Ferries, Feta, and God Save The Queen!

View October 17th - 27th 2010 in a larger map

Catching the ferry across the Adriatic from Italy to Greece isn’t really the same as crossing the English Channel.


To start with, there are no lines or queues. When you arrive at the port everyone drives their vehicles up to the bottom of the ramp and stops wherever they like. Being English we found this just a little bit disconcerting!

Then comes the rather chaotic boarding process. We watched from deck as a group of Italians and Greeks tried to reverse a car transporter and trailer onto the ferry. This took a lot of hand waving, shouting, and about 20 minutes!

The crossing from Brindisi in Italy to Igoumenisa in Greece takes around 8 hours and you can actually stay in your vehicle for the whole crossing - campers are even supplied with electric hook up points. So we stayed in with the dog, had dinner, watched a film and had a nap.


Most of the passengers on the ferry were Bulgarian and a lot of them stayed in their cars and smoked for the whole journey (you don’t see that on P&O!).

Approaching Igoumenitsa we passed between Albania and the island of Corfu which are only a few miles apart.

We docked at 1am and drove a couple of miles down the coast to a wild camping spot and went straight to sleep.


In every country we’ve visited so far we’ve been able to have a stab at the language, but as soon as we woke up the following morning we understood the origins of the phrase ‘it’s all Greek to me’! We just couldn’t make out a word and quickly realised that the phrasebook we’d bought wouldn’t be much help either. I mean, where do you start with a sign like this?


The phrase book did at least cover some of the essentials – for instance, ‘yes’ in Greek is pronounced ‘ne’ and this is usually accompanied by a misleading shake of the head! (‘no’ is pronounced ‘ochi’ just in case you were wondering).

One of the first things you notice when driving in Greece are the little roadside shrines or chapels; memorials to people who’ve died on the roads. It’s sobering to see just how many of them there are.

You also can’t help noticing the large number of stray dogs. We’re suckers for a sad looking pooch so Charlie lost quite a few of her dog biscuits to the locals, something she wasn’t too pleased about!


The weather was a really mixed bag during those first few days. It was sunny and warm during the day but we saw some amazing lightening storms at night. The whole sky was illuminated as if someone had just switched on the lights, but we rarely heard any thunder.

We woke up on day 3 however to find that the beach-side car park we were parked in at Ammoudia had been completely flooded after heavy storms overnight. We made a fairly sharp exit and headed inland.


Ioannina was the first large town we visited in Greece and we had a very warm welcome. We were waiting at a set of traffic lights when a man, noticing our British number plate, stopped and sang us the first few lines of ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’!! He then shouted ‘God save the Queen’ as the lights turned green and we sped away! Probably the most bizarre experience of our trip so far!


Ioannina sits on the shore of Lake Pamvotis, so after a good wander round the town’s sights and narrow streets we took the ferry out to the island - imaginatively called ‘The Island’. It was surprisingly cold, but we set off on a walk around it.

There were several restaurants on the island which had tanks of live eels and crayfish outside ready to be cooked up, but we had a ham sandwich!

After this we headed back to the coast and spent the next few days travelling south before crossing the fantastic new Rio-Andirio suspension bridge onto the Peloponnese peninsula.


After a quick drive through Patra our first stop was the town of Diakofto on the north coast. This little town is wedged between the sea and steep mountains, and you can take a rack and pinion railway up through the amazing Vouraikos Gorge to the lovely little town of Kalavrytia.




Kalavrytia is famous in Greece for two relatively recent historical events. It’s said that the revolt against the Turks, which lead to the Greek War of Independence, started here in 1821. The town also suffered one of the worst atrocities of WWII, when the Nazis burned it down and massacred all of the men over 15 years of age.

The first of the ancient sites we visited was Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games. Athletic events first took place here as far back as the 11th century BC. The official games took place here every four years from 776BC for over 1000 years. The Olympic torch is still lit here before it begins its long journey to the site of the next games.




One of the main differences between the ancient and modern Olympics is that only men could compete in the original games, and they did so in the buff! In fact women weren’t even allowed to watch the games and any caught sneaking in were thrown from a nearby rock. Seb Coe; take note for London 2012!


The site, which lies in a wonderfully green and peaceful spot in the hills, contains the remains of numerous buildings including temples, a gymnasium, and stadium. We picked the perfect day for our visit as it was warm and sunny, and the site was almost deserted. The museum is also excellent, showcasing some of the finds, recreating the facades of a number of the main buildings, and clearly explaining the purpose of the site.




One of the great things about staying in Greece at this time of year is that it’s easy to wild camp next to beautiful and deserted beaches, and to have fires there in the evenings. We managed 3 weeks without once paying to park or camp anywhere, which we felt was quite an achievement.


We did still need to fill up with fresh water and empty the waste tanks, but our Italian camper guide helped us to find suitable places. One of them turned into quite an interesting experience!

The motorhome aire looked pretty deserted when we arrived but we found an emptying point and got on with it, presuming someone would come out to take our money. And 5 minutes later, she did; a rather abrupt and confused looking lady. Now, we don’t speak a whole lot of Bulgarian. In fact, to say we don’t speak ‘any’ Bulgarian would be closer to the truth. It took quite a lot of flapping around with our Greek phrase book to realise that she didn’t speak any Greek or English either! It made for an interesting conversation! In the end we agreed a price by her writing the figure in the dirt on the side of our van! How embarrassing!


We moved on and headed East across the Peloponese on some ‘interesting’ mountain roads, passing through some poor and sparsely populated areas. Out of a population of 11 million people, 7 million Greeks live in the greater Athens area alone and many of the regions are trying desperately to stop young people moving away. Some of the areas also still bore the scars of horrific bush fires which destroyed huge areas back in 2006.


The north eastern Peloponnese was the nicest part of Greece we saw. One particular highlight was the castle above the town of Argos. We drove up the steep hill not really knowing what we’d find, but it was such a beautiful spot with fantastic views over the town and the bay beyond that we ended up staying the night.


One of the main tourist destinations in this area is the ancient city of Mycenae, the ruins of the mighty kingdom that ruled most of Greece over 3500 years ago. Mycenae was the home of Agamemnon, the Greek king who invaded Troy with his horse! One of the most impressive parts of the site is the huge beehive tomb of Agamemnon.


A lot of what’s written about some of these ancient sites is a mixture of fact and fiction - legends of the gods etc. But Mycenae was the setting for Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey.


Nearby Nafplio, the original capital of a united Greece, was also very impressive. Surrounded by 3 castles, it has a great setting and some lovely restaurants. We walked up to one of the castles, 999 steps apparently, to get a great view of the price board for a good ‘tut’ and about-turn!






In the next episode, we drop in on Robert and Elaine from Marsden, drive through the centre of Athens with Bananarama, and go a bit Bond!!