Monday, November 25, 2019

The Greek Diaries: Part I

photo credit: Steve Swayne

I always wanted to go to Greece but somehow my husband Rick and I never got it together. For Rick, Greece was never high on his list and, for me, the long flight and lack of a direct flight from Philly was a drawback.

Greece is truly amazing and I so wish we had gone there earlier so we would have many more trips to Greece to look forward to.

Also, the best way to see Greece is by car, but European car rental companies do not rent to drivers over 75. But even though we didn’t have the freedom of driving around by car, we did manage to get around thanks to My Day Trip driving service.

I am so happy we finally made it to Greece. It was worth all the hassles and unfortunately we did have some bad experiences. On our second day Rick’s wallet was stolen. When he cancelled his credit cards we found to our horror that my cards, which were linked to his, were also cancelled. We thought we were carrying 4 credit cards but since they were linked, we actually had only two. So there we were with no access to cash—very, very scary. Somehow Rick managed to convince MasterCard to unblock my card.

We had another incident that happened during our last few days in Athens. We were traveling with only one functioning credit card and went to an ATM, which for no apparent reason, ate the card. We had used it several times before for cash withdrawals with no problem.So there we were again with no money and no credit card. Fortunately it happened during the work week, so Rick called a firm in Providence where we have some investments. They agreed to wire money via Western Union and also wire money to the hotel.

The people at our hotel were very helpful and I highly recommend the AVA hotel. So all’s well that ends well. It’s a good thing that we loved Greece--that helped us put all the problems in perspective.

I thought I was probably too jaded to be thrilled at the sight of the Parthenon, but it was one of the highlights of our travel experiences—something I won’t forget.


And Rick despite his arthritic knee actually managed to climb to the top of the Acropolis.