We have tickets for the hockey at Hellinko this morning. Unfortunately, the late return and a night of illness for Verity and I mean that we have to forgo the hockey.
Julie returns the car keys to Costas and again thanks him for his generosity. We have some spare tickets for an equestrian event that he is interested in, so we give him the tickets in leiu of the petrol that we were unable to replace and one of the programmes that we had aquired.
We walk up to the rowing centre at get on the Olympic bus Z20 as expected. This takes us to Doukissis Plakentias Metro Station and we then take the metro to the main area.
Our seats are up in the higher tier for the Men’s Qualification section. The gymnasts on display are from United States, Rumania, Russia, France, Spain, Canada, Italy and three groups of mixed countries. The gymnastics is good, but we are too far away and there is little atmosphere. We have seen the gymnast who will (in four days time) go on to be Mens Individual All-Around gold medallist.
We are seated next to an Americans couple, who give the girls US flag pin badges. They ask us, is this our first Olympics. We do not understand, yet…
When the event has finished, we head back to the bus station at Doukissis Plakentias, but there is no bus. There are a number of other foreign visitors here, but no one to help.
After waiting for nearly two hours it is clear that there is no Olympic Bus, so we head to Athens Centre to try and get a public bus back to Shinias. We get there but discover that there are none. We are advised to get the bus to Marathon where we would be able to get a taxi. The bus is packed, but a kind Greek lady let Beth sit on her lap.
We get to Marathon, but there are no taxis at the rank. We are not the only ones looking and we miss out on the first taxi that comes. Then another one does not come. After over an hour of waiting, the girls are tired and hungry. Another bus arrives with a couple from New Zealand, who are also at our campsite. Julie goes to a restaurant and gets some pitta breads. They tell her that there are unlikely to be any taxis, but she is able to get them to ‘phone a taxi for us. When it does arrive it won’t take all six of us, so we promise the New Zealanders that we will send it back for them.
When we get back to the motorhome, it is nearly half past twelve. It has taken us five and a half hours to get back to the campsite!