Three Days in Greece | How we Almost Got Stranded in Faliraki

It's been a week (!) since I got back from the Greek mini break I went on with my mum. I've slept off the jet lag (yes, I'm aware that there's only a two hour time difference, but night flights are the creation of the devil), unpacked by case, and now I'm ready to to tell you all about it.

Let me start by saying that the entirety of my plans for this holiday consisted of eating and sleeping in the sun, with an occasional dip in the pool...if I could muster the energy to drag myself off my sun bed. No drama, no effort, just pure relaxation. And for the first two days that's exactly what I got.

We stayed in Faliraki and if that name conjures images of paralytic teenagers lying in the gutters in your mind then you're not alone. But Faliraki has cooled off a lot in the past few years and we never stayed out on the main strip past 11pm anyway so who's to say what kind of debauchery went on after that?

Our hotel, The Stevastos, was a 15 minute walk from the hustle and bustle of the cocktail bars, restaurants and typical  gift shops with their dolphin fridge magnets and fake Gucci sunglasses. It was a small, family run place where everything ran on Greek time. I'm not talking about the time zone here. Greek time is more of an attitude than anything else, an acceptance that things will get done eventually so what's 40 minutes here or there? In Greece you might ask what time the bus is due and receive an answer such as, "The busses come every half an hour or so" and, even if you are given a specific time, you mustn't expect that that's when the bus will actually show up.

I am constantly running on my own version of Greek time so this laid back attitude suits me perfectly.

As I said, for two days we relaxed as though it were our full time job. We spent the first day reading by the pool and the next day lounging on the beach. In the evenings we headed onto the beach to find restaurants overlooking the sea. At this point I simply must give a shout out to a restaurant on the beach called Dimitra. The staff were warm and welcoming, the food was sublime and they served a chocolate biscuit cheesecake that has ruined dessert for me for the rest of my life. Sometimes I find myself staring off into the distance, fantasising about that very cheesecake.

But the third day, and unfortunately our last, was slightly less like a Thomas Cook advert and a little more like what I'd expect National Lampoons' Greek vacation might look like.

First we had a bizarre encounter at the pool and, when I say bizarre, what I really mean is disturbing...and nauseating. As I said, our hotel was quiet. There was no daily fight for sunbeds at the crack of dawn and that morning, as we sat reading our books, there were only four people around the pool, including us.

So imagine my surprise when a young man asked if he could use the bed right next to where we were sitting. I glanced around at the 26 spare sunbeds he could have chosen that wouldn't have involved being within four inches of a complete stranger and thought his choice was odd, but it's a free country after all so I told him to go for it. Oh, what a terrible, terrible mistake.

It turns out our new friend was a student (and part time hip hop enthusiast) called Max from Latvia. As I bobbed around on my lollypop airbed, I couldn't help thinking it was somewhat strange that he was sunbathing in his shoes with his white socks pulled up over his ankles. It also turned out that the skimpy swim shorts he was wearing that I initially assumed were Speedos were actually just his pants. The man was lying around in his underwear!

I won't recall the entire traumatising conversation that passed between us because I've already shared it all in a video, but suffice to say my mother made me wash my hands afterwards and I've been put off travelling to Latvia for life.

The drama continued into the evening when, after heading back to the hotel after another delicious meal at Dimitra, we were told our transfer to the airport had turned up 2 hours early. That's not how things are supposed to happen in Greece. Things are not supposed to come early!

We spent our last few hours in Greece sat at the bar, paperwork fanned out in front of us as my mother frantically tried to get hold of the transfer service...who did not pick up. On the Beach, who we booked the holiday with, refused to take any responsibility for the fact that we were now stranded in our hotel and couldn't offer any alternatives. Overall their customer service was abysmal and let this experience be a warning to us all about who you book your holidays with.

At last our friendly hotel owner said he could taxi us to the airport. I'm not sure if you've ever driven on a Greek road, but you honestly take your life into your hands every time you get into a car there. I once saw a woman driving down a dual carriage way, yammering into her mobile phone and holding her baby in her lap. It's really not for the fainthearted!

But we hopped into the hotel owner's Fiat and away we went, flying along the roads as he sent text messages (sometimes using both hands and leaving the steering wheel to the mercy of fate) and overtaking busses as high speed along the way. At one point I genuinely thought we were going to plough into the side of a taxi, but, by some miracle, we made it. When we got out of the car, our hero of the moment held out his hand for me to shake and I instinctively grabbed him in an desperate hug. I was just so happy to have survived the journey!

And, by the skin of our teeth, we made it on the plane. All the intense relaxing we've done over the last few days had been all but entirely unravelled by the last few frantic hours (thanks once again to On the Beach for providing such subpar service).

But then again, what's life without a little bit of a near death experience here and a socially awkward experience with a half-naked Latvian man there, right?


Oh, and if you want to find out what happened between Max the Latvian hip hop guy and me, you can find out the fun story here: The Creepiest Guy Ever!