then I propose that we leave the final word to John Keats (misquoted I agree but still appropriate):

When old age shall this generation waste,                                                                        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe                                                                        Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,                                                    “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all                                                                          Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The Acropolis Museum in Athens – an account of my visit to the new Museum in 2009.

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The Roman Ruins at Segóbriga

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The Roman Buildings at Arles

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Athens, a Taxi ride and The Plaka

Earlier in the month some terrorists had threatened to blow up some aeroplanes and had successfully disrupted check-in procedures at all UK airports so security was on high alert but Luton was quite well organised and the extra safety measures weren’t too much of a problem.

The Easyjet flight was a bit bumpy at times but we arrived on schedule. Well I say arrived on time but that’s a bit of an airline con.  The airlines schedule a three-hour flight to take four, to give themselves a huge margin of error and then claim they made it on time. I’m not complaining though, I like the budget airlines for making all this travel possible.

We collected our bags as they came round on the luggage carousel, left the airport arrival lounge and joined the queue for a taxi. When it was our turn to be directed to a vacant vehicle by the man in charge of allocating transport we gave clear and precise instructions to the driver how to get to the hotel. It was immediately clear that these were not clear and precise enough and he had no idea where he was going and he had to make a number of animated phone calls to establish its location. It was a bit nerve racking being in a speeding car on a Greek motorway in the dark while the driver used his mobile phone to make a phone call with one hand whilst holding a map in the other. Anyway, he eventually sorted it out and we arrived at our hotel without major incident. It cost €30, which was a bit of a rip off but to be fair we weren’t very convincing in our plan to pretend to be familiar with Athens and try to fool the driver into giving us a local’s rate!

The hotel was a very nice place with pleasant staff who gave us far too much information to take in all in one go after a long day travelling but it was situated perfectly right next to the Acropolis and the Plaka and we had a comfortable room but with a bit of a makeshift bed for me.

It didn’t really matter very much because suitable compensation was forthcoming in the form of a complimentary bottle of red wine. I opened it and tried it immediately of course and it was drinkable in a Greek sort of way and I made appreciative noises that are exaggeratively appropriate when getting something for nothing. Well, I say for nothing, which wasn’t exactly true of course because the room was quite expensive. We were all very hungry and in anticipation of our first holiday meal we dumped our luggage without unpacking and ventured out into the city streets to find some food.

It was hospitably warm and the Plaka was friendly and inviting, colourful and vibrant and all the tourist shops were open and there were many lively restaurants and bars to select from. After a short walk we choose a pavement taverna on a busy street and Sally & Charlotte wasted no time in ordering their first Greek salad.  The down side was that there was no Mythos available at this taverna and I had to settle for an Alpha instead, an alternative Greek beer which although inferior was ok.

After dinner we continued to explore the Plaka for a while, the atmosphere was distinctly Mediterranean and we all agreed that we liked being here. We went back to the hotel in a contented mood and I finished the wine, Sally and Charlotte got into their comfortable hotel beds with their freshly laundered sheets and I struggled into my cramped little camp bed, I tossed and turned theatrically a few times to emphasise my inferior sleeping arrangements but on getting no response I fell quickly into a deep and contented sleep.

Island Hopping in Greece and my Gladiator Sandals

 Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
 Round many western islands have I been
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; 
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
 When a new planet swims into his ken;
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
 He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
 Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats – On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Island hopping with a backpack was an immediately brilliant idea when Sally mentioned it in May 2006 and invited me to bring my credit cards along and join her for a week or two in the Greek islands starting on 27^th August.

Sun drenched beaches, friendly tavernas, Mythos, Metaxa and Ouzo, I knew immediately that I would take up the offer but at first I was slightly wary of committing to a holiday with two girls addicted to the internet and who sleep with their mobile phones but I have always wanted to be more imaginative about my holidays, to take control and make my own arrangements rather than rely upon a holiday rep from Thomsons or Airtours and those tedious welcome meetings that seem to go on forever in a dingy hotel lounge when all you want to do is get outside in the sun.

So the chance to do things my way was a real opportunity and I signed up.

Preparation involved booking the flights and finding suitable hotels on line. This, I later had to concede,  turned out to be a bit of a cheat because proper back-packers, I’m told, take their lodgings chances when arriving in port, but I just wanted to be certain of a basic level of accommodation. I was fifty-two years old and had certain standards to maintain! I wanted Olympic size swimming pools, air conditioning as fresh as mountain air and at the very least a minimum standard of bathroom facility!

