Blog

I hate the bus.

For so many reasons.

One of them being that you never know for sure where your bus is going to stop, at least if you don’t speak the local language. Another is that it seems that employees at the bus counters are hired on the premise that they don’t speak english and that they are as unsympathetic and unhelpful as possible. Well, at least the driver was nice, when I found the bus at a different spot than the one two cashiers told me…

I must admit though, the road to the Greek border was properly epic! But then so would have been the train that ran along the road. Ah Bulgaria, you splendid fellow, I’m not even mad at you.

Γεια σου Ελλάδα!

This time, both passport checks were done at the same booth, on the Greek side of the border. It went smooth and fast, and the Greek border guard was the friendliest I’ve ever met. Eyh, I’m back in Schengen and the EuroZone!

Back on the bus we were, and soon enough I arrived in Σέρρες [Serres]. I have six hours to kill there before my train to Θεσσαλονίκη [Thessaloniki] (where the bus was going, but I want to take the train as much as possible). My first mission, before even going for lunch, was to find a laundry. It turned out to be only coin-operated, but luckily I had enough euro coins left with me. However, the freaking dryers didn’t work. At all. I tried two of them, for a total of a whoping 1 h 15 min and eight euros, but still my clothes were as wet as Brittany. Which is quite a feat, considering those are fast drying clothes!!

Angry but powerless, having only eaten a few chips, I went for a walk, but the town wasn’t too interesting. So I took a coffee and read.

Early enough, I went to the small train station. Issue: three frantic stray dogs are living in a small shelter just in front of it, and were barking at anyone passing by, even running after cars. But I had no choice. When they went back to their shelter, I walked decidedly towards the station. One of them spotted me and started to bark menacingly, getting closer. Another one started to ran towards me. By some miracle (I used to be dead scared of dogs), I managed to keep my calm, and they didn’t get closer to a couple meters. Still, I was relieved and shaking when I got to the safety of the station.

Finally, an hour later, I climbed aboard… TRAIN 200!! Woohoo! 200, can you imagine?

It was a pleasant ride, but extremely slow, through Kerkini Lake NP, close to the Bulgarian and then North Macedonian borders.

We arrived 45 min late in Θεσσαλονίκη, the new Southern boundary of the journey, at 10 PM. I checked in at the hostel, hang my clothes hoping against hope I don’t have to redo the whole laundry (I will), and crashed.