We took the sleeper train from Istanbul to Athens. Leaving Istanbul at 21:00. Before boarding the train we stocked up on some baklava (my absolute favorite Mediterranean dessert) and water. The train took off exactly on time and was quite empty. The sleeper compartments were quite comfortable, but the service was rather lacking. The beds needed to be unlocked with a special key, we pressed the “service” button and waited. After a long wait nothing happened and I saw other travellers having the same problem (looking for personnel). So I approached a young turkish guy and he told me he had seen the staff playing cards in another car of the train, not their office, he said we could wait a long time. But he then went and got those guys going.
At about 1am we were woken up by Turkish immigration and customs. After about half an hour we got the passport back. The train then moved for another half hour and the Greek immigration and customs guys knocked on our door. After that we had a quite ride to Thessaloniki where the train arrived 3.5 hours late. Of course we missed our connection and all other trains for the day were booked solid. What to do? Staff in the train station was not friendly and helpful, including the information booth guy.
People on the street outside one the other hand were quite helpful, but English did not get us far. Then a Chinese guy approached us (I think he was glad to see Asian faces 🙂 and Srisuda communicated with him in Mandarin. We pieced info together and found a bus to Athens. It took a little longer than the train and was not as comfortable, but was an ok solution. My friend and I almost missed the bus though! Srisuda and his wife where already on the bus when we decided we had time to grab a couple of SIM cards for our phones at the store. Turned out that we needed help by the clerk in activating them since everything was in Greek. We ran after the bus and got on. Srisuda said she yelled “stop” from the back but did not get a response at first until a Greek passenger helped her getting the drivers attention.
Getting close to Athens we made hotel reservation from the bus with our new SIM cards. It was an easy transfer from the bus station to the hotel via metro, again great public transport.
We had dinner in the Plaka district just below the Akropolis. After that trip the beer tasted especially good!