03:15 cannot possibly be a time, surely it’s just a badly formatted ratio?
Sadly no, two alarms ring out at this most unsociable hour to ensure that we get up. Soon we drink our freshly-squeezed-last-night orange juice, finalise packing and load the car ready to leave at 04:00.
Last night we had a relatively low-key evening, starting our canapés early, using up all the stuff in the fridge, then a relatively early repair to bed.
By roughly 05:00 we’re at the airport – why so long, TFS is only 22 minutes away from our house? Well today we have to fly from TFN, the northern airport, which is near the old capital La Laguna, so we get to enjoy a quiet drive as well. It was fascinating as we go, to notice the air temperature flicking between 23 and 24 most of the way, then as we near Santa Cruz we hit a weather front and within minutes it is 31.5 degrees, before five AM!
Long-term parking is two minutes from the airport door, and soon after we’re checking in. TFN is a delightfully small airport and only a few minutes more we are through security and sat in a lovely café enjoying reasonably-priced coffee, croissant and pan au chocolat – no airport rip-off here.
Our flight is packed and we take ages to load, there’s some consternation when most of our air tagged bags are elsewhere, but just before we leave they are all present and with us, thank goodness.
We are pleasantly surprised to find that Iberia has a wonderful entertainment system and we can dial up any number of movies on our iPads so watch the recent Wonka again, it’s such a wonderful film and Timothée is just delightful – of course, it makes me cry a bit at the end but they are happy tears.
We’ve made up time and only just get through the credits before we’re landing, and with only three hours to spare we can’t go into Madrid, so head to the lounge. They are still on breakfast when we arrive, but soon some excellent tapas arrives.
We notice many signs that are suffering from the Crowdstrike problem and I spend a fruitless hour trying to resolve one of the machines in my care, but optimistic that it will be resolved very soon.
Our second flight is equally painless, but there’s no on-demand entertainment system on this older aircraft so we resort to Netflix, and watch most of Bohemian Rhapsody. Bagage is very delayed, and compounded by not showing on Find My for ages, but after a while first one, then the next, slowly begin to show, the last bag keeping us in suspense for quite a time.
Our driver is waiting for us, and he whisks us out into the 36.5° heat briefly and then takes us on a hair-raising 50km journey to Piraeus, the port of Athens. Touching 150km/h most of the time, his tailgating makes Spanish drivers look amateurish. Perhaps not unrelated, one of us left their phone in the car and we track him, five miles away in no time at all, before we are able to call and turn him back, he certainly earns his €20 tip today!
We opt for dinner alfresco at the hotel’s restaurant, thoroughly enjoying Greek salad and moussaka, take a quick turn around the block and that’s quite enough for today.
