Around the world
In a Cessna Grand Caravan

an FS2002 Adventure

Day 8
Wednesday, 31 October, 2001
Rome, Italy - Marathon, Greece

After a day of sightseeing in Rome, it's time to move on to another part of the world steeped in history. Departure is scheduled for 7:00am local time (0600 GMT). The weather looks forboding. Lots of black clouds in the sky this morning. This can't be a simple GPS direct route, either, as we'd rather not fly over some areas, erring on the side of caution, even if there probably isn't anything to worry about.

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
Next in line for departure. A traffic jam builds behind us. We got tossed around pretty good on our way out of Rome
From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack
Approaching the west coast of Greece The Kerameikos
From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack
The Acropolis and Parthenon The Agora
From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack
The Arch of Hadrian Looking over Athens
From www.indiana.edu/~archaeol/kglowack
The Philopappos


Where we've been so far