It was a hot one this year!!!

This year, for the first time, we flew with Easyjet from Manchester to Athens. We had a bad start because it meant leaving home at 2.00am to drive to Manchester Airport and book in for a 7.00am flight. I had very little sleep and really paid for it all day on our travelling to Anghistri.

One problem was that when I originally booked the flights the response from Easyjet was "Urgent - if your details are incorrect when you check in you will not be able to fly!" This is a paraphrase but it scared me to death, even though I checked the details I gave at the time several times over. When we went to the baggage drop one suitcase was exactly 20 kilos which is the limit for Easyjet. At home it had weighed less than this. It was too close for comfort!

At Terminal 3 we found the food outlet were only able to provide a very limited offer of hot food and this was not good news either. However, my clever wife did some investigation to discover, in advance, the gate number so that we could be first in the Speedy Boarding queue. We were in poll position to get the front seats on the aircraft which then meant we could stretch out our legs during the flight.

Eventually we were all aboard the aircraft and the plane joined a lengthy take off queue. Eventually we took off half an hour late! The plane was staffed by cabin crew of a very young average age and who could not string a few words together so that we could tell what they were saying. Diction today is very poor among the younger end! However, we eventually landed at Athens Airport and reclaimed our cases reasonably quickly. Next we went to the little cabin outside Arrivals where I paid for 2 tickets on the express bus (1 hour 10 mins) to Piraeus. Having arrived at the port of Piraeus, we helped a Norwegian family to locate the ship that would take them to Aegina. Our next task was to get a bottle of water to cool our throats and then 2 tickets on the Flying Dolphin to Anghistri.

At the port of Mandraki we were met by Christos, joint owner of Hotel Boulas, and we and our luggage was whisked up the steep road to Room 10 where we unpacked. It was not long before we jumped in the swimming pool to refresh ourselves after a long day's travelling. We finished the day with a meal at Taverna o Fotis as we usually do and hit the sack. It took a further whole day to get over the effect of travelling from 2.00am to 5.00pm. Watch this space!