Ferries, Feta, and God Save The Queen!

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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!!

The Vatican, Volcanoes and Arrivederci!

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We arrived at the outskirts of Rome on a busy Friday afternoon and, after doing the weekly ‘Big Shop’, hit the mother of all traffic jams! We reached our target a couple of hours later; an aire about 20 minutes away from the city centre.


We travelled in to the city several times over the next few days and saw most of the famous sights. We dragged the dog around the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and St Peter’s in Vatican City. The sheer scale of some of the sights and the period of time they cover is quite amazing. There are Roman remains dotted everywhere amongst baroque churches and neo-classical statues.


Our favourite spot was St Peter’s in Vatican City. Built on the site of St Peter’s tomb and now the principal shrine of the Catholic Church, the size of the place is unbelievable. A trip to the top of the dome is a must for the stunning views out across Rome.


On our last morning we visited the Vatican museums. We drove right through the city centre to get there (an experience in itself!) and found the queue to get in, which was...well... about 2 kilometres long! We queued for 2 hours to get in but it was very much worth the wait. If you get the opportunity it’s definitely worth a visit just to gaze at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And there’s so much to see in the museums - you could really spend a couple of days there.


After a busy few days in Rome it was time to hit the beach, especially as the weather had warmed up again. We found a lovely spot at a place called Sabaudia, about an hour south of Rome. White sand and calm seas meant that we were able to soak up some sun and get some swimming done – not bad for October!


Driving in Italy is not easy! As well as the ‘over enthusiastic’ Italian driving style and the countless mopeds and motorbikes weaving about like agitated wasps, there are the pot holes to deal with, some of which are bigger than the road itself.

What’s more, there are signs everywhere. Signs for hotels, cafes, shops, supermarkets, police stations, swimming pools, archaeological sites and pretty much anything else you can think of line the road. It can be pretty difficult to concentrate on driving. And if you’re actually looking for somewhere and could do with a sign – well, this is what you can be faced with at a road junction...


We’ve camped in all sorts of places this year but we never imagined we’d be spending a night in a volcano! But you can do just that at Pozzuoli near Naples. The volcano is semi-extinct (it hasn’t erupted for a couple of thousand years) so what better place for a family holiday!

The campsite is on one side of the huge crater, and there are bubbling mud springs and jets of steam shooting out of the planet on the other, just a few hundred yards away! The ground sounds hollow under your feet, a very odd sensation, and there’s a strong smell of sulphur in the air. The funniest part is the campsite sauna which looked more like an old B&Q garden shed placed on top of a steam vent!


The Rough Guide says of Naples – ‘It is filthy, it is very large and overbearing, it is crime infested and it is definitely like nowhere else in Italy.’ The city is clearly quite poor in areas and you really have to have your wits about you as you try and navigate the bustling narrow streets trying not to look too much like a tourist waving a map and guide book around.

We caught the train into the city and had a bit of a wander, but it didn’t take long before we were persuaded to stop for pizza. Naples is the traditional home of the pizza and the best are cooked for just a couple of minutes at a very high temperature in a wood-fired oven. Much thinner than pizza in the UK, they arrive bubbling on the surface and with a light, crispy base. There are usually just a few simple toppings as well – not a pineapple chunk in sight! Fantastic!


Moving round the Bay of Naples we arrived at Pompeii, the town completely destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Excavations that began in 1789 have now uncovered the remains of a whole Roman city, including covered heated swimming pool and luxury hotel complex. But to be honest, there isn’t a great deal to see on much of the site. It takes a lot to imagine a glorious palace when all you’re looking at is a bit of old brick wall!


Many of the sites we’ve visited have had great audio guides that give you a bit of blurb about the different exhibits or rooms you’re looking at. But the one at Pompeii went on and on and on! Each room or building seemed to have 20 minutes worth of the dullest monotone voice rambling on with information that would have sent even the Time Team to sleep! Somebody had obviously decided that you needed to know not just what a room was and how it was used, but what they had previously thought it was before they changed their minds!!

From Pompeii we took a trip to the top of the destructive volcano itself. The only active volcano on mainland Europe, Vesuvius has erupted more than 100 times with the most recent being in 1944. It’s supposed to erupt every 30 years, so it’s no wonder the people living nearby are getting worried. It was all very quiet when we visited – just a few jets of steam emerging from around the crater.


We headed for Sorrento, and were happily making our way through the town when the road started to get narrower and narrower. We were eventually faced with an alleyway that a Fiat 500 would have struggled to get down. Bringing the traffic to a halt so we could perform a nineteen point turn is an experience we’d rather forget. Did we mention that Italians beep their horns and wave their arms about a lot if the traffic stops for longer than a heartbeat?!

It was somewhere around this time that we realised Charlie had picked up a new trick. Well it’s less a trick; more a demand from a dog that’s growing bossier by the day! When her water bowl is empty she puts a leg in it and pushes it around the floor until you refill it for her. We thought it was quite funny at first. And then she performed this new party trick at 3 in the morning!

Continuing south we reached the beautiful Amalfi coast, where the road winds its way around the cliffs which rise steeply out of the sea. It’s a stunning drive and the villages that are tucked into the little bays are very picturesque. Unfortunately for us, the weather had taken a turn for the worse when we arrived so we didn’t see it at its best. We did manage a lovely morning in Ravello though, with its amazing views.


From here we headed east towards the port of Brindisi where we were due to catch a ferry to Greece. On route from ‘shin to heel’ we called in at the town of Matera, famous for its ‘Sassi’ or old town, where houses and churches have been hewn into the rocky sides of a river gorge since the Middle Ages.

