On the way to Eurocup in Ohrid

Petroupoli Square in Athens where my simul on October 14 will take place

Hello all!

I’m writing to you from Thessaloniki, it’s 2 AM here, what a day I had!

I started my journey from Miami on the flight of Alitalia Miami-Rome. I was supposed to get to Rome at 8AM and then to make a connection flight to Thessaloniki at 9-15AM. But the plane from Miami to Rome was 1 hour late and arrived to Rome only at 9AM. So I was at the boarding gate to the flight to Thessaloniki at 9-10 (for that I needed to run a marathon in the airport), despite everything, the gate was already closed and the plane was en-route to Thessaloniki. So I missed it and the problem was that I had to catch the train at 5pm from Thessaloniki to Skopje, from where I will need to drive 4 more hours to get to Ohrid, where the European Club Cup will take place from October 4 to October 10.

So I missed the flight to Thessaloniki and the next one from Rome to Thessaloniki was only at 9PM, so they suggested to try to fly through Athens and to get a flight to Thessaloniki from Athens that was scheduled for 2-30PM so I could be in Thessaloniki at 3-20PM and still be able to get to the train at 5PM. But since the flight to Athens was late I missed the flight to Thessaloniki again.

Luckily my friend Michael Taylor and his friends from Athens that are organizing a big chess festival on October 12-15 came to the airport. They showed me some plans and advertisements for my simul that will take place on October 14 at 6pm on the Petroupoli Square.

I even had some time to see a little bit of Athens and visited the Petroupoli chess club


and the Petroupoli Square where the simul on October 14 will take place.

So now I’m at the Thessaloniki airport, I have a train to Skopje tomorrow morning at 9AM and I hope I will get there in time and will catch the train that I need, because the tournament starts already on the 4th of October and I wonder will I be alive after such a long voyage? 😉

To be continued….

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women’s World Chess Champion