Repositioning

Aftee our late night of packing, it was time for the dressed repositioning day. Of all the transfers we had to make, we knew this would be one of the toughest ones; at least all the stuff was ready to go. So we left the apartment in Bilbao to go down the hill once more to get the bus to the downtown from old town and then to the airport. We fell victim to our worst time transfer of the trip so far and had to wait in downtown Bilbao for 30 minutes for the airport bus. At least the setting was beautiful and there was a Starbucks there for a caffeine boost.

The Bilbao bus to the airport is… Weird. First, we got to have the cheap fare because of the preloaded transit card we got (literally a sub-€1 fare instead of €5!) which is just great. Second is that the route is not very express. First, it went to this industrial-ish area, then on the highway to some car dealerships, then up a mountain road to be a rural collector. All told, it was a 35 minute ride, and we got to look at great mountain views with cows, horses, sheep and more.

The Bilbao airport is not much to talk about except for the weird setup where the gates are below the main area and you take a ramp down to a second boarding area when it is time to go on, but each gate has its own ramp down. Odd. The flight was also good. Aegean even gave everyone a meal included! Very unusual for 2026.

Athens airport is a wild and crowded space. We had to take a shuttle bus to our arrival gate, which is always a good start to an airport experience. I am glad we didn’t check our bags this time, as it was quite a distance to where the baggage claim was and I don’t trust that things wouldn’t have gone missing along the way. So we take a short pedestrian overpass to the metro stop aaaannndddd…. Trains are every 36 minutes and it seems we just missed one. And there was techincal glitches getting through the fare gate, so we may be charged anywhere between 1 and 3 times for our jaunt from the airport. Who knows?

So the train, 30 minutes after arrival to the platform, finally arrives. And then the security guard comes and tells us it is out of order and to take the suburban train instead. Which isn’t going to the same place. Fortunately, a kind Greek worker from the airport on his way home told everyone in our train car that we should go 4 stops and then we would connect to the Metro Line 3 as originally intended. But it has been 30 minutes of collecting people at the platform and this train is packed. And we kept getting more people which made this the most crowded train I have ever been on. Not helped that Kieran kicked off and didn’t want to be in his stroller, so Emily carried him and I resurrected the Beverly Hillbillies mobile.

The transfer was nearly as chaotic as everything else so far, given the crush of people going to the same place. Which of course led to a very busy metro platform. Then the train pulled up. Huzzah! Except no, the lights were off. Weird. Then the lights turned on. Yay! Then they turned off again. Boo. Then the train REVERSED AWAY BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM. Major boo and also a hearty what the fuck. But a train showed up again. Yay! But it looks like it arrived straight from the 1980s. And it really sounded like it, with all of the squeaks and cocophony of the 80s. Epic boo. It was so loud that Emily covered Kieran’s ears for the worst of it.

One last transfer and two stops later, we got to our final station. We then found the Airbnb easily and got in. The elevator is very small, so the Beverly Hillbillies mobile had to be dismantled and folded up. The apartment itself is very spacious and there’s even a space on the couch for me to lie on my front. That should be highlighted on the listing, because it is amazing. I ventured out to an off two part grocery store (I literally had to go out the door with my unpaid merchandise to get to the section that has pasta and soft drinks) and got us some provisions. We are close to a nice little pedestrian area with cafes and restaurants, but after our big travel day, we opted to eat in at the apartment.

We will have to see what tomorrow brings. We don’t have tickets to the Parthenon until we boomerang back to Athens after Crete, so we will have to find something else to do. But that’s a tomorrow problem, so time to recover from the repositioning and do some laundry.