Remembering Greece … history, philosophy, politics

Two years ago, we visited Greece and two of the Greek islands, Crete and Santorini.

If you have ever thought that you might want to go to Greece … you do. We spent the majority of our time in Athens and stayed at the Hotel Hermes, a great boutique hotel in the Plaka area of Athens. Service was great and the buffet breakfast was nice. The rooms are small and it is a challenge to take a shower without getting water all over the floor.

We were in walking distance to the Acropolis and many other historical monuments. The food was great. We even found a vegetarian restaurant.

While you can tour on your own, which we did, I you are interested in history and philosophy, I recommend organized tours. Perhaps just good luck, but every tour guide we had seemed to really enjoy their job and took great pride in their country’s history. A half to visit place is Delphi, about 180 kilometres (112 miles) from Athens. The ruins were discovered by the French and the Delphi museum at the foot of the ruins is well worth a trip to see actual statutes and sculptures.

Many attribute the Holy Roman Empire with the spread of western civilization, but much of what the Romans spreaded and forced upon their conquered was influenced by the Greeks.  Atop of the Acropolis you can look down upon Athens and see historic sites for “free speech,” a market place, civil institutions like courts, and other precursors of democratic practices.

While the trip to the Greek Isles was nice, we went during non-peak season, so many tourist activities were not available.  While on Crete, we did get to visit the famous Minoan palace at Knossos.  I wouldn’t recommend a tour guide and if you do, you may or may not get a good guide, since I think that these guides are volunteers at least during March.

Santorini … beautiful.  March is non-peak season too, but we did get to visit the Santorini’s caldera.  Worth the trip?  Totally!

What happened to the Passengers Bill of Rights?

I remember the first time that I flew.  It was the summer of 1985 and I was flying to London, England on British Caledonian.  I thought, “Wow, this is the only way to travel.”  Having traveled by car and train, air travel was quick, comfortable, and customer friendly. 

Fast forward to 2007 … Air travel is still quick, but what happened to customer service and satisfaction.  Yes, passengers may have become less civil, we have experienced the tragic events of September 11th, more people travel and the air travel infrastructure has not kept pace.  Sure, these are challenges, maybe even legitimate problems, to air travel, but what happened to customer service and satisfaction.  When I travel on airlines, I sometimes feel like I am “troubling” the airlines and their employees.  It’s like they are doing me a favor …

Of course, I should feel honored and privileged that the airlines allow me to fly on their carriers.  Why should I complain about late or cancelled flights?  It’s not really necessary that the flight representatives acknowledge my presence.  I don’t need an update if my flight is late.  It is perfectly acceptable that air travel schedules are so fragile that a delay at one airport ripples throughout most of the country.  The airlines and airports handle a lot of luggage, so I shouldn’t get upset when they lose mine and then never give me an allowance, despite what their supposed policy say.  Now, this is really important, it is entirely unreasonable to expect short lines and courteous employee … that is just asking for too much.  I like standing in queue and having someone yell and frown at me with disdain, especially when I pay part of their salary.

Okay, those are my grievances, but what can we do?  The 110th US Congress talked a lot about a Passenger Bill of Rights.  What happened?  Why don’t we consumers have rights and protection?  Do other consumer rights apply to air travelers?  I don’t know, but I do know that customer service stinks from the time you arrive at the airport to the time you leave the airport when you reach your destination.  Now, not all employees and air travel is horrible.

When we flew to Amsterdam, our original flight was “delayed” more like cancelled, as a result of weather.  A dedicated airline representative worked tirelessly to find us another flight.  Raleigh-Durham airport actually found a very important book that I left at the check-in counter … I didn’t even have my name written in the book.  They found the book based on the title I gave them.  My point, as bad as air travel is, it is not a lost cause.  It just needs a major overhaul so that my anecdotal examples are the norm.

Staying in the bush … a Zambian experience

We visited Livingstone, Zambia June 2007 and had a little concern about where we would be staying.  Making lodging reservations for Zambia is different from our experiences in the United States Europe, South America, and other places.  I must admit that I am addicted to Expedia and to a lesser extent Travelocity.  To my dismay and chagrin, I could not find any lodging to reserve online …  I like to use credit cards, because it’s easier to get refunded, if you are scammed.  [This is another blog.]  To make a long story short, I finally found a lodge on a tourism site that I sort of trusted and took a chance on Taita Falcon Lodge.  The Lodge had a website (which doesn’t mean anything) and I couldn’t find any blogs criticizing the Lodge (which doesn’t mean anything either).  After I wired a lot of money to the Lodge (their form of payment), I fretted for several months hoping that everything would be fine, including staying somewhere nice while staying in the bush. 

Staying in the bush was one of the highlights of the trip.  While I say we were in the bush and we were, the accommodations were quite nice and modern … toilet, shower, running water, comfortable netted bed, sitting area.  We were also at one of gorges where we could hear the rushing Zambezi River.  To get to the Lodge, we had to drive through a real African village, which we visited and purchased a couple of craft items.  This was awesome!

More about the Lodge later …