2 years ago ago, after leaving the stupid Euro Zone and starting the coolest part of the trip, we found out that Greece had forbidden all international trains and there was no other way to cross the Greek border but by bus (35 euro) or taxi (120 euro).
We were traveling on the cheap. You all know that. So we wanted to try a different approach to this “all by bus or all by taxi'” situation and play our cards to better suit our budget; because at the end, we had already paid for a train pass and we wanted to use it as much as we possibly could.
The plan
is seemed to be simple:
1) Take the train from Skopje to the Macedonia – Greece border. (Train pass, free)
2) Cross the Greek border by bus (5 euro)
3) Take a domestic Greek train to get to Athens. (Train pass, free)
But the plan got a little bit more complicated and it went as it follows:
1) We took the train from Skopje to Gevgelija, a little town that's included in the railway map, so it has both a bus and a train station and it seems to be the perfect point to cross to Greece. The Macedonian train inspectors do not know that Macedonia is included in our pass, so they have to check and we try to explain while showing them the train guide that was given to us when we got the passes.
2) We arrive to Gevgelija. There's a bunch of taxis out there but we won't buy their lies (man, we are Mexican!! We know how the taxi drivers try to cheat on the tourists!), we ask for the bus station and a random guy tells us it's like 600m away, following a straight avenue.
3) We walk in such direction and never see anything resembling a bus station. After asking to one or two people, a young girl takes us through a couple of streets straight to what she says is the bus station. It was in the middle of a street market and was the size of a regular McDonald's.
4) “The entrance is over there. You can ask for some info.” She says and walks away.
5) We head up to the door and try to open it. No luck. Try a different door. Same. We try to look through the smoked windows and the building seems empty and abandoned. All you can read in one of the glass doors is something in Macedonian with the date '02-07-12' and it was already the 7th. Our best guess is that it said the building would be abandoned starting from that date. “That's surely what it says”, we say to each other.
6) Surrounding the abandoned mini-bus station, there's an army of taxi drivers, telling us that the only way to go to Greece is by taxi and it costs 50 euro. “Nope, thanks, it's too expensive” we say and walk away.
7) A fat police officer approaches to us. “Where you go?” – Thessaloniki “No bus to Thessaloniki. Closed. Only taxi.” – How much the taxi should cost? “Fifteen euro..” – Fifteen? “Yes, five, zero” – Ah, fifty, that's too much, we can't afford it. “Can I see your passports?”.
8) Why would a random local police officer want to see our passports? We hesitate. You feel like your passport is your life when you're in another country. We take one passport out, then the other. He check's them out and gives them back to us. “Taxi is the only way.” We'll try to find a lonely taxi driver at the train station; there was plenty of them when we got off the train.
9) Walk our way back to the train station. No taxi driver, no people, nothing. They seem to know the exact times when trains arrive and they gather around the station, but after people has gone, they vanish as well.
10) We try to find a lonely taxi driver out on the streets. We spot one, he seems friendly. We ask for the ride to Thessaloniki, “It's 60 euro”, he says.
11) 10 euro more expensive is not a good deal; but the taxi drivers at the abandoned mini-bus station said we could also go to Polykastro, which is the closest Greek town to the border with Macedonia. We ask for the price to Polykastro, 25 euro.
12) We've already spent 3 hours trying to cross the border and 25 euro for the taxi ride does not seem that crazy. “We'll take it.”
13) We hop on the nice, new-looking taxi car, cool inside with the A/C on. The taxi driver speaks 3 or 4 words in English but he seems nice.
14) Less than 2 minutes driving and he pulls over. “We will wait for a friend.” What? Which friend?
15) A guy comes riding a scooter motorcycle. They exchange a some words (in Macedonian) and the scooter guy drives away. “My boss”, the taxi driver says. “He married next week”. “My friend is coming”.
16) Another taxi approaches and stops behind us. “He will take you to Polykastro, take your bags”. At this point we were about to shit our pants).
17) We do not understand what's going on but eventually we got off the car and get our bags to take the second taxi.
18) “My friend he take you Polykastro, it's 25 euro”. “Oookk..we will pay when we get there” we say. “No, it's 25 euro, my friend he take you Polykastro, I go to central, 25 euro”.
19) We do not understand what's going on. He seems to be trying to charge us for a service he haven't received yet. After discussing, he's just making sure we understand the amount of money that we'll have to pay. My guess is that he didn't have all the papers he needed to cross the border, so another guy would do the job.
20) Our second taxi driver speaks .5 words in English; but he finally drives us to Polykastro and asks if we want him to drop us at the city center. “No, at the train station, please”. He doesn't get it; but I remember the word in Serbian/Croatian/Slovenian/Macedonian/Whatever and he gets it.
21) The taxi driver doesn't know where the train station is. He asks, in Macedonian, to Greek people. Funny conversations aside, every time he gets directions, he forgets in 20 seconds and stops to ask again.
22) Probably half an hour later, we reach the train station. No wonder why nobody knows or cares about it. It's a tiny little, abandoned, wooden house. “There's no one here, it doesn't seem to be working, we should try with the bus station.”
23) The taxi driver will take us to the bus station. As soon as he finds out where that is. Ask, forget, guess. We finally make it, we pay and run to get the bus tickets. The next bus to Thessaloniki leaves in 5 minutes. Perfect.
24) We take the bus and reach Thessaloniki to take the train to go to Athens.
25) The train gets delayed along it's way and we arrive to Athens 11:55pm. We were told that public transportation in Athens works until midnight. Run, buy the tickets, catch the subway. Perfect!
26) Get out the subway station. Find the bus stop. Quickly! FAIL!
27) After maybe 10 minutes, we find the bus stop, for the bus no. 700, that is. It's a tiny little orange pole in the middle of a tiny little secondary street.
28) We have to get a taxi, another 10 euro. Finally make it to our hostess home in Athens. It's 1am in the morning.
The final balance:
- The trip was supposed to last 10 hours (if international trains were allowed by Greek gov.). It tooks us 16.
- The trip was supposed to be for free (since we have the pass). Total cost was around 50 euro.
- We were supposed to be fresh to take on the city right away. We were smashed.
- On the brightside, a bus from Skopje to Athens would have been 70 euro and the taxi, 120.
- On the brightest side, Athens is amazing.
