Relax, clean, leave

We have only a couple of days left in Greece. We have not planned many things to do, simply relax after our climb on Mount Olympus and gradually leave.

So we have had a lay-in this morning, which, for us, means getting up at 9.00 am rather than 8.00 am. We plan to go to Bulgaria next. But before, we stop in Thessaloniki, which, although not a tourist highlight, it is still the second biggest city in Greece, after Athens.

We are not in a hurry , so we drive slow, enjoying the last bits of the Greek landscape. We feel sad but also happy, a weird mixture of feelings which we are already used to. We feel sorry about leaving a country, but really exciting about the forthcoming one. We have realised this year that this is what makes our life interesting: change.

We had planned for a out chilled day, but this only works for us in the short term. We soon get bored of relaxing and have to find something else to do.

It is Saturday, 16.00 in the afternoon. We have just arrived at Thessaloniki. It is too late for any sightseeing. So we look for a place to sleep, which is always a challenge in a big city.

Why is it challenging? On the one hand, the place has to be outside the city; one because it is quiet, two because we are not allowed to park inside the city for free. On the other hand, it has to be close to public transport, so we can leave Dora there whilst we visit the city. Driving with her to the centre is a big no-no.

This time, we are looking for a place around the airport. Surely, the airport will have public transport connections to the centre. Besides, Thessaloniki’s airport is close to the beach. So we may even find a nice place to stay the night.

We have found it and pretty quickly. It is still quite early to lock ourselves in Dora. So what do we do?

A big clean! We have not done one since February when we had the convenience of staying in our place in Spain, Guisando. So it is about time.

We park Dora, roll up our sleeves and start the task, which will take a good couple of hours.

Nice and clean, we can now relax again.

 

The next morning, we try our luck and, rather than taking the public transport, we drive Dora towards the centre. At the end of the day, we have to drive back that way anyway. It is also Sunday, which means that the city should be relatively quiet.

And it is. We can find a parking space in one of the high streets, parallel to the coast, for free. Our guide only highlights a couple of statues and an archaeological museum. We will bail on the last one, we have seen many of those. We will just wander along the promenade, maybe have an ice-cream or a Frappe.

This is quite interesting. It looks like a mini-town, with mini-roads and mini-signs for the children to ride their bicycles.

Nice idea. It is big enough for them to not get bored. They can also make some friends and, more importantly, they can learn the driving codes and ride safe away from the traffic.

Wave!

We continue along the promenade. This city is nothing like Athens. It feels dirtier, more chaotic, disorganized and polluted.

Walking along the promenade seems to have been the choice not only for us but also for the locals. This is probably the highlight of this city, forget about museums.

Interesting sculpture made out of umbrellas!! The creativity of some people sometimes gets to the absurdity.

It seems we have another statue in the distance. But no signs of coffee shops to have our Frappe.

Something catches Gary’s eyes: people fishing! We didn’t think of that being so close to the sea.

We stick our necks out. Yes, lots of fishes! Surely we would have caught something this time! We could have had a fish feast tonight.

The White Tower, one of the highlights in the guide. There is nothing special about it. It sounds like the guide was trying to desperately find suggestions.

See what I mean?

We keep on walking, relaxed, enjoying the sun and the marine breeze, anything silly catches our attention.

Suddenly, my eyes open up and my heartbeat starts to race: a coffee place! We pop in.

A massive iced coffee please.

We are in heaven (if that exists): iced coffee and free WI-FI.

Time flies when you are having fun. It is already 13.00. There is nothing else we want to do here. We head back, buy some bread for lunch and drive off.

We stop for lunch and do some IT, updating posts, maps and pinterest on the site in order to use up all the internet data before we leave Greece.

It is now 17.00. We continue to drive for another hour and a half. That would give the computers time to recharge and let us continue to do more IT.

We can say hello to Bulgaria from here.

We finally arrive at the last town in Greece before we cross the border, this is where we will spend the night. Finding a place has been easy: an abandoned train station, which also has water.

All has gone very smooth: we have relaxed, we have cleaned and we are now only ten minutes from the border, so we can leave Greece.

SM