arriving in Athens

(continued from 6/1, "first trip") When I arrived at the Athens in early 2001 I was stunned. I remembered, from years earlier, a photograph of the aftermath of a terrorist attack in the airport. It was a shot taken from above; people were lying in small pools of blood, chaos surrounding them. This was all I’d ever seen of the Athens Airport. We touched down on the tarmac and taxied to a few hundred yards from what looked like a small warehouse. We exited the plane via an exterior stair ramp – the first time I’d done that since the sixties. No jetway for the Ellinikon International Airport. I followed the line of people departing the plane in front of me to a bus that looked a little like an old San Francisco trolley. The large doors remained open as we sped across the remaining yardage to the small warehouse. I thought we would be going through customs in this place and then get to the airport arrival terminal from there. But no. This small warehouse was the airport. The Athens Airport. Inside were four old fashioned baggage carousels – the kind where the bags came up from below and made that oval circuit around and around on their 35 degree angle. And that was about it.

After I’d retrieved my luggage I headed toward the customs counter to let them have a look at my passport and stamp me in. But no one was tending the counter and as I waited for someone to return it became obvious no one was coming. No papers, no working desk, no sign of life told me no one was returning here. After a few minutes of trying to figure out how to make my entry into Greece legal, I just gave up and exited through the double doors. Now I was in the arriving passenger part of the terminal building. As I looked to my left there was the newsstand where Shelly had suggested I meet my friend. It was not only the only newsstand, it was the only commercial entity in the airport. I strolled over and stood near the magazines. After about twenty minutes Katy showed up, as incredulous as I was that this was where we were meeting. That this was where we were! Athens. In an airport that would probably be just the right size for Three Forks, Montana.

That would be the end of the story had it not been for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. My Greek friends who lived in Piraeus loved the old airport. Arriving visitors could call when they deplaned to say they’d arrived and Katrina and Dionysus would be at the airport to pick them up by the time they’d retrieved their luggage. It was close, it was convenient, it was teeny tiny. But the Olympic committee could have none of that. Millions would be coming and going when the games returned to their ancestral home. So a new airport was built. You now have to drive over 20 miles on the Attika Tollway (Attiki Odos) to arrive at Eleftherios Venizelos – the Athens International Airport, in Spata. That's Spata, not Sparta.

Athens International Airport is enormous. Just to bookend my experience with Athens airports I returned to Greece in 2002. I flew in to the old airport. My departure, however, was to take place on the opening day of the new, gargantuan, airport 20 miles north of the city. I called three or four times to make sure everything was on schedule. In Athens things are famously delayed. I lived in terror that I would arrive at Eleftherios Venizelos only to find that my plane was taking off from the old airport.