The cave houses were inhabited right up until the 1950s when the locals were re-housed in the new town. Some of the original cave dwellings have now been converted into shops and hotels but many lie deserted. It’s a very strange and eerie landscape to wander around. One of the cave houses has been preserved as it was when the occupants left, giving a great insight into what life was like sharing a cave with your animals; you can still journey up the Colne Valley to Marsden for a similar insight!


After a couple of days on the nearby coast we arrived in Brindisi to take the 8 hour ferry to Greece. After much shouting and waving of hands as lorries were reversed aboard, it was arrivederci to Italy.

Little did we know that we’d be back in just 4 weeks time.

Towers, tour guides, and tons of attention (for Charlie!)

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The Cinque Terre (literally meaning five lands) are five tiny villages on the north west coast of Italy. Wedged into a series of coves between sheer cliffs, the villages are only really accessible by train. The line from the nearby town of La Spezia runs through miles of tunnel, emerging occasionally at a village station before disappearing underground again.


We spent a lovely, if not rather busy day hopping on and off trains, enjoying the fabulous scenery and the ice cream! A number of footpaths run between the villages, and it’s customary to leave a padlock somewhere along the Via dell’Amore (Lover’s Path). The area is an essential destination for Australian and American backpackers and there were quite literally thousands of them about. Unfortunately, many of the paths were closed due to heavy rain which meant that the trains and villages were extremely busy.


Just beyond the Cinque Terre is the beautiful little town of Portovenere. Even prettier than the Cinque Terre, it’s a bit further off the beaten track so not as busy, but it’s a delightful place with great views of the surrounding coast.


From Portovenere we moved on to one of the most striking sites of our tour; the extraordinary looking marble quarries at Carrara. Huge slabs of marble have been cut from the mountains here since Roman times and everyone from Michelangelo to Henry Moore has trekked up here in search of the perfect stone. Carrara is still the world’s largest marble producer and exporter.


We spent a couple of nights at the excellent motorhome site in Lucca, which was very handy for the city centre. Lucca is one of several northern Italian towns brimming with amazing architecture and impressive works of art. One of the great things about wandering round these towns is coming across a plain looking church and peering inside to see huge paintings by someone like Caravaggio or Titan.


Charlie attracted a lot of attention in Italy. We couldn’t step outside without people cooing over her or saying ‘ah piccolo’ or ‘ah bello’ (that’s ‘ah small’ or ‘ah beautiful’!). Some wanted their photos taken with her, and a conductor on one of the vaporetti in Venice even picked her up and cuddled her for the duration of the journey!


Pisa is of course famous for a certain tower with dodgy foundations, but we were more impressed by the buildings alongside it in the Campo dei Miracoli (the field of miracles). The cathedral and baptistery, which also lean slightly due to the sandy earth below, are both stunning, even more so when you consider that building began in the 11th and 12th centuries.




We were amused by the line of tourists taking the obligatory photo which appears to show you holding up the tower. We are, of course, above such things…


We were even more amused by the hilarious boxer shorts that featured a leaning tower, but that’s another story!

After a couple of days in the sun we hit Florence in time for David’s birthday (24 again!). The birthday cakes sent over by Alex’s mum disappeared within minutes, and we then set off for lunch!

Celebrated by many as the most beautiful city in Italy, Florence is a mecca for art lovers as it’s home to several major galleries. You can see Michelangelo’s David here, and the Piazza della Signoria is full of impressive statues. The city’s vast duomo is one of the most impressive and colourful we’ve seen, due to the different types of marble used in its construction.


We enjoyed a wander through the maze of mediaeval streets, had a good lunch, and followed it up with a great night out. We ran into a couple from Glasgow and it was great to have some English speaking company to compare travel notes with.

Florence has to be the tour guide capital of Europe. They’re everywhere; marching around waving telescopic car aerials with tassels attached, as groups of slightly confused looking tourists struggle to keep up and understand a word of what’s being said. It seems the current trend is for the guide to have a Madonna style headset on and a small loudspeaker attached to their chest, which does make them look a little like C3PO!

While in Lucca we managed to blow up the in-car charger for our laptop - disaster! We ordered another from the UK and had this delivered to David’s Dad who rerouted it to a colleague of his based in Florence. Our thanks to Lorenzo for doing us a huge favour and our apologies that we didn’t have time to stop for a coffee.

Everywhere in Italy seemed to be full of stylish, good looking people (so obviously we felt right at home!). This is unsurprising as even the smallest towns are full of boutiques selling expensive designer clothes – not a Pri-Mark or Bon Marche in sight!! It did make us feel a little sad about the state of the British high street with the huge chains dominating every one, and small business being in decline. It certainly appears that the small independents are going strong in Italy.

After a couple of days in the Brit filled hill towns of Tuscany we arrived at one of its most spectacular.

San Gimignano is famed for its mediaeval towers and the church which is filled with amazing 13th century frescoes. The towers were built by feuding nobles in aristocratic rivalry in the 12th and 13th centuries. Set in spectacular countryside and with a beautiful centre with many interesting buildings, San Gimignano is definitely worth a visit, especially in the early evening as the sun starts to set and the crowds disperse.


After a lovely overnight stop in the little walled town of Montereggioni where we awoke to find a classic car rally passing through, it was on to Sienna. Famed for its huge scallop shaped piazza, and the bareback horse races that take place there every summer, it really is a beautiful place.


The cathedral is striking; its black and white striped walls give it the look of a giant liquorice allsort!


Sienna also resulted in another visit to a gelateria! Even the smallest town in Italy has several gelateria, where homemade ice cream is displayed in colourful mounds waiting for the evening ‘pasagieta’ when everyone heads out for a stroll and a couple of scoops of their favourite flavours. When in Rome! ... or any other city for that matter!


Rome was our next destination but arriving during the Friday evening rush hour wasn’t the best idea we’ve ever had!