Ipad in hand we arrived straight from our flight from Cape Town via Dubai at Ikea near Athens airport. It was 4pm. By 9.30 pm and 5 loaded trolleys later, we reached the tills. Upstairs they already switched off the lights. The shop officially closed at 9pm! It then took us another hour to pay, take the big items to the transport department who would take it in the next 2 days to the depot of Delaportes, who would then take it to Ithaka..
We left the shop which was now in total darkness with 2 loaded trolleys( all the small breakable items, and proceeded to stuff it all in our car on a pitch black empty parking lot. By 11o’clock we were finally ready to roll!!
But it was to late now to go all the way to Patra, which was our original plan, so we decided to stay over the night in Athens in our favorite Athens hotel, The Fresh Hotel – www.freshhotel.gr
One more hurdle to overcome , besides negotiating our way trough Athens, was a demonstration on Syntagma square, which was completely blocked off, and it took us another hour to do the last 2km….
Then, finally an ice cold Mythos on the roof top terrace of the hotel, overlooking the Acropolis.