Balkan Experience - Greece & Albania - Arriving Athens - 29 Aug 2026

As the old year was winding down and the new year was on the near horizon, one of the audacious resolutions I pencilled in my diary was to travel to at least 15 countries in 2026. This was part of the larger target to travel to 100 countries by age 70. From where I was in December 2025, I had 36 more countries to get to that target. The planning to make a good start started early in December 2025, when I obtained visas to travel to Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco in January 2026.

Japan happened in April followed by South Korea and Mongolia in May. With that I had travelled to 70 countries worldwide. A short trip to Brunei in July was the undertaken in July. 8 more countries remain to fulfil the new year resolution. 2 will be deducted from the left-over list during the next 10 days, when I expect to be in Athens, Greece for 4 days and Tirana, Albania for another four.

Greece and Albania are part of what is generally referred to as the Balkan peninsula that is bordered by the Adriatic Sea, Ionian Sea, Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean and Black Seas. The core countries of the Balkans are Greece, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, European part of Turkey and Romania. Between now and November I have planned to tour 8 of these countries. Hopefully, by December 2026, only Croatia among the Balkan states will remain to be travelled to, with Turkey, Romania and Slovenia covered in the trips of the past.

With trips planned to many Schengen countries and countries that accept multiple entry Schengen visa as entry document over the next couple of years I applied for a long-term multiple entry visa through VFS global, Ahmedabad. Since Greece would be the first country of entry I applied to the Embassy of Greece. The passport with multiple entry visa, valid for 6 months, arrived after 15 working days. I had requested for a one-year visa. Anyway, something is better than nothing, I consoled myself. Albania admits tourists with multiple entry Schengen Visa, used at least once, without an Albanian visa. This, the vias was in hand for the planned 9-day trip.

I found decent round trip tickets from Ahmedabad to Athens through MakeMyTrip. Indigo would be the carrier. For travel between Athens and Tirana I used trip.com to source round trip tickets. Overseas medical insurance had been submitted with the visa application. That left hotel bookings to be confirmed. Booking.com found me what I wanted, in both Athens and Tirana. The detailed itinerary was finalised after quite some research. When time is restricted, one has to optimise its use and prioritize what one wishes to do, see, eat and drink.

The flight to Athens from Ahmedabad involved a layover of more than 9 hours in Mumbai. The Indigo flight from Ahmedabad arrived in Mumbai on the dot and I had to wait over three hours to gain entry for the security check and immigration formalities. 

One more matter required attending to. Since January 2026 I have been using Matrix Sim card for seamless roaming connection while travelling abroad. Normally I use their 28-day, 25 GB plan. Since I have chalked out extensive travel plans over the next few months I checked with Rahul Jadhav, the Matrix salesperson in Mumbai airport, if I could get an annual plan that would fit my travel plans. After evaluating the available annual plans, I settled for a 50 GB plan that covers all the European countries, a few countries in Asia and Africa as well as Australia and New Zealand.

All done, I had enough and more time to reflect on the country I was headed to. Officially, Greece is known as the Hellenic Republic. Occupying the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece is credited with being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, literature, theatre, major scientific and mathematical principles, political science and the Olympic Games.

It gave us the Iliad and Homer as well as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. India has an ancient connection with Greece thanks to Alexander the Great. With a population of 10 million people, the country has the longest coast of the Mediterranean. The Indigo flight landed on time in the Athens International Airport flying over Oman and UAE airspace. The stupidity of man against man can be visualised from the air. I feared the worst for delay in immigration clearance. While the queues were indeed serpentine, it was a classic study of efficiency in clearing passengers. I was in front of the counter for less than half a minute and I moved on to collect my baggage, which took some time.

After walking through Customs, I made haste to the metro station. I bought a one-way ticket for 9€ and walked to the platform. Initially I got on to the wrong train. Fortunately, before it's departure, I got off that and waited almost a half hour for the metro train to Syntagma station. The trains were full, with tourists in large numbers. I did not have much problem getting to my booked accommodation from the metro station.