Thessaloniki, Greece (Part I)
This past weekend I went to Thessaloniki, Greece. (see more info @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki) I’ll split the blog up over the next week or so as I write it. Pictures will probably be added later this week.
This weekend was a 3 day weekend in Bulgaria (in fact, May 1st is a popular holiday throughout Europe – their version of our Labor Day) so I took the opportunity for a jaunt down to Thessaloniki, Greece. The plan was to take the train down to Thessaloniki, spend the whole weekend there and return Monday night. Round trip tickets from Sofia to Thessaloniki by train were a mere ~$30. I was also supposed to meet up with Paris and Kamelia, who were traveling by bus, but they think they had some bus problems so we never ended meeting up.
Most people in the US have a romantic image of trains in Europe being fast and efficient ways to travel – in Western Europe, maybe; in Eastern Europe … not so much. Trains here are slow. In fact, a list of Bulgarian transportation options in order from fastest to slowest would probably go like this:
1. Plane
2. Automobile
3. Bus
4. Walk
5. Crawl
6. Stand still and wait for the continental plate to eventually slide to your destination
7. Train
Still, the benefit of the train is that you don’t have to deal with driving and trains offer more room to walk around and stretch than busses.
I arrived about 30 minutes before my 7am Saturday morning departure time. Most Bulgarian trains look like crap, but the train to Thessaloniki was very nice – probably because it was owned by the Greek national railway. The train was very short – only 2 cars, a first class car and a second class car. People watching the train go by were probably like, “Huh? Aren’t those things supposed to be longer?” I had tickets to the second class car because there were “no seats left in first class.” If there were more than 4 people in the entire 1st class carriage they must have been invisible because I didn’t see them. Somebody lost money on that one. Anyway, the difference between 1st and 2nd class is just that 1st class has separate compartments while 2nd class were open seats. 2nd class was still nice though – equivalent to an Amtrak train in the Northeast US.
The train pulled out right at 7am and made its way at a snails pace out of Sofia. Just outside Sofia we passed through Roma village and several huge piles a trash. I was thinking this is probably a lovely introduction to anyone coming into Sofia via train. It was about 4 hours or so to the Greek border. We stopped on the Bulgarian side while customs collected everyone’s passport. I assure you they were in no hurry to stamp and return them to us. While at the border the electric Bulgarian engine was replaced with a Greek diesel engine. Greece didn’t have any overhead electric wires along their tracks as Bulgaria did. The Greek engine looked very sleek and modern compared to the very un-modern Bulgarian engine. Obviously any time the train stopped everyone rushed outside to smoke as many cigarettes as possible – since the train was (thankfully) nonsmoking.
The Greek engine pulled us another couple kilometers to the Greek border crossing where we went through the whole passport/smoking routine again. It was interesting to note that the Greek customs officials didn’t speak any Bulgarian – they spoke to the Bulgarians in English. I suppose most Bulgarians going to Greece speak English since many Greeks speak English and none speak Bulgarian. Still, I saw a few communication problems where the Greek English accent and Bulgarian English accent weren’t always mutually understood. I would have thought Greek customs officials stationed at the Bulgarian border would at least speak some Bulgarian, but I guess not. The whole border process took at least an hour. It was very boring.
We finally finished with all the Greek customs hubbub and were finally on our way again. The train went for another 10 kilometers or so then stopped. This time the engine had to switch sides and pull us from the other end. Why they set up the tracks so that this maneuver was required I have no idea.
The change between the track surface in Bulgaria and Greece was fairly noticeable. In Greece the track is smooth – not continuously welded, but still smooth. In Bulgaria I think they take every section of track and make sure it is off by about 1cm from the last section of track to ensure the bumpiest ride possible. I really noticed this on the ride back when I was playing sudoku. Greece – no problem. All the numbers are within their squares. Bulgaria – I could barely read my numbers much less get them in the squares. Also, the Greeks drive their trains faster in the train station than the Bulgarians do on wide open sections of track.
