An unexpected flight path

-


I actually don’t know what I expected when we took off from Doha heading to Athens. I guess I assumed we’d travel “as the crow flies”, but we actually journeyed in a rather unexpected direction, and I’m still curious about why that might be. From the onboard map that I watched with great interest, it appeared that we were tracking through Iranian air space, up and over mountains, into Turkey and on to Athens. Definitely not the most direct route according to the map, but I’m sure there is an explanation that is way above my pay grade.

The view from our window was, to put it mildly, spectacular. Incredibly rugged and inhospitable terrain, and snow-covered mountains. Who would ever see this kind of view except perhaps via a drone or by flying over at 38,000 feet on a clear, blue-sky, sunny day? It was amazing, and so here are a few more photos we managed to snap out the window beyond the wing.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Netanya - the tour begins

-
Image
Final moments enjoying the view from our balcony overlooking Haifa. Today has been a changeover day as we transitioned from Haifa to Netanya. But first we wanted to make the most of our last couple of hours in Haifa, so we headed up to stroll along the Louis Promenade, situated at the top of the Carmel Ridge, with yet more lovely views over Haifa and the north. Then we found a little cafe tucked away behind the main shopping strip, and enjoyed a relaxing coffee and a “read” of the newspaper in their little courtyard. Thank goodness for pictures!! Looking like he knows what he’s reading........... Our home away from home was the right half of the top floor. After that it was time to farewell our home for the past 4 nights and head off to Netanya, a pretty city on the Mediterranean coast about halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa, and the starting point for our tour. It took us a little more than an hour to drive there, with Waze for the win again. We dropped our ...
Read more

Farewell Athens, it’s time to head home

-
Image
Athens turned on the sunniest day so far, for our last few hours of exploring. Once we were all packed up and ready to go, we headed out into the blue sunshine-y day. First we walked south-west from our apartment, to the Koukaki area, where we hadn’t been before. It’s “Big Friday” here in Greece, so we weren’t sure what would be open, given that 99% of Greeks adhere to the Greek Orthodox faith, but there was plenty open as it turned out. The Greeks do love their tourists! We did hear a few church bells during the morning, and then we came across a mass in one of the churches we passed by, so we popped in out of curiosity. Everyone was standing (no chairs), the priest was intoning and occasionally singing, there were periodic repetitions of three phrases in Greek after which the gathered crossed themselves, and otherwise there was some kissing of the displayed photos of icons in the foyer. We assumed it was some kind of Easter Friday mass. Last night, in fact, as we walked bac...
Read more

Apeiranthos, for the climb

-
Image
We woke to an overcast sky and the forecast for the next few days is much the same, which made us all the more thankful for the amazing weather we had yesterday that allowed us to see Naxos at its best. The locals have been telling us that it’s been an unusually wet winter, and a strangely cold April so far, so we felt truly blessed to have had bright sunshine and blue skies for one day at least. The plan for today was to catch a local bus to somewhere outside of town, we didn’t really mind where. Another leisurely start to the day, another home-cooked brekkie, and as we sat on our balcony, the clouds dispersed somewhat and there were patches of blue sky heralding a pretty reasonable day weather-wise. We set off to the bus ticket office at the port end of the marina promenade. The local lady behind the desk was as helpful as she could be given the language barrier, but eventually we worked out where we could go. Apollonas? Only Tuesday. Eggares? Yes, but no return....
Read more