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Back To The Balkans: Greece and Greece March 2007 
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< Trips 2007 > |
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This was a short trip in March 2007. My favourite band, Iron Maiden, did a short spring tour. There were only four dates: Bangalore, Dubai, Athens and Belgrade. Getting to India and Dubai was expensive so I thought I might do Greece or Serbia. Or both. I was already thinking: “OK, I have a couple of days in Greece, then 3 days to see a bit of Macedonia and then I’ll head to Serbia”… But I couldn’t have enough days off from my job to to do this. I decided to skip the Serbia gig. |
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Well, anyway I’m seeing Iron Maiden in Serbia in in February 2009, so it was only a matter of time for me to see this band there. Anyway I thought it might be a good idea to visit some more of Greece…or maybe going to nearby Macedonia. It would all depend on the price of the ticket. On the way out I flew Lufthansa from Paris to Athens, switching planes in Frankfurt. When coming back I flew back home with Lufthansa’s partner Adria. This flight departed from Skopje and I switched planes in Ljubljana. By the way, I was upgraded to business class on the Ljubljana-Paris sector. I don’t know why, maybe economy class was full. I was very lucky anyway. |
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At that time Easyjet was not flying between my hometown and Athens, and no low cost airline was flying to Macedonia. Fortunately, I had enough miles from previous trips with Lufthansa and their partner airlines, so I could manage to get a flight paying only the taxes. |
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Miles and More is Lufthansa’s loyalty program. You get miles every time you fly; once you’ve got 15 000 miles you can have a free return trip in Europe. This award has to be booked less than 15 days from your departure date, otherwise it’s 25000 miles. Taxes are quite expensive but still it was very cheap to get there. I had those miles from previous times I flew with Condor and Lufthansa. |
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So I arrived to Athens, a city that started to look really familiar. I had been there 3 times before, so I already knew where to go: which bus from the airport, in which hostel sleep, and where to eat well and cheap. As soon as I arrived in the center I saw four British folks in front on the luxourious Grande Bretagne Hotel. They were told that Iron Maiden were staying there. I got their number and asked them to call me if they had some news, while I went to check-in in my usual Athens place: The Zeus Hostel. |
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On my way I met Eyal, an 18 year old guy from Israel who came all the way from Tel Aviv to see his favourite band. It’s amazing how Iron Maiden and metal music in general make people move around the planet. Metal Traveller… |
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Iron Maiden were in another hotel but we managed to catch them. We even spent the following night with two of the Guitar Players at the Hotel bar, with a Greek Maiden fan and friend named Costas. On the next morning I took an early morning train to Thessaloniki. I had the whole day to visit the city and in the evening I took another train to Skopje in Macedonia. |
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< Trips 2007 > |
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