The Sawyer Stories

Important preface: This is the first post Michael has written. You will soon see why. His level of elaboration would mean we were only on Day 2 if it were solely up to him.

Travel days are always fun for me… when I’m not driving. Today was no exception. Our journey today took us from our beautiful apartment in Athens right off the Acropolis to a ferry that is whisking us across the Adriadic Sea toward the shores of Italy.

The alarm went off at 6:30am but I (Michael) was so excited for the travel day that I was already awake. After a quick shower, a final pack of the suitcase, and a quick tidying of the apartment we were on our way.

We headed down to have our final smoothie from Coffee Island. We’d gone there every morning in Athens so today was not going to be an exception. Sawyer’s are anything if not loyal to good smoothies.

We arrived to make our usual order only to find out that Coffee Island had failed us and wouldn’t be serving smoothies that day. In general, we’ve been pretty good about eating meals at different establishments each meal, so I guess this forced our hand a bit.

The area we were staying in was right on the outskirts of the Acropolis and was packed full of restaurants of all kinds. Truly, all we had to do was spin in a circle, stop and point, to pick a restaurant with amazing food with Vegan options.

We ended up at this cute little café with indoor and outdoor seating. They had multiple vegan options including a Vegan Sandwich and an Açaí Bowl. We ordered two vegan sandwiches for Amber and Liam and an Açaí Bowl for me.

One of the crazy things we’ve found about Athens is not just how good the food is but also its affordability. We paid under 20 Euro for three people to have a good breakfast in a quaint restaurant in the middle of a global city. Athens for the win!

After breakfast, we grabbed our luggage from the apartment and headed to the metro.

LEG ONE – ATHENS METRO

The Athen’s Metro has three different lines, the Red, Blue, and Green lines also referred to numerically with line 1, line 2, and line 3. We jumped on the Red line’s Acropolis Station which was less than 100 yards from our apartment and headed towards the train station in Athens.

In general, the Athens Metro has been great. We paid around eight Euros per person for a five-day pass. The Metro stations were clean and well adorned with good signage to point us in the correct direction. We stuck mostly in the city center so I can’t speak to the Metro’s breadth, but it certainly helped us get to where we wanted to go.

LEG TWO – HELLENIC TRAIN

We arrived at Athens Central Station, and to my surprise, it was pretty nondescript. While train travel isn’t the most popular form of public transportation in the United States, the Sawyers are fortunate to live in Washington, DC which has and is connected to great rail infrastructure. Washington’s Union Station is a beautiful building that always stuns me when I arrive. Athen’s Central Station, while functional, was simply utilitarian and didn’t seem to be built to inspire with architectural beauty or grander.

We arrived around an hour early for our train, so we took a seat in the waiting room. The cooling system was not functional so it was pretty hot, though we would later find out that being hot became a theme for the day. With about 10 minutes until our train was set to depart, we headed out to our platform to wait for our ride.

Once the train arrived, we boarded and were on our way.

This was one of the moments of this trip I’ve been looking for. For me, the travel can be just as much of an experience as taking a tour of a city. I was excited to not only see some more of Athens but to also see some of the Grecian countryside.

The trip was about an hour and a half and it took much of that time to get out of Athens.

While Athens is beautiful and charming in many ways, some of its flaws were on display throughout the train ride. One thing that was disappointing and was highly visible as we made our way out of Athens is the amount of graffiti and trash. While trash is never beautiful, I am often able to find some redeeming qualities for graffiti. That wasn’t the case in Athens as it was nowhere near art and mostly just written words.

Once we were out of Athens, there was less trash and more beautiful scenery. Out in the distance we could see the crystal clear Mediterranean Sea with mountains rising up on the opposite shore from where we were. We passed through small towns and historically famous places. I was pretty excited when we passed through the city of Corinth which is a location that Paul visited and is written about in the New Testament.

When you read history books, it is easy to take in the facts, figures, and stories but its typically difficult to picture what the place you are learning about actually looked like. When you are in a historical location, the stories that you read and remember start to come to life and quickly become more than simple words on a page. Out of everything on this trip so far, how real all of these places have now become to me, has stood out the most.

LEG 3 – BUS TO PATRA

We arrived at Kiato and had an hour wait until our bus would depart for Patra, where we would then take the ferry to Italy. Now, to understand our activities during our wait in Kiato, we need to back up around 18 hours.

The previous day, Amber had said multiple times that we should pick up food to put in our bag in the event that we didn’t have food for our travel day. I kinda thought it was unnecessary and I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I blew off her suggestion.

