I don’t remember much of that night because we were kind of tired(we visited Athens all day)  and we got hammered pretty fast. At one point I woke up on the beach, while a friend was telling me … Hey man, it’s 5 o’clock, let’s go home.

The next day was the beach day. We managed to wake up before 12a.m. and  went to the beach.

Here’s a perfect way to get rid of a light hangover in Athens:

An interesting fact about the beaches in Athens: Are very polluted. And it is normal I think …  That’s why the best, non polluted beaches are found on the islands. But we didn’t have the time or the money to go to an island, so Thassos took us somewhere out of the city, in a nice beach resort, at about 30-40km from Athens.

Although it was around 10 of May, it was very hot and we actually managed to get some sun burns.

After the beach … we went back to Thassos’s  … the Finals of the Eurovision Contest were about to start.  Everyone was crazy about it. Thassos even placed some bets, but no luck. We watched the Finals(Serbia won), we said good bye and parted.  The coming home trip is one of the things I hate most in this world. Especially when you leave at night, tired, by car and it’s your turn to drive. I strongly don’t recommend   it.

You can check out my entire Greece photo gallery.

He has a big apartment on the last floor of a building, with a very nice terrace. Great place to throw a party or just to chill. Here’s the view:

He and his family welcomed us with a delicious traditional meal: some fish and cheese dishes and of course, a Greek salad made with home made olive oil:

The first thing we wanted to visit in Athens was The Acropolis(known as The “Sacred Rock”), one of the greatest ancient monuments in the world.  Here I have a nice tip for you: If you are a STUDENT, whenever you go on a trip, take your student card with you. You never know when it might come in handy. For example, the price for entering the Acropolis was(last year) 12Euros, but students had free entrance.  We were all students, but unfortunately some of us didn’t  have their student cards and couldn’t prove they were students, so they had to pay.

On the top of the Acropolis lies The Parthenon(the temple of the Greek goddess Athena):

Around the Acropolis you can find a lot of souvenir shops, bars and restaurants.  It’s a great place to try some Greek cuisine or just to relax, having a beer and enjoying the view of The Acropolis. A good Greek beer is MITHOS. I recommend it.

Walking through Athens, we were surprised to see so many orange trees. Everywhere you look, you see orange trees. Too bad that the oranges are not eatable. If they were, i think no one could sell oranges in Athens anymore.

We also visited Kallimarmaro Stadium( where took place the first modern Olympic Games – 1896),The Arch of Hadrian, The Temple of the Olympian Zeus, The University of Athens, and other important monuments and places that unfortunately I don’t remember anymore. Basically, you can visit most of the important sights in Athens in a single day.

You can check out my Greece photo gallery.

It was the perfect context for an awesome travel adventure.  Too bad we could only stay for 3days.

The distance between our city and Athens is 2000km. It’s a long way to drive. We were lucky to have four drivers(two for each car). Our route was: Iasi(Romania) – Bucharest  – Sofia(Bulgaria) – Thessaloniki – Athens  and back.  From Bucharest to Thessaloniki it’s a 12hours drive. If you enter/pass through Bulgaria by car, you need to purchase a vignette(valid for 2-3days). The cost is 5Euros(the actual vignette) plus 1Euro extra tax for something else(this I didn’t understand what for). Roads in Bulgaria are pretty bad( from Sofia towards Greece is a lot better though – they were building a highway at that time). If you happen to pass through Bulgaria, be sure to keep an eye out for the police – they are just crazy. They stay in the bushes  with the hand-held speed detector.  It is really hard not to get a fine in this country.  We were lucky enough to get burned only once.  The fine was(2007) 10Euros. They’re really slick … they tell you the fine is 10Euros without any receipt, or 20Euros with receipt … Nice, right?

In Greece the roads are excellent, lots of lanes. Entering Thessaloniki:

Unfortunately, we only stopped in Thessaloniki for a coffee and to take a few pictures. There is much traffic and it’s very hard to find a parking place.  We drove around for 30minutes to find a parking spot. We finally stopped somewhere near the White Tower, the city’s landmark. At that time we didn’t know this, so the photos are not so great, they’re actually taken from the car,  but I hope you will be knowing about the White Tower when you will next visit Thessaloniki and stop there and take better photos .

The White Tower:

The coffee place(on Niki’s Avenue):

Niki’s Avenue(central seafront of Thessaloniki):

I found out after that trip that there are a lot of important historical monuments and landmarks of Thessaloniki that we had mist or  we hadn’t realized their importance. Few of them are: Aristotelous Square, The Rotunda of St. George, The OTE Tower, The statue of Alexander the Great. But I guess that’s what happens when you travel with no planning, right? In fact, our purpose was just to have fun and not to see stuff so … no problems,  I’ll visit these monuments next time.

From Thessaloniki to Athens are about 500 kilometers(5hours drive). Straight highway. I forgot to mention, Greece has no roads tax(vignette), you only pay if you want to take the highway.   From Thessaloniki to Athens the price was, last year, somewhere between 6 and 7 Euros(not too much).

See all my Greece photos

The flight with the KLM company was OK. This was my first flight, so I was a little scared from the turbulences.  My next flight to Shanghai was at 15.45 and I didn’t want to wait all that time in the airport. I wanted to visit something in Amsterdam but I didn’t now what and more important, how to get there.  So, I went to a tourist information desk and asked for a map of the city. The map costs 2Euro. The person at the desk told me that you can visit all important things in Amsterdam in half a day. You can get to the touristic center of the city by train. Every 15minutes a train is leaving for the Centraal Station. You can buy tickets from the ticket machines in front of the train station(the train station in the airport). The ticket was 6.40 Euro(to the center and back). From the airport you can get to the center in just 25 minutes.

A few things I could notice during my short visit:

- Most people living in Amsterdam use bicyles.

- You can buy a cannabis lollipop with only 1 Euro.

-You can smell weed almost everywhere.

In Netherlands prostitution is leagal. So is consuming drugs such as marijuana, cannabis and all kinds of mushrooms.  I hope i will come back next year and stay at least a week in Amsterdam … There are a lot of things to do that are legal only there

In Amsterdam you can find the famous red light district.  I couldn’t really see much, because at 11A.M.  everything is closed.

First of all … the plane ticket was expensive(at least for me). Second … you need a visa to enter China.  It was very easy to get the visa a few month ago, almost a formality, but now, with the Olympic Games and all, the Chinese embassy  is way more strict.

So what do you need to do if you want to visit China ?

First of all … check the web site of the Chinese embassy in your country to see if you meet the reqirements to apply for a visa. Here I had a real problem. On the web site was clearly written: to get a Chinese visa you need:   The plane ticket(I think a plane reservation is good too), the passport( must have more than 2pages empty and must be valid for at least 6months at the time you leave for China, two photos of you – passport type and some money to pay the tax – the tax is 25$, but if you want to get the visa the same day you need to pay an extra 30$). When I got there, I was told that I also need a hotel reservation. Even if you have a friend where you could stay, or you own a place in China, you still need a hotel reservation. The emmbasy  is open to public for 4-5hours, two days a week  and I could not get the visa that day. I have a friend where I will stay, so I don’t need a hotel reservation … I searched the net for a few hours and found a nice portal where you can make a hotel resevation without giving  any  credit card details. So, the second time at the emmbasy I got my visa. The visa must be issued at least 7 days before you part. Another thing is that, at the Chinese embassy(at least in Bucharest), they only accept US dollars. So, be prepared.

Next … buy a plane ticket.  I bought the plane ticket online. Don’t  rush into buying the first plane ticket you find. I looked for a week before I bought it. Price can vary from 10+20 Euro to a few hundred Euro. For example, I payed 800Euros for my ticket(Bucharest – Amsterdam – Shanghai – Dalian  and back), but I came across prices like 1000euros, even 1300 Euro.  The main airline companies that have flights to China are: Air France(From France), KLM(Holland), Aeroflot(Russia) and British Airways(Great Britain). From these four airline companies, the cheapest are KLM and Air France.    I am flying with KLM and I heard they have great services. Of course I will give a feedback after the flight.

It was just then when we came across this extraordinary offer(for the fist time) : Interrail ticket

Interrail is a train ticket that gives you the possibility to travel throughout Europe by train, for up to one month.

It was exactly what we needed for our trip to happen. We planned our trip for a period of 2-3 weeks, so we needed the one month ticket. That year, 2006 , the ticket was a little cheaper : 270Euros.

We bought the ticket the same day we parted. So, our adventure started on the 19th October 2006 in Bucharest. The problem is that the Interrail ticket does not cover the fare in your country of residence, even if your InterRail ticket includes the zone of your country of residence. The train ticket from Bucharest to Timisoara, a city near the Hungarian border, was pretty expensive( about 30Euros ) … so we decide to “travel with the godfather” as they say in Romania. This means you don’t buy a train ticket, you just pay some money to the ticket inspector(we paid 10Euros) – it’s illegal. From time to time, a super inspector is checking the ticket inspectors and then you have a problem. But we took that chance.

And the next day, at 12pm, we entered Hungary for the first time.

Hungary

Italy

Spain

France

Austria

Greece

Czech Republic

Slovakia

Germany

These are only nine countries. Counting Vatican, the smallest state in the world( 0.44 km²), whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy,it ads up to ten countries.

Some of them I visited by car and some by train.

So, i am starting this blog to share some of my traveling stories around Europe throwing some tips and personal suggestions along the way. I also have a lot of photos to show you.

Even if I only went four times abroad, i think that i gained a little travel experience and i want to share it with you the best way i can, hoping that it will help you make better choices in future trips. Until now, I’ve visited exactly 10 countries. I hope to visit many many more.

In the end, I want to dedicate this blog to every single person that loves to travel and, like me, makes a purpose in seeing as much as possible of this beautiful planet, Earth.