Home » Greece » Europe 2002, Greece (Second of 5 countries) 8 week trip

This is a work in progress and may not be complete. This is the travelogue of our 8 week journey through Europe in September - October 2003. On this leg we leave Spain and travel to the island of Rhodes Greece through Athens.

Europe 2002, Greece (Second of 5 countries) 8 week trip

Jvi
2004-09-14 12:46:04

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On the left you see us in Rhodes, the background is the area where the Colossus of Rhodes was supposed to have stood. It's marked by two columns with a deer at the top. Here are two better photos of the spot, photo 1 and photo 2.

On September 12 we got up before dawn at 5:15 and checked out of our Parador in Ronda, Spain. We drove south through the mountains and arrived at the Malaga Airport around 7AM. It was a dark ride on twisting roads. The toll road along the coast cost over 6 Euro. We had arrived before the rental car desk opened so we just deposited our keys, as instructed, in the mail slot. You always feel like you shouldn't do this. Someone can say you never returned the car or drive it for a few days but we have never had a problem and we've done it several times. I guess you just have to learn to trust people, maybe we've been lucky. We had arrived at the airport early and when we checked in we were put on an earlier flight to Madrid. We had a long wait in Madrid so I tried one of the Internet machines to check my email. I had entered some email addresses on my Yahoo email and we sent email to a few friends to let them know where we were. You pay for a few minutes and the speed is around 56K. We flew Olympia Airlines from Madrid to Athens. The new airport north of Athens didn't look so new anymore, the rugs were dirty but at least they've banned smoking in most of the airport except in many of the restaurants and cafes. I was pretty impressed that there were very few people who disregarded the no smoking signs. In Madrid airport people smoked everywhere, including in the cafeteria food lines.

We arrived in Rhodes and hopped in a taxi to the Hotel Cava D'Oro in the old town area. The cab rates are pre-set and posted. We had a nice cab driver and we were tired. The cab fare was 13.50 Euro and I gave him 20. He was nice, pointed out some sights and drove us into the old town right up to the door of the ...