After the 14th or 15th mention that we should get food to pack for our travels the next day, I finally acquiesced and we ordered some falafel, fries, pita bread and sauces from the wonderful restaurant called Mama Tierra.

Boy, did that falafel taste good while sitting at the train station waiting for the bus and boy was Amber correct that we needed to order food. There was a small food stand at the Kiato train station but had we ordered there, we would have ended up just eating chips and sodas for lunch. If it weren’t for my beautiful, brilliant, and forward thinking wife we sure would be in trouble (that is a general statement that also applies to this specific situation).

After lunch, the bus arrived and we began to board.

The bus was a typical charter style bus that you would see most anywhere in the world. I was pretty excited when we booked this bus because the seats were marketed to swivel so the person in front could turn around allowing us to sit as a family. When I booked the seats, I thought that the swivel seats were too good to be true and indeed that was the case. Frankly, that was fine because by this point in the trip, I think Liam was excited to have less only child supervision giving him the opportunity to watch F1 videos without us giving him direction to do otherwise.

This leg of the trip was beautiful. Similar to the train from a view perspective except we were traveling on the highway between towns big and small. One of the things I noticed in the towns were tanks on top of each home with a solar panel attached. I did some quick research and found out that this was an energy efficient way for the people of Greece to heat water in a renewable fashion. I can’t see this catching on in the states, but it is definitely a good idea that would significantly lower my utility bills and reduce emissions.

After an hour and a half, we arrived in Patra ready to find our ferry.

LEG 4 – BUS TO PATRAS PORT

While on the bus from Kiato to Patra, I did the research on the best way to transfer from the bus station in Patra to the port, I found that there were two public bus lines that would get us there. We could also take a taxi but they are hard to come by in a smaller town like Patra. With this in mind, I decided that it would be best to take a bus. If you ever find yourself in Patra, the bus line numbers are either 501 or 502.

As soon as we stepped off of our bus from Kiato, a bus for line 502 pulled up. We quickly scurried over to the bus and gracefully dragged our luggage. The fare was 2 Euro per person and luckily, you could pay by card so I used Apple Pay and paid our fares before finding a seat in the middle of the bus.

The bus ride was around 20 minutes from the bus station to our stop at the port. We weaved through the narrow city streets before getting on a highway toward our stop.

Coming up ahead of us, I could see the port. It wasn’t too dissimilar to other ports we had been at but there seemed to be more commercial traffic with a large amount of trucks transferring cargo utilizing the ferries. I could see our ferry docked and was excited to get on board and start the next portion of our adventure.

The ferry is definitely something I was looking forward to mostly because it was overnight, we had a cabin, and in many ways, it seems like a mini-cruise. When I saw the boat, it wasn’t as enormous as some of the cruise ships we had been on, but it was bigger than the ferry we had taken from Athens to Naxos and back.

I pushed the button to alert the driver that we wanted off at the next stop. This is where maps told us to get off, I could see the ship, so everything made sense… until it didn’t.

LEG 5 – WALKING TO THE PORT

We stepped off of the bus and there was a large concrete wall between us and the port. I thought we would have to walk a bit, so we turned and started walking away from our ship since I hadn’t seen any access roads to the port while we were riding on the bus.

After about half a kilometer, I got a little discouraged, looked at Apple Maps and saw that we likely were going in the wrong direction.

By this point, it was hot outside and we were feeling it. The temperature was somewhere in the high 90s, we were walking on a concrete sidewalk beside a highway, and next to us was this large concrete wall which was blocking any semblance of a breeze. Most of those reading this know me but probably don’t know that I sweat and abnormal amount. I step out into the sun and immediately start to drip. From head to toe, my pores perspire and while it does cool me off slightly, it makes me feel disgusting.

We turned around and started walking the other direction. We walked roughly a kilometer before we arrived perpendicular to our ferry. While this seems like a win, there was still a large concrete wall, an old access road, and a highway between us and the port where we would board the ferry. At this point I didn’t know what to do.

I pulled out my phone to see if Uber had drivers in Patra. No luck.

I looked up and saw a store across the street and decided it would be best to ask a local for help because I certainly hadn’t been successful. We walked into the Cash and Carry only to get stopped as soon as we walked in to be informed that we weren’t allowed in as it was the Greece version of a Sam’s Club. I apologized and asked if they could point us in the direction of port access. Graciously, she was willing to help us.

The unfortunate news came that originally, we were indeed walking in the correct direction and by turning around we had backtracked around a kilometer.

