Blog Zero: Edinburgh to Santorini

The build up to Retirement Trip Number Five featured lots of hard work on Fiona’s part, in various aspects of the family business, and lots of arranging by me to have suitable pharmaceuticals to take away with us!  Plus me managing to obtain a very expensive ticket for the Olimpiacos basketball match whilst we are in Piraeus.

Having both caught Covid on each of our last two trips, we were keen to get vaccinated before we left.  Winter vaccination programmes were just beginning so we booked appointments at Ocean Terminal for joint flu and Covid jabs.  Long story short, no Covid vaccine was available and I was given the wrong flu vaccine, because I look so much younger than I am!

Three days before we set off, we ended up parting with £170 for two Covid jabs at our local pharmacy.

The flight with Jet 2 to Santorini was the worst flight I’ve ever been on, in terms of passenger behaviour.  Lots of families seemed to have come through from the West for this flight.  One guy in particular seemed unable to stay in his seat, and was constantly up and down the aisle munching on his latest food.  He eventually settled in empty extra legroom seats to chat to his mates and finally only moved when he was told he’d have to pay extra.

The dads in the party constantly yelled five word sentences at each other then fell out with a woman who was travelling alone, and was sitting behind Fiona, when the woman asked them to tone it down.  A screaming argument ensued and the cabin staff stayed absent as much as possible.  The kids screamed more or less constantly and were generally anarchic – no surprise with the example they were being shown.

We were very happy to alight at Santorini airport for the transfer to our hotel in Thera, arriving around midnight because of a flight delay and the time difference.  Happy until we found out that our allocated (very expensive for a 3-star establishment) room was nothing like what we had chosen months previously in Edinburgh, and turned out to be the crappest in the hotel. Not a great nostalgic arrival to the hotel we had stayed at way back in 1983, on our only other visit together to the island.

No one really to argue with at that time of night so we had to settle for recording a protest and finally getting off to bed around 2:00am.  The joys of travel!