One of the benefits of being retired nomads is the time available for travel research, This leads - in our case - to serious miserliness about fares. So when, in September Rainer casually mentioned that Ryanair had started flying from Chania to Frankfurt-Hahn we were onto their website like rats up a drain, because getting anywhere sensible directly so that Athens can be avoided has to be a good thing :- and cheap!
As time passed in Crete the benefits of missing out Athens became more apparent. The images on the BBC news website of accumulating rubbish as a result of the strike by municipal workers brought to mind the unsavory nature of the streets round the Piraeus port even in strke-free times, and the prospect of roaming around for half a day and then being crammed into a crowded airport bus was not inviting. With no air traffic control strike on the day of travel we thought we had struck(!) a neat solution, with the greatest stress being a very long wait in Bergamo airport. In reality we were somewhat touched by the Greek troubles. We ran from the Paleo bus to the airport bus at Chania with1 minute to spare. At the airport the departures board showed that every outgoing flight was delayed. Every so often the Aegean announcer made a strong statement about the unjustfiable ATC work to rule. We were told we were delayed by at least two hours:- no problem for us! It was a beautiful sunny day, so we wandered over to the old airport taverna for a beer or two, and found a full charter planeful of Danish tourists on a much longer delay being herded, addressed and fed by their reps. We were in fact three and a half hours late getting away.
On closer inspection this particular route proved expensive, but the other new one we found is Chania-Milan (Bergamo). So this how we plaaned the migration this time:
... and such a good price!
As time passed in Crete the benefits of missing out Athens became more apparent. The images on the BBC news website of accumulating rubbish as a result of the strike by municipal workers brought to mind the unsavory nature of the streets round the Piraeus port even in strke-free times, and the prospect of roaming around for half a day and then being crammed into a crowded airport bus was not inviting. With no air traffic control strike on the day of travel we thought we had struck(!) a neat solution, with the greatest stress being a very long wait in Bergamo airport. In reality we were somewhat touched by the Greek troubles. We ran from the Paleo bus to the airport bus at Chania with1 minute to spare. At the airport the departures board showed that every outgoing flight was delayed. Every so often the Aegean announcer made a strong statement about the unjustfiable ATC work to rule. We were told we were delayed by at least two hours:- no problem for us! It was a beautiful sunny day, so we wandered over to the old airport taverna for a beer or two, and found a full charter planeful of Danish tourists on a much longer delay being herded, addressed and fed by their reps. We were in fact three and a half hours late getting away.Bergamo airport landside is completely dominated by Ryanair and rather uniform, but could clearly be a useful way of getting to Milan (three competing coach firms available for the city centre), and is a serious hub for all Europe. We mooched around, had a fairly good meal and then a long queue for security with the rudest personnel in attendance. Airside is a bit more interesting, and again we saw it for longer than planned as we had a delay of an hour and a half! Still, it all worked and we were in our hotel room within 30 minutes of landing, and it was - after all - very cheap!
Next day it was a pick-up by Margarita and delivery to waiting Yvette, diesel, tyres and over the border in two hours.
So - in 24 hours we had had footfall and sustenance in four nations. Someone has to do it!
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