One thing that you have to understand about me is that I am, what I like to call, a ‘prepared traveler.’ I like to always know where I am going, how I am getting there, the time that it will take, and the amount that it will cost. Also, I’m one of those people that almost always gets to the airport two hours before my flight just to be certain I’m sitting at my gate for an hour and a half before departing (self deprecating sarcasm intended).

When we arrived in Patra, we had exactly two hours to get to the port in order to ensure we could check-in for our ferry. If we missed this window, we wouldn’t be able to board and therefore would not be able to make it to Rome that night. The clock was ticking and by this point, we were down to about an hour before check-in closed. At this point, my stress level was somewhere between bringing home your first-born child and taking the last second shot to win the game in game seven of the NBA Finals.

For me, this type of stress brings focus, attention, and speed. We were off to the races.

It was around a kilometer and a half to the port entrance from the store and then another kilometer and a half from the entrance to our ship. We’d already walked two kilometers by this point so in total, we were going to be walking a full 5k before arriving at the port. Liam and I run 5k’s often so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. In fact, as a runner, if I don’t run a full 5k, I question whether it should even be considered a run for me at all.

This time the circumstances were a bit different. We had 3 suitcases, a duffle bag, and 3 backpacks. The temperature was in the high 90s and I was running out of water.

The walk felt like the scene from the episode of ‘Better Call Saul’ titled ‘Bagman.’ Saul had been hired to pick up bail money for Lalo. Saul had to travel in his yellow, rusted out Geo Metro down dirt roads to the border of Mexico to meet the Salamanca twins. While the travel there was fine, on the way back from the border, someone tries to hijack Saul and steal the bail money. Luckily for Saul, Mike Ehrmantraut was watching over Saul and swoops in to save the day.

The rest of the episode follows Mike and Saul as the traverse the desert trying to make it back to civilization. It includes scenes of them trying to find shade to cool down, water to stay hydrated, and other unmentionable actions to stay alive in the blazing heat of the desert.

This is a highly exaggerated version of what I felt like walking the final three kilometers to get to our boat. Hot, sweaty, thirsty, but determined to make it to my destination.

Eventually, we did make it to the port. I stood in line to check-in and Amber went and grabbed us bottles of water from one of the shops. With about 15 minutes to spare, we were checked in and ready to board our ship.

LEG 6 – THE FERRY

We were told that the ferry would be open for boarding at around 4:00pm. At around 3:50pm, we noticed a few people heading toward the passport control area. We never saw them come back, so we figured they were able to board without issue and followed their lead to try and board a few minutes early.

Though we were still traveling within the Schengen area, we had to go through passport control to board our ferry along with actual luggage screening. Of all the trains, busses, and ferries we had been on up to this point, our luggage was never screened. With that said, I never felt unsafe but it the level of security was odd, unfamiliar, and was so minimal compared to post 9/11 air travel in the United States.

We boarded a bus to transfer to the ferry and after a short ride (like literally 100 yards), we were walking up the ramp to our ferry.

The helpful staff pointed us to our cabin. We were on level six on the boat and had an exterior facing room with a window so we could have a view of the Adriatic Sea and Grecian Islands as we traveled. When we got into our room, it reminded me our our room from our first cruise we took with Carnival around 9 years ago. It was small, there were two beds on the floor, two pull down bunks, and a small bathroom with a toilet, sink, and small shower.  

We laid in bed for a while and listened to the ships safety announcements in multiple languages. At some point, I fell asleep and grabbed a quick nap which was refreshing and needed after the heat and long day of travel.

To end the night, we went and explored the ship. There was certainly not as many amenities as the cruises we have been on, but the basics were there with a few lounges, two restaurants, and outdoor deck seating to enjoy the sea breeze.

We decided to go ahead and grab dinner at the self-service restaurant. Unlike most of Greece, there were minimal vegan options on the ferry. All three of us ended up ordering spaghetti with tomato sauce and a roll on the side. In terms of food quality and taste, this spaghetti was slightly above elementary school cafeteria level. Van Buren Elementary School of the 80s and 90s would have been proud to serve this spaghetti.

After dinner, we went to the decks and sat and took in the stunning views of the Mediterranean. We played some games together before retiring for the evening in our cabin for a decent night of sleep.

It was such a fun and memorable travel day. While travel is tiring, it is also a form of adventure. From saying goodbye to Athens, trekking across Greece by train and bus, to seeing a new city, to getting lost and walking a 5k, to ferrying across the Adriatic, it was altogether a fantastic day and one I will certainly remember for years to come.