Sicily, Malta, Santorini and Athens Spring of 2017
May 17th, 2017, 11:02 AM
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Sicily, Malta, Santorini and Athens Spring of 2017
Our travelling group (2 couples in our late 60’s – early 70’s) somehow came up with a trip that in hindsight is just plain crazy but we all talked ourselves in to thinking it was possible. For a variety of reasons, we knew it would be our last trip like this (meaning self-planned with several different locations) so we decided to go for broke. I debated about whether to actually admit in this report how insane we were but what the heck – what’s done is done and I think I can take the flak when you all tell me how stupid we were to attempt it.
Flights/ferry:
Apr 25th ATL - FCO
Apr 26th FCO - PAL
May 5th (ferry) POZ - MLT
May 7th MLA - ATH
May 7th ATH - JTR
May 11th JTR - ATH
May 14th ATH - CDG
May 14th CDG - ATL
Check-In Check Out Hotel Info
26-Apr-17 28-Apr-17 Eurostar's Centrale Palace in Palermo
28-Apr-17 30-Apr-17 Villa Athena in Agrigento
30-Apr-17 3-May-17 San Domenico Palace in Taormina
3-May-17 5-May-17 Domus Mariae Albergo in Ortygia
5-May-17 7-May-17 Grand Hotel Excelsior in Malta
7-May-17 11-May-17 Katikies Hotel in Santorini
11-May-17 14-May-17 New Hotel in Athens
Flights/ferry:
Apr 25th ATL - FCO
Apr 26th FCO - PAL
May 5th (ferry) POZ - MLT
May 7th MLA - ATH
May 7th ATH - JTR
May 11th JTR - ATH
May 14th ATH - CDG
May 14th CDG - ATL
Check-In Check Out Hotel Info
26-Apr-17 28-Apr-17 Eurostar's Centrale Palace in Palermo
28-Apr-17 30-Apr-17 Villa Athena in Agrigento
30-Apr-17 3-May-17 San Domenico Palace in Taormina
3-May-17 5-May-17 Domus Mariae Albergo in Ortygia
5-May-17 7-May-17 Grand Hotel Excelsior in Malta
7-May-17 11-May-17 Katikies Hotel in Santorini
11-May-17 14-May-17 New Hotel in Athens
May 17th, 2017, 11:02 AM
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We were (are) tired from the trip - no doubt it was a difficult trip. Good trip, but hard trip. We won't plan another as hard as this one but we are still very glad we did it and happy with all that we saw and did. I think the four of us "seniors" did pretty damn good! Especially when you consider bad knees, bad backs, colds, stomach issues, too much luggage, and numerous airport debacles!
We loved every single place we visited. Palermo was so much better than we were expecting. Nice hotel and staff, nice restaurants, interesting neighborhoods and a CRAZY taxi ride to and from Monreale made our Palermo experience very memorable. We then rented a car in downtown Palermo and drove around Sicily until we turned it in at Syracusa. They did not have the size car we reserved but “upgraded” us to a much larger van thing. No amount of arguing could get it changed to a smaller car so I’m sure it looked pretty crazy and I felt like a tour guide driving the van. It ended up not being a problem even though I had to drive down a few narrow streets in Taormina and Syracusa.
The Villa Athena hotel at Agrigento was great. Great service, great views, nice rooms and a private walkway to the ruins – we enjoyed our time here a LOT.
And what more can be said about Taormina? It is gorgeous and the hotel we stayed at is going to be the site for the G7 summit next week so I can’t wait to see it on TV. We even took a fairly scary bus ride up to Castelmola.
One of our Taormina days we went to the top of a smoking Mount Etna. Bus ride then a cable car ride then a jeep ride then a walk to the edge of a crater was pretty neat. The ground was warm (you could feel it through your shoes) but the air was cold enough to see your breath. Wow!
Our hotel in Ortygia was just OK but we knew that when we booked it. Ortygia was very nice and we did a hop on hop off bus ride so we could visit the Greek ruins in Syracusa.
The Club Class ferry ride to Malta was very nice. It’s kind of crazy but instead of getting a discount for being senior citizens we were charged a 20€ premium. It said on the tickets to be present for embarkation at least 1.5 hours before departure time. That was a joke. You could have arrived one minute before time and made it just fine. And there is no lounge to wait in – you just stand outside on a concrete area waiting for the ferry to arrive. But Club Class was nice.
Malta was also nice. Old town Valetta was interesting. The largest and only signed painting Caravaggio (one of our favorite artists) ever did is in St John’s Cathedral and it was incredible. We went to Gozo and took a boat tour through a grotto with super blue water to where the Azure Window used to be before it collapsed. We also stopped for a short visit at the beautiful Blue Lagoon on Comino. There were probably about a 100 people on our boat coming back to Valetta and for some reason they pulled up to our hotel dock and dropped the four of us plus another couple off at our hotel instead of having to catch a ride back from where the ferry landed. Very Nice!