Packing the rucksack was quite a challenge! There wasn’t a lot of room in there and it took a number of  trial runs before I achieved the perfect combination of items. I needed my snorkel and essential bathroom items and some books of course and after that I had room for some clothes. It was like doing the hokey-cokey, in, out, in, out and shake it all about until I got it right. Like most people I always take too many clothes on holiday, that extra pair of shorts, another shirt just in case, and usually some items just go for the ride there and back, this time I was sure I had got it about right but for some unexplained reason I took some socks along for the trip. I didn’t wear them of course because all I had for foot attire was two pairs of sandals including my famous gladiators.

I had had the gladiator sandals since 1999 when I went to Rhodes and they had accompanied me abroad on every single beach holiday since. They were showing signs of wear and were not expected to see through this adventure but I had made it my mission to see how long I could make them last.

Footnote (no pun intended) – the sandals lasted until 2008 when the straps gave way. I tried to repair them but it was impossible so I had to admit defeat and throw them away!

Anaphylactic Shock

In 2006 I went island hopping in the Greek Cyclades islands for fourteen days but even though a year later in 2007 this was extended to sixteen I still didn’t think this was nearly enough so for 2008 decided that three whole weeks would be just about perfect.

On the day of departure we set off in plenty of time for Luton Airport with a plan to arrive early and get the holiday off to a good start with a relaxing drink or two in the airport departure lounge.  It was a good job that we did because as we left Spalding we had no idea that we were desperately going to need that extra hour if we were to make the flight to Athens.  After about forty-five minutes and just south of Peterborough the car started to handle badly and just as I was thinking about pulling over to check it out there was a dramatic back tyre blow out and in a cloud of smoke and burning rubber I had to pull over to the side of the motorway.

I was in a total panic and even though the AA assured us that they were on the way and would be with us very quickly I decided to try and change the tyre myself.

I had the jack in place and the job in hand when I suddenly started to feel strange with a mouth so dry it was as though I had been eating sand, my hands were shaking and I had a heart rate at double what is considered normal.  I was convinced that I was going to suffer the indignity of passing away at the side of the A1 and so took a walk along the hard shoulder to try and calm down and then the AA vehicle arrived and the patrolman took over and made a much better job of changing the wheel than I could possibly have done.

The bad news of course was that we now only had a temporary tyre on the back, which meant a speed restriction of fifty miles an hour that I just knew was going to piss people off!  We had lost about forty minutes of the spare hour that we had allowed and at a reduced speed I knew now that it was going to be tight.

Back on the road I suddenly had a huge burning pain in my right shoulder that was so bad that if it had been the left one I would have abandoned the holiday plan there and then and driven straight to the nearest hospital and I was still desperately thirsty.  The priority was getting to the airport so I carried on and after an hour or so the pain wore off.

I had no idea at the time but I had been stung nine times by what I assume was a wasp caught inside my shirtsleeve and I had probably been suffering from some form of anaphylactic shock.  The pain had gone so I didn’t know this until much later when I finally took my shirt off in Greece and discovered nine vivid vermilion red spots on my shoulder blade that made it look like a nine of hearts playing card!

Skópelos, Alónnisos and a Trip to Athens

 

Two weeks is a long time in the same place and I can quickly become restless and bored and Richard is twice as bad as me but luckily there was quite a lot to do.  The town was always busy and although there were far too many shops for my liking it was pleasant to walk through the narrow streets and explore the back alleyways and paths.  In the centre of the town at the top of a long climb was the dazzling white church and it was worth the effort to get there because there were great views from the top of the red tiled houses, the mazy streets and the busy harbour with hydrofoils and glitzy yachts tied up at their moorings.

On a couple of days we took the local bus  which ran from the north to the south of the island down the east coast main road dropping people off and picking others up at the several pretty little beaches all the way down the coast.  The bus was crowded every time and just like the taxis there seemed to be no limit to the amount of passengers that the driver could pack on board.  The journey to Koukanaries beach only took about twenty minutes but it wasn’t especially comfortable crammed in together in a hot dusty bus without space or air but Koukanaries and the nearby, unfortunately named, Banana beach were worth the discomfort however because they were the best on the island and probably among the finest in Greece.

One day all of the boys went on an afternoon snorkeling trip on a boat to a deserted part of the island but it was a bit of a worry when we found ourselves swimming with men fishing with harpoon guns that looked dangerous and potentially lethal.  The girls went to a Greek party night but we sat that one out and on one day Deanna and I went to Athens on a full day excursion.  This was my first visit to Athens and we visited the Acropolis and the Parthenon, had lunch in Syntagma and a stroll through Monastaraki.  It was a good trip but far too much for one day but I have been back four times and seen most of what I need to see now.

