Wow! What a month.
First, the UK’s annual Easter Sci-Fi and Fantasy convention in Birmingham, where I met old friends and made new ones. (KLM’s failure to provide the flights I’d pre-booked and my interaction with a bullying security guard are another story.)
I finally arrived home bearing Covid (just a sore throat and a red line on the tester) leaving me “protected” for the next 6 months (unless that science has changed again).
I tested negative just in time to fly to Greece to fulfill a decades-long ambition to wander among the ruins of the Parthenon, Mycenae, and Delphi.
On Day One, I gazed up at the magnificent hilltop Acropolis, feeling a lifelong burning ambition about to be fulfilled. Clutching my ticket, I headed for the entrance gate. Beyond rose a steep flight of stone stairs. Beyond them waited a forty-five-degree slope.
With undimmed enthusiasm, I strode forward, encountering yet more steps and slopes. My pace slowed to a weary plod as my back muscles reminded me of my scoliosis.
Scoliosis? It’s a bending of the spine resulting from the back muscles failing to coordinate as per their original design specifications. King Richard the Third of England had a severe version: mine is only visible to an X-ray machine. But the pain!! Oh, the pain.
I struggled around the Parthenon like a hero of old, taking pain-relieving breaks as needed. I was not going to miss a chance to stroll amid the ruins of a civilization I’d admired since childhood.
I managed to complete my wanderings, though in four times the expected time. So I missed the Athens Hop-On/Hop-Off bus tour I’d planned and returned to my hotel to rest my back.
Day Two: I made the bus tour, though I “hopped off ” for fewer local archeological site inspections than I’d hoped for. Still, I had the Acropolis under my belt and captured digitally.
Onward to Mycenae and Delphi.
Stunning!
As were the views of ocean and mountains from these ancient sites and en route.
Having a break after the Covid years’ internment was so darn mentally refreshing!
Back home, booked in for serious back muscle therapy, and returning to the edit of my next novel: REVOLT!
I hope your vacations are as therapeutic as mine – minus the back pain, of course!
Andy McKell, Speculative Fiction Author 
Looks like a great trip (sorry about your back–ugh. Back pain is the worst)! We’re heading there this fall. Can’t. Wait. Would you recommend the tour you took to Delphi? I’m still looking through the options, but really want to visit that site. Also, any recs on where to go in Athens?
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ATHENS
I suggest using the hop-on/hop-off buses in Athens for convenience (and also as the city roads are narrow and full of suicidal motor-bikers). There are three companies, each with overlapping routes stopping at crossover locations so you can change routes. We chose the red bus company. But watch out for the “last bus” times. One bus we wanted to connect with at the Parthenon was full, so we lost an hour and ended up being stranded out of town.
I suggest checking where the buses stop as there’s usually something to see there, so google the places mentioned and choose.
MUST SEE: Parthenon/Acropolis (there was a disabled “lift” but it was out-of-order)
DELPHI
You can book a day trip from Athens, but we’d hired a car, so we downloaded a spoken guide with a skip-the-line ticket to our phones. I regret we deleted the guides after arriving back home, so I can’t advise on which to choose.
We stayed in a local hotel, but the on-road parking near the Delphi sites was full by mid-morning, so it was a bit of a trek to the entrance.
NOTE: There were many coach parties crowding the ruins’ walkways while getting a lecture and also blocking the doorways between the rooms at the museum.
Hope this helps!
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Thanks, Andy! Very helpful.
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