We easily flew from Malta to Athens but then all flights to Santorini were cancelled because of high winds. We ended up sleeping in the Athens airport (a McDonald’s employee rousted us and told us we were FORBIDDEN to sleep at McDonalds) and took an early flight arriving at 8 AM. But all the hassle was worth it. Our hotel was great and Santorini is beautiful. Visited a winery one day but mostly just soaked up the beauty from our hotel room balcony as well as being pampered by the very nice staff at the hotel’s infinity pools.
Easy flight and taxi to our Athens hotel. Just like Palermo, we liked Athens more than we thought we would. We liked the Plaka neighborhood we stayed in and of course walked to the top of the Acropolis. We also walked around the ancient agora a little – all in all a very nice visit to Athens.
Very early flight to Paris where a work stoppage by the passport checkers caused more stress than we needed to catch our connecting flight but eventually made it home and had a huge hamburger at our local neighborhood tavern to celebrate surviving this crazy trip. Now to recover!!!!
We loved every single place we visited. Palermo was so much better than we were expecting. Nice hotel and staff, nice restaurants, interesting neighborhoods and a CRAZY taxi ride to and from Monreale made our Palermo experience very memorable. We then rented a car in downtown Palermo and drove around Sicily until we turned it in at Syracusa. They did not have the size car we reserved but “upgraded” us to a much larger van thing. No amount of arguing could get it changed to a smaller car so I’m sure it looked pretty crazy and I felt like a tour guide driving the van. It ended up not being a problem even though I had to drive down a few narrow streets in Taormina and Syracusa.
The Villa Athena hotel at Agrigento was great. Great service, great views, nice rooms and a private walkway to the ruins – we enjoyed our time here a LOT.
And what more can be said about Taormina? It is gorgeous and the hotel we stayed at is going to be the site for the G7 summit next week so I can’t wait to see it on TV. We even took a fairly scary bus ride up to Castelmola.
One of our Taormina days we went to the top of a smoking Mount Etna. Bus ride then a cable car ride then a jeep ride then a walk to the edge of a crater was pretty neat. The ground was warm (you could feel it through your shoes) but the air was cold enough to see your breath. Wow!
Our hotel in Ortygia was just OK but we knew that when we booked it. Ortygia was very nice and we did a hop on hop off bus ride so we could visit the Greek ruins in Syracusa.
The Club Class ferry ride to Malta was very nice. It’s kind of crazy but instead of getting a discount for being senior citizens we were charged a 20€ premium. It said on the tickets to be present for embarkation at least 1.5 hours before departure time. That was a joke. You could have arrived one minute before time and made it just fine. And there is no lounge to wait in – you just stand outside on a concrete area waiting for the ferry to arrive. But Club Class was nice.
Malta was also nice. Old town Valetta was interesting. The largest and only signed painting Caravaggio (one of our favorite artists) ever did is in St John’s Cathedral and it was incredible. We went to Gozo and took a boat tour through a grotto with super blue water to where the Azure Window used to be before it collapsed. We also stopped for a short visit at the beautiful Blue Lagoon on Comino. There were probably about a 100 people on our boat coming back to Valetta and for some reason they pulled up to our hotel dock and dropped the four of us plus another couple off at our hotel instead of having to catch a ride back from where the ferry landed. Very Nice!
We easily flew from Malta to Athens but then all flights to Santorini were cancelled because of high winds. We ended up sleeping in the Athens airport (a McDonald’s employee rousted us and told us we were FORBIDDEN to sleep at McDonalds) and took an early flight arriving at 8 AM. But all the hassle was worth it. Our hotel was great and Santorini is beautiful. Visited a winery one day but mostly just soaked up the beauty from our hotel room balcony as well as being pampered by the very nice staff at the hotel’s infinity pools.
Easy flight and taxi to our Athens hotel. Just like Palermo, we liked Athens more than we thought we would. We liked the Plaka neighborhood we stayed in and of course walked to the top of the Acropolis. We also walked around the ancient agora a little – all in all a very nice visit to Athens.
Very early flight to Paris where a work stoppage by the passport checkers caused more stress than we needed to catch our connecting flight but eventually made it home and had a huge hamburger at our local neighborhood tavern to celebrate surviving this crazy trip. Now to recover!!!!
May 17th, 2017, 11:25 AM
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loved reading this. You visited some very wonderful places in the world that do reward the effort. Thanks for the tip aboutn no sleeping at McDonalds in Athens airport. Greeks have taken in so many refugees, maybe they have to draw the line somewhere.
May 17th, 2017, 12:44 PM
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You see it was possible! I'm glad it worked out - at 64 I realize that I really need to make good choices where I go at this point. The travel horizon is no longer unlimited! Glad the ills and snafus were minor and you got to tick off 3 marvelous places from your bucket lists!
May 17th, 2017, 01:21 PM
#5
And what more can be said about Taormina? It is gorgeous and the hotel we stayed at is going to be the site for the G7 summit next week so I can’t wait to see it on TV. We even took a fairly scary bus ride up to Castelmola.>>
lol, John, we stayed in Castelmola so we had to drive up there AND back down, though we only did it once.
great TR - you write at the same speed as you travel.
lol, John, we stayed in Castelmola so we had to drive up there AND back down, though we only did it once.
great TR - you write at the same speed as you travel.
May 17th, 2017, 01:37 PM
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Your hotel choice in Santorini was excellent, Katikies is a great hotel !
It is actually the hotel that started all the madness about infinity pools in Santorini back in 95 or 96....
There was an article in the Time Magazine with a spectacular photo of Katikies and it's infinity pool....
When i was working on Santorini in 1996, countless american tourists were asking me where this hotel is, many of them holding the magazine in their hands....
This article was the best promotion for Katikies, which grew to what it is today, from being a rather family run hotel in 1996.
It is actually the hotel that started all the madness about infinity pools in Santorini back in 95 or 96....
There was an article in the Time Magazine with a spectacular photo of Katikies and it's infinity pool....
When i was working on Santorini in 1996, countless american tourists were asking me where this hotel is, many of them holding the magazine in their hands....
This article was the best promotion for Katikies, which grew to what it is today, from being a rather family run hotel in 1996.
May 18th, 2017, 07:31 AM
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frencharmoire - thanks. It was a great trip. The McDonald's employee was really serious about not letting us sleep. He said McDonalds is for eating not for sleeping. Too funny.
suec1 - yes it was possible - barely.... Like you say, we are not going to stop travelling but we are going to be much more picky about how/where we go.
annhig - Castelmora was a wonderful little place with incredible views and the road is a little scary but not too bad. I usually write long detailed reports but I was never able to finish the last one from Paris in 2015 so I decided to do a Cliff's notes version to at least cover the basics. I'm not sure why but the older I get the busier I get and there just isn't enough time to do a long report justice. Thanks for your responses to my questions before our trip. They helped make it a fantastic trip.
clausar - Oh what a wonderful hotel Katikies is - and the staff really made it special. Rose took us under her wing - she was incredible. I'll eventually get around to uploading some pictures - Santorini and Katikies are incredibly beautiful.
HappyTrvlr - thanks - I can't imagine how crazy it will be in Taormina. Have a look at this story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ity-nightmare/
suec1 - yes it was possible - barely.... Like you say, we are not going to stop travelling but we are going to be much more picky about how/where we go.
annhig - Castelmora was a wonderful little place with incredible views and the road is a little scary but not too bad. I usually write long detailed reports but I was never able to finish the last one from Paris in 2015 so I decided to do a Cliff's notes version to at least cover the basics. I'm not sure why but the older I get the busier I get and there just isn't enough time to do a long report justice. Thanks for your responses to my questions before our trip. They helped make it a fantastic trip.
clausar - Oh what a wonderful hotel Katikies is - and the staff really made it special. Rose took us under her wing - she was incredible. I'll eventually get around to uploading some pictures - Santorini and Katikies are incredibly beautiful.
HappyTrvlr - thanks - I can't imagine how crazy it will be in Taormina. Have a look at this story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ity-nightmare/
May 18th, 2017, 09:22 AM
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John, enjoyed reading your TR. Now you need another vacation to recover from the trip!
Just out of curiosity, where in Athens Airport did you end up sleeping? The chairs in Departure all have armrests, so it is impossible to stretch out. People who try to sleep on the floor are usually awakened by airport security. On the same level as McDonalds is a carpeted area outside the chapel, which some people have used for sleeping, but I'm not sure that would work these days either.
Just out of curiosity, where in Athens Airport did you end up sleeping? The chairs in Departure all have armrests, so it is impossible to stretch out. People who try to sleep on the floor are usually awakened by airport security. On the same level as McDonalds is a carpeted area outside the chapel, which some people have used for sleeping, but I'm not sure that would work these days either.
May 18th, 2017, 09:56 AM
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Heimdall - You are correct - I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. LOL! We ended up sleeping in the chairs with armrests. There were a LOT of people sleeping in the airport that night because of all the cancelled flights to Santorini (I think they ran out of hotel rooms to put people up at the hotel adjoining the airport). We saw several people on the floor outside of McDonalds I think in the place you describe. Even if they would have given us a hotel by the time we re-booked our flight we only had a couple of hours until we could check our luggage so we opted to just tough it out in those lovely chairs.
May 18th, 2017, 10:00 AM
#11
that's very kind John, glad to have been of help.
I can't agree about the drive up to [and down from] Castelmola - frankly I think that if we had not served our "apprenticeship" on the roads up to and down from the other hill towns that we visited on the trip, like Ragusa and Modica, we'd have given up. It was a real pig so we just stuck our car in the hotel car park and used the hotel shuttle bus.
I can't agree about the drive up to [and down from] Castelmola - frankly I think that if we had not served our "apprenticeship" on the roads up to and down from the other hill towns that we visited on the trip, like Ragusa and Modica, we'd have given up. It was a real pig so we just stuck our car in the hotel car park and used the hotel shuttle bus.
May 18th, 2017, 10:12 AM
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Not letting someone sleep at McDonalds or on the floor has my full sympathy..
I still remember the old airport in Athens before 2001, and the time when flight delays were a routine ...
People used to sleep everywhere, even on the chairs, occupying sometimes 3 chairs in a row...
I was there often to pick up family arriving from abroad, or departing for business trips, and i had to stand , because the whole place was full with sleeping tourists. ( it was also a much smaller airport with 2 terminals)
The airport security or the police did not bother to wake them up, and let them sleep despite the problem of others having no place to sit.
When i was a student in Germany i was waiting for a friend at the Railway Station of Würzburg, and while i was sitting in the main hall, i noticed the railway security waking up people who had fallen asleep, each time they passed by. Sitting was of course allowed, but not sleeping.......
I still remember the old airport in Athens before 2001, and the time when flight delays were a routine ...
People used to sleep everywhere, even on the chairs, occupying sometimes 3 chairs in a row...
I was there often to pick up family arriving from abroad, or departing for business trips, and i had to stand , because the whole place was full with sleeping tourists. ( it was also a much smaller airport with 2 terminals)
The airport security or the police did not bother to wake them up, and let them sleep despite the problem of others having no place to sit.
When i was a student in Germany i was waiting for a friend at the Railway Station of Würzburg, and while i was sitting in the main hall, i noticed the railway security waking up people who had fallen asleep, each time they passed by. Sitting was of course allowed, but not sleeping.......
May 18th, 2017, 10:34 AM
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I'll let you in on a little secret! After you go through the security check and go to your departure gate, there are rows of seats with no armrests. I've stretched out on the seats both in domestic and international departures, and no one has ever stopped me. It's just as well I can never doze off in those situations, or I would risk sleeping through the flight departure.
Clausar, I remember the old airport. At least it was closer to the Piraeus ferry docks. I've seen some photos of the present state of the Olympic venues that were built there, and it makes me very sad.
Clausar, I remember the old airport. At least it was closer to the Piraeus ferry docks. I've seen some photos of the present state of the Olympic venues that were built there, and it makes me very sad.
May 18th, 2017, 10:52 AM
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Heimdall
The East Terminal was more convenient and well build.
It is now protected and won't be demolished as it was designed by no other than Eero Saarinen.
Most Olympic venues are in a terrible shape they never got renovated after the 2004 Olympics, nor sold.. ( with very few exceptions)
That's really sad !
The East Terminal was more convenient and well build.
It is now protected and won't be demolished as it was designed by no other than Eero Saarinen.
Most Olympic venues are in a terrible shape they never got renovated after the 2004 Olympics, nor sold.. ( with very few exceptions)
That's really sad !
Jun 17th, 2017, 07:27 AM
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Here are a few pictures of Sicily and Malta. As I look at these pics I realize we really did have a good trip. Hope to have Greece pictures soon.
Sicily 2017:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1029
Malta 2017:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1122
Sicily 2017:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1029
Malta 2017:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1122
Jul 1st, 2017, 11:46 AM
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Some pictures of Santorini:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1191
And Athens:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1233
What a great trip we had - even if it was crazy!!!
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1191
And Athens:
https://john183italy2014.shutterfly.com/pictures/1233
What a great trip we had - even if it was crazy!!!
Jul 1st, 2017, 12:33 PM
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annhig, JulieVicmanus and TDudette - thanks for the kind words. You all are always very kind to me.
We have no trips to Europe on the calendar but we have our family beach week coming up the week after next, a company rewards trip to the Ritz in Sarasota for a week in August and a granddaughter wedding in Beaufort SC in November. And I have decided to retire next June. Lord, please keep the stock market rising so I can afford a few more trips to Europe. It should be interesting to be able to travel for longer than two weeks at a time.
We have no trips to Europe on the calendar but we have our family beach week coming up the week after next, a company rewards trip to the Ritz in Sarasota for a week in August and a granddaughter wedding in Beaufort SC in November. And I have decided to retire next June. Lord, please keep the stock market rising so I can afford a few more trips to Europe. It should be interesting to be able to travel for longer than two weeks at a time.