The best excursion of the holiday was in the middle of week two when we went on a boat trip to the nearby green wooded islands of Skópelos and Alónnisos, two more of the Sporadic islands and both quite different from Skiathos.  First we stopped at Patitíri, the main port town of Alónnisos, which seemed strangely quiet compared to the frenetic activity in Skiathos town where we wandered around the dusty streets and had refreshments at a quiet little taverna that had lashings of time to spare as they served leisurely drinks and snacks.

We didn’t stay long on Alónnisos however and soon left and set off to neighbouring Skópelos, which turned out to be one of the best islands that I have ever been to and I have always promised myself a return visit one day.

Skópelos is best known now as the island where they filmed the ABBA musical Mama Mia and that might have made a difference I suppose but on this visit it was practically perfect.  The main town was busy but not hectic with pebbled streets meandering between red roofed houses with fish scaled tiles up to the ruined Venetian castle at the top where the views over the wide bay with its little boats and transparent sparkling water under the full glare of the mid afternoon sun was practically perfect.  Skópelos was more picturesque and less touristy than Skiathos and we enjoyed a late afternoon meal down at the edge of the harbour before rejoining the little boat for the return trip home.

I liked Skiathos but not enough to want to return.  The green pine wooded Sporades with their fertile soils and picturesque fields full of crops were a complete contrast to the barren and rugged Cyclades that have now established themselves as my favourites but one day I will go back and visit friendly Skópelos as I promised.

The Kingdom of Greece and my Greek Travels

Following the War of Independence a protocol signed on May 7, 1832 Greece was defined as an independent kingdom. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. The borders of the Kingdom were reiterated in the London Protocol of August 30, 1832 signed by the Great Powers, which ratified the terms of the Constantinople Arrangement in connection with the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire and marked the end of the Greek War of Independence creating modern Greece as an independent state free of the Ottoman Empire.

I am glad about that because Greece is my favourite place in all of Europe.  For me the very best way to see the country and the islands is to hop on a ferry and drift between them setting down now and then to enjoy the history, the people, the food, the ouzo and the Mythos!

These are my journals about the places I have visited:

http://apetcher.wordpress.com/greek-islands/

Which one would you choose?

           

Athens and the first Modern Olympic Games

Our plan was to go first to the Acropolis and the city guidebook advised getting there early to avoid the crowds. We did as it suggested and got there early (well, reasonably early) and it was swarming, I mean really swarming! Obviously we weren’t early enough. I can’t imagine what it is like when it is really busy!

We visited the hopelessly inadequate Acropolis Museum; It was small, hot and stuffy and overcrowded with lots of pushing and shoving, and there were so many treasures to show but it was smaller than a corner shop; later we saw the buildings where the famous marbles used to be before Lord Elgin pillaged them for the British Empire 200 years ago, he just hacked the statues off the buildings with saws and sent them back to the England where the 56 sculpted friezes, depicting gods, men and monsters are kept at the British Museum. Elgin was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire who ruled Greece at that time and the Turks gave permission for the removal without consulting the Greeks.

We walked past the city museum but didn’t have time to go in and then to the original Olympic stadium of the modern games which opened on April 6^th 1896 and which looked perfectly useable to me. I don’t know why they had to build another one in 2004 when this one was completely adequate. And that gave them a lot of trouble as well because they nearly didn’t get that finished on time; what a good job they didn’t need the Acropolis for the 2004 games!

In the afternoon we went to the temple of Dionysus, another unfinished building and there wasn’t much going on there either. What the Greeks need are some builders from Poland to come over and get the jobs completed. Everyone says that that the Poles are the best builders in Europe at the moment with fantastic productivity, I’m sure they would have this placed finished in no time.

The day was really hot by now and the afternoon temperature in the city was rising all the time but we carried on as best we could. Mad dogs and Englishmen and all that! I specialise in speed sight seeing but even I was beginning to flag and I had a bit of a sweat on now but hopefully no one had noticed? Around the back of the Parthenon we walked through a collection of interesting whitewashed sugar cube houses, that looked curiously out of place and resembled those on the Cyclades and we read later that they were in fact built by workmen from Santorini who came to Athens many years ago to find employment during a building boom in the city.

We arrived at the Greek Agora, which is the equivalent of the Roman Forum in Rome, but we had been walking now for almost six hours and really couldn’t do much more so we had to give up after only seeing less than half of it. Sally had a bit of emerging sunburn with vivid white strap marks but Charlotte was well protected under all that factor 30! We took some shade and applied some cream and then we walked back to the hotel stopping off at a little shady pavement bar next to the Roman Agora, another Mythos for me and iced tea for the girls.

