Relaxing by the pool...that was the plan.

A week in Athens is coming up. I've decided on a 4-star hotel a little outside the city, as I've already explored Athens extensively several times. A week of relaxing by the pool would do me good. That's my theory.

In practice, things looked quite different again.

The whole house was empty. I seemed to be the only guest. The elevator was in such a condition that I wasn't sure if it could really carry my luggage and me. The room was simple, but that's OK for me.
The bathroom was a different story. The toilet still had the remains of a seat bracket. A steady trickle of water ran from the toilet through the room to disappear into the drain under the sink. The bathtub had no shower curtain or partition to prevent everything from being flooded during a shower.

Since I had been on the road for 35 hours, I decided to take a shower, eat something and then reassess things. When you're full and fresh, you see some things with different eyes.

That's the theory.

When I asked the receptionist where I could get something to drink, he was somewhat confused. The advertised restaurant didn't exist. At least there was a glass of water from the water dispenser in the office. Back in the room, I realized that there was no hot water for showering either.
I became suspicious and asked where the pool was. He panicked slightly when he explained to me that it was unusable because of the bad air. But the service would come tomorrow. The same goes for the warm water.

Now let’s take a look at the pool area.
-The service would be of little use in this case. The garden has been left to itself for months, and the advertised garden furniture was 3 broken chairs lying in the hedges.

That was the moment when I decided to leave the house. According to the receptionist, someone who spoke English would be coming at 11 p.m. Up until then, we had communicated using Google and sign language. So we had to wait.

Extremely tired, having been on my feet for 48 hours, I arrived at reception at 11 p.m. I explained my problem to a young Greek man. I would be leaving the hotel the next day and wanted my money back. He, in turn, translated for an older gentleman, his father and the owner of the hotel.
After some back and forth, he made a dismissive gesture in my direction and said "Malaka". -I know that much Greek.
It is difficult to describe the unpleasant feeling of being alone as a woman in this big hotel, facing these three men. In any case, the room was locked overnight.