Mrs Nikos and I had ridden from England to Germany on the BMW - the second part of the journey onto Greece needed careful planning and cunning due to the limited holiday days - this required a blitzkrieg approach with 14 hours to get to Ancona Italy through Switzerland to pick up the high speed ferry to Patras Greece.
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| Waiting for the ladies to get ready. |
Whilst it would have been nice to ride all the way we needed to transport my Mother in Law so a dual car-bike coupled approach was adopted using a trailer (and a car obviously).
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| It's 2am so we must be in Switzerland? |
When we checked in for the ferry at Ancona we were warned that the sailing would be late due to the incoming ship being completely full mostly with German Turks returning from their holidays back to Germany (there's irony there somehow?).
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| Waiting at Ancona quayside. |
We strolled around Ancona in the humid heat to find lunch in the main (and only) square.
The ferry arrived 1hour late and took 2 hours to unload. The procedure appeared to involve dispensing all the car passengers onto the small quay side before the trucks and finally the cars. This meant that a mass of milling humanity effectively prevented efficient off-loading of all the vehicles.
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| The ferry reverses in |
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| Chaos of the illogical unloading procedure. Why could these people not drive out in their vehicles? | | |
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The journey to Greece is best done by cruising the Adriatic. In past times we used to catch the ferry from Brindisi but following the debacle in the Balkans many new high speed ships are available from the Northern Italian ports of Ancona and Venice.
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| We are now on the ANEK Lines m/f Hellenic Spirit a 9 year old Norwegian built high speed ferry appointed to cruise ship standards and able to cruise at 32 mph. |
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| It's deck class for us hardy souls. |
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| We'd rather spend the €s on the meatballs than a cabin. |
We never take a cabin - Mother in Law saw the documentary film about the sinking of the Estonia. I keep explaining that due to similar tradegies in the Aegean sea Greek ferries now never have bow doors (but to no avail).
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| Unloading the bike from the cleverly designed Motolug trailer - we have arrived at Mrs Nikos Towers after a 1,500 mile journey across Europe. |
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| The holiday really begins now that we have ridden down the mountain to the beach at Astros Paralia. |
You look so chic-bored sitting there on your bike, as it sits on its trailer. :) The travels have begun and they are looking great so far!
ReplyDelete-Lori
Could you not have towed the car with the bike?
ReplyDeleteBoy,looking at that plate of grub, you found a sign from The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Are you a Pastafarian?
ReplyDeleteThese days Affer I tend to keep my Noodly Appendage to myself!
ReplyDeleteNikos:
ReplyDeleteUnloading from your trailer looks precarious, like you are going to dump it with such a steep angle. I'm not so sure about deck class. How long was the voyage ?
couldn't you have asked for more meat balls ? Even IKEA gives you a dozen or so.
bob
Wet Coast Scootin
That's a very luxurious air bed - don't think it qualifