Day 8
Wednesday, 31 October, 2001
We'll be flying along the Italian coast down to the 'heel of the boot', at which point we'll turn a little more east, and cross the Adriatic to Greece. We've already arranged for a car service to meet us in Marathon to take us to Athens.
We request permission to taxi, and head up to runway 15, only to find there are 3 planes in front of us, and we're all waiting for two planes to land. Several more planes taxi in behind us. 20 minutes later, we finally get clearance to take off.
The winds are rough as we climb towards 13,000 feet. We need to clear the Apenines, which are just to the south and west of the airport. We're thrown about quite a bit as we ascend, but once we get through the clouds at about 9,000 feet, everything calms down. We point towards the southeast, and head for Marathon, about 580NM away.
3 and a half hours later...
Marathon (LGMR) is nestled on the Agean coast, about 26 miles NE of Athens. Right near Marathon, just to the west, is Kotroni (LGKN). Kotroni is on top of a plateau, with runway 12/30 at 1968 feet, and runway 3/21 at 984 feet long. It look slike it would be a fun place to take off, but I'm not going to try landing there in anything less than a Harrier. I'll be sure to snap a few pictures of it as we leave tomorrow.
Greece is once of those places that just oozes history. You can feel it in the air as you walk around. It's yet one more place where you can spend weeks, and still not see everything.
| LEG | Start | Start Time |
Land | Land Time |
Distance | Trip Time |
Fuel Used |
| 1 | LIRA Rome, Italy |
06:00 GMT | LGMR Marathon, Greece |
10:00 GMT | 568 NM | 4 hr 0 min |
250 gal |
| Day Total |
568 NM | 4 hr 0 min |
250 gal | ||||
| Trip Total |
4920 NM | 37 hr 20 min |
1740 gal |
Pictures
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| Next in line for departure. A traffic jam builds behind us. | We got tossed around pretty good on our way out of Rome |
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| Approaching the west coast of Greece | The Kerameikos |
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| The Acropolis and Parthenon | The Agora |
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| The Arch of Hadrian | Looking over Athens |
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| The Philopappos |