WEDNESDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2001

Off to Greece this morning to celebrate our twentieth anniversary! Too excited to sleep, I woke up at 4:50, almost an hour before the alarm was set to go off.

Breakfast in the Air France lounge -- corn flakes and croissants.

I saw the Vosges and the Alps from the plane. Champagne with lunch, chartreuse and cognac after! You have to pay for champagne in Economy, but when I told the steward we were celebrating our anniversary, he waived the fee and later offered the digestifs.

I studied my Greek tourist vocabulary -- hard to learn because it doesn’t much resemble romance languages, English or German. Last year I learned some Italian for our trip to Rome; that was easier because the words were similar to ones I already knew.

We arrived on time in Athens but my suitcase somehow missed the plane. It was expected on the evening flight but Phil and I were going on to Nafplion right away; Air France said the bag would be delivered to the bus station in Nafplion the next day.

Alex and I study the roadmap.

Our friend Alex Abravanel met us at Arrivals and took us out to meet Taki from Kosmos car rentals and pick up our silver Toyota RAV4 -- such service, to have the car right at the exit, not a shuttlebus ride away.

Athens has brand new and impressive international airport, constructed by a firm that has built others in Europe, but the new highway into the city won’t be finished until 2003. The old roads are slow, busy and wind through the suburbs. Alex led us part way to the autoroute and gave us explicit instructions for finding it, but I got confused, had Phil take a wrong turn and we ended up going through downtown Athens. This route was probably shorter, but traffic was heavy.

Hotel Nafsimedon, Nafplion.

We had an uneventful trip to Nafplion, arriving just after dark -- it stays light much later here than in Paris this time of year -- and checked into the lovely Hotel Nafsimedon. The rooms were spacious and airy, furnished sparsely with simple antiques.

Arapakos restaurant.

We ate dinner at Arapakos on the water, the restaurant where we had dined twice five years ago. On the menu tonight:

* melitsanasalata (wood-grilled eggplant salad)
* spanakopita (spinach and feta in filo pastry)
* a mixed vegetable plate
* yummy grilled red snapper, the waiter said, but more likely some other red fish (fagri in Greek)
* washed down with Nasiakos label white wine
* and followed by fresh apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon and drizzled with honey!

We called our moms to report our safe arrival and happy day. Mine was thrilled at the unexpected call from Greece.

As we turned in for the night we agreed the vacation was off to a great start!

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Email: phildemetrion@yahoo.com