Lesbos, Greece, to Maribor, Slovenia

12 - 13 June 2008

Meeting up with Matevz

Although we were at the airport at 7 a.m. local time, we only got in the air by 8:45. The delay was caused mainly by Olympic Airways. They spent 45 minutes trying to print out an invoice for the compulsory EUR 75 handling fee. The only service we received was crew transport to and from the remote apron, and we paid the cost of a rental car for 2 days for that service! Their problem was that since our planned destination LJSG (Slovenj Gradec. Slovenia) did not have a 3 letter IATA airport code, their computer could not print out the handling invoice! The lady in charge of the local Olympic Airways office almost had a nervous breakdown, as in addition there was two Olympic flights departing about the same time as us. She finally had to call up their Athens office for advice. General Aviation in Greece is unfortunately still in the same medieval state as when we were there 7 years ago.

Weather en route was fine most of the way except for the last hour when we had IMC (instrument meteorological conditions). Earthrounder Matevz Lenarcic sent us Maribor METARs to our Iridium phone. Maribor reported visibility of 6 km in light rain, ceiling broken at 2600 feet, scattered clouds below. As there was unfamiliar terrain with lots of mountains around, we abandoned the idea to cancel IFR at Maribor and fly VFR to Slovenj Gradec. Somewhere between Belgrade and Zagreb, we changed our destination to Maribor, which has an ILS, and informed Matevz about our diversion.

Matevz came to the airport to pick us up and drove us to Celje where we had lunch and talked about flying. He then invited us for tea at his house, where we met his daughter and son for the first time. We dined at our nearby hotel with Matevz and his wife Katarina.

13 June. Matevz had a meeting to attend in Slovenia's pretty capital, Ljubljana, so we took a ride there with him and did some sightseeing. It started to rain as we walked up to the castle but we were able to stay in the dry visiting the indoor exhibitions. We lunched with Matevz in a traditional restaurant that he used to frequent in his student days.

Later, after using Matevz’s computer to file the flight plan for tomorrow, he drove us back to our hotel to find a large party there in full swing. It turned out to be end of school term celebrations. Matevz’s son Luca was also attending a party this evening. So much for a quiet evening! Still, the busy waiters managed to serve us some soup before we retired to bed and managed to sleep through the noise.

Thanks:

Matevz and Katarina Lenarcic