On the way back I bought a cheap bottle of local red wine from an untidy little back street mini-market and we returned to the hotel. No one wanted to share it with me so I had to drink most of it myself but couldn’t quite manage the full bottle all in one go. We changed and went out again into the Plaka to eat. This time we choose a taverna adjacent to the first in a picturesque tree lined square. I had probably my best meal of the holiday, a lovely grilled chicken with fresh vegetables with especially memorable baked tomatoes. The girls had salad (again). And there was Greek music and dancing including our first Zorba of the holiday, which was really good.

A Life in a Year – 17th September, Robbed in Athens

The difference between having a really good time and not having a really good time takes no longer than a blink of an eye and sixteen good days in Greece were swept away in an instant when a pickpocket struck on the Athens metro on 17th September 2009 and in that awful moment all of the hospitality and friendship that we had enjoyed on the islands disappeared in a cloud of anger, resentment and mistrust. 

I have always considered Greece to be an honest and safe place and Athens has always been regarded as a safe city, where stealing from the tourists was unheard of, where people can be trusted and it isn’t necessary to take the same precautions as you would for example in Barcelona or Rome but what I know now, but didn’t at the time, is that the Trip Advisor web site places Athens in the top ten places in the World for pickpockets.  It seems that now Greece is in the EU and all sorts of different nationalities are arriving in town that this is no longer the case.

It was the last day of the holiday and we had spent a good day in the Greek capital, visited the Acropolis Museum enjoyed the buzz of the Plaka and had a final meal before collecting our bags and making our way back to the airport.  This was the fourth year of taking the metro and I have never felt uncomfortable or unsafe in any of the previous three years but this time something was different.  Syntagma station was busy and felt edgy and when the train arrived we had to force our way onto unusually crowded and uncomfortable carriages.

As soon as I got on board I knew something was wrong and this is how they did it.  At the very last moment a group of three or four young men rushed onto the train causing mayhem and confusion and pushing and shoving and moving other legitimate passengers around.  In the melee we were separated so couldn’t watch out for each other and I knew instinctively that something was going to happen in that carriage.  In hindsight it is easy to see that we had been targeted, we had been on holiday, we were off our guard, weighed down with bags and the way that Kim was looking after her bag made it obvious that there was something inside that she would prefer not to lose. 

One man stood by the door but then I sensed that he was determined to stand next to me and he pushed in and stood so close I could smell his body odour and it was most unpleasant.  I knew what he was doing but luckily I was wedged in a corner so I gripped my wallet in my pocket in a vice like white knuckle grip and turned away from him so that he couldn’t get a hand to my right side where my wallet and my camera were.  He knew he was rumbled, gave up and moved on pushing and shoving the other passengers as he went.

Kim was stranded in the middle of the carriage but I could see that she was clutching her handbag tight to her chest and I felt reassured that she too was being extra careful.  Suddenly I noticed that she was bothered by something and was examining her ring.  One of the thieves had placed a bit of wire around the stone and had pulled it so hard that it had bent the ring and it had hurt her finger.  She said that at the time she thought it had been caught in a zip or a strap from someone’s bag but this must be a well practiced diversionary tactic because at the moment she reacted he managed somehow to open the zip of the bag and remove the first thing that he found.  All of this happened so quickly and at the next stop they were gone and so was Kim’s camera.

Apparently the Athens metro has become notorious for thieves so wouldn’t you think the police would do something about it, these guys are so easy to spot.  Instead they prefer to swagger about in groups walking around Monastiraki and the Plaka and being completely ineffective.  The Foreign Office web site now advises “Most visits to Greece are trouble-free, but you should be aware that the tourist season attracts an increase in incidents of theft of wallets, handbags etc. particularly in areas and events where crowds gather”.  I can’t imagine that this is good for tourism and I am surprised that Greece isn’t tackling this problem and cracking down hard on offenders but it seems that it isn’t a priority.

I suppose it might have been worse, the thief didn’t get her purse or our passports that were also in the bag and without those we would have had an extra night in Athens to endure but for Kim the loss of her camera with all of her holiday memories was a real Greek tragedy.  Even the camera was unimportant except for the little chip inside with over seven hundred pictures that cannot be replaced.  I console myself with the thought that hopefully the thief wasn’t a Greek and he was disappointed to only get a camera when he probably hoped he had stolen a purse.  I hope he has a short, painful and miserable life (preferably behind bars) and when he finally gets to Hell (as surely he will) I hope he has to spend eternity in a nasty dark corner with his head in a bucket of excrement!