Greece, March 2013

In Jan 2013, Silvia (my prof) asked me to apply for a workshop in Greece, it was an International Workshop on Fundamentals of Crystallography in Patra from April 1 to 7. Greece has always been a dream and here it was.. an application away.. so applied as soon as I could. Later by end of Feb I got the acceptance letter from the organising committee and thus started getting prepared for the workshop as well as planning the Easter break for seeing Athens and Santorini.

 On 27 March 2013, I flew from Trieste to Athens, spent 2 days in Athens. I booked the International youth hostel in Metaxourgio in Athens for 27th and 28th nights. The hostel was at a good location as it was 5 mins walk from the metro station and also the staff was very friendly who guided me for a walking tour of the city. I reached the hostel by 1.00pm and by 3.00pm I was on the roads walking around and seeing the usual tourist archaeological sites in Athens. Out of all I liked the Parthenon and its location from where one can have the panaromic view and the Panathenaic stadium where the 1st modern olympic games were held in 1896. After another day and an evening in the city and eating the delicious cevapcici and souvlaki I moved ahead to Santorini (one of the most beautiful islands in Europe). Took an overnight cruise on 29th to Santorini to stay a night there, the island was full of serenic beauty (especially in during March/April). A must visit is Oia (in Santorini) during sunset and the red and black beaches. By the evening I was on the cruise returning to Athens to catch the next morning bus to Patra where the workshop was held.

Patra is a small city and the workshop was hosted in a hotel in the outskirts near the beach. I was the 1st participant to arrive later in the afternoon my room-mate arrived. He was a funny swiss. We grew as good friends and drinking buddies. Found a great local drink named Ouzo that accompanied us during the whole workshop. Met a great teacher Carmelo Giacovazzo, made friends there went out to eat yummy greek meat platter with tzatziki. Until then I had never learned so much in a week and never drank so much in the same week. It was a great time. The week passed by and the workshop was over sooner than expected. On 8th of April I was back in Trieste with lots of knowledge and memories.