We got up on the bright to catch a cab to the Heraklion airport. The porter helped us with our bags around 8:15 and by 8:30 we were checked out and on our way. The Heraklion airport is a very busy and confusing place, especially if you’re flying a small airline like Olympic. Once we’d located the appropriate check-in desk, we were vaguely sent to take our baggage to the scanner. We went to the first scanner we found, which was unmanned. Happily, we weren’t the only travelers with this confusion, as two other folks were standing in the same place, and were equally confused. Andrea made her way back to the counter to figure out where we should go, finding an irate woman from the UK chewing out the lady at the desk over the same confusion. Fortunately Andrea was able to overhear where we needed to go. Likewise our flight wasn’t on the board, so we had to ask which gate it would leave from (6, naturally…all Olympic flights leave from 6. Silly us).
We took the puddle jumper from Crete to Athens and dashed across the airport to the Alitalia desk; we needed to check-in again for this second leg of our flight. Andrea and I were separated by 8 rows, each with a middle seat. Bummer. Andrea met some very nice Athenian women on the plane, and talked with them a good portion of the flight. I (Matt) met a sleepy guy and a sleepy woman, and they slept through a good portion of the flight. I’m not so good at sleeping on planes, so I watched the video, which included Looney Tunes and a cool series of animated shorts called “Animaliens.” These were neat videos of stylized, animal-like creatures, each telling a brief 15-30 second story. They gave us a sandwich composed of three pieces of crust-free bread, with two thin layers of salmon spread. Andrea didn’t dig it, but I ate the whole thing. I was very hungry.
We landed in Rome, recovered our luggage (made it this time), and dragged ourselves across the airport to the train station. We bought tickets from the airport to Roma Termini (the train station in the heart of Rome) and then second class tickets from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale (Naples) on a high speed (alta velocita) train. This is where my Visa card barfed. When I called the states later to get it reactivated, I got disconnected. OK, when I called the second time to get it reactivated, the lady would tell me that the fraud department carefully monitors transactions, and since I hadn’t told them I’d be travelling, they promptly declined my card. This is totally true, and I forgot to call; but I didn’t bother asking why they hadn’t picked up on a week’s worth of charges from Greece. 🙂
The public train from the airport to Rome was extremely crowded, and extremely hot. We would later learn that the air conditioner had just broken. We didn’t get any seats, so we stood with the luggage. This is when I used my cell phone (which was now picking up international carriers) to straighten out the Visa card, and when a very nervous man kept a close eye on Andrea and me, since we were standing somewhere near his luggage.
We got off the train and checked the departure sheet for Napoli Centrale Stazione. The electronic status board showed our train had been delayed, with no departure platform. We took a seat near the status board, a really unusual seat, as it was lined with 1.5″ diameter short steel poles, cut at an angle such that they formed a bunch of mini-spikes where the butt part of the seat should be. There weren’t sharp, just awkward and uncomfortable. The train was about 30 minutes late, and finally arrived at platform 10. We got on board and took some seats; shortly afterwards, we realized they were not OUR seats. We noticed other people debating and checking tickets, and that’s when we realized there was subtly assigned seating on our ticket. We quietly moved to the right seats, in the right coach. Once again, we weren’t seated together. About an hour and half later we arrived in Naples. The hotel we got (UNA Hotel Napoli) was across Piazza Garibaldi, about 200 meters from the station. We dragged our luggage there and had arrived at last, exhausted and hungry. The room is very nice, and features a bidet, which neither one of us knows how to use. 🙂
We wandered out onto the piazza to find a place to eat. We chose a little Cantina (Cantina Dei Mille), and sat out on a small table on the sidewalk. We shared a Peroni (Italian beer), gnocchi, linguine with seafood, fried prawns and calamari, and meat ravioli. Everything was fantastic. We struck up a conversation with the couple next to us, Gunnel and Börje Freudenthal from Sweden. They were very charming and engaging people, with 3 sons and 9 grandchildren, all of which live within 70 km of Varberg, Sweden. We had a great discussion about how dirty Naples is (they don’t plan on returning), American politics, large trees in California, merchant marines, and how Americans all go to church, have too many bathrooms, and all own swimming pools. We’ve been invited to visit them in Sweden, and we do firmly intend to write.
Finally we went back to the room and hit the sack. It’d been an extremely long, interesting day.
matt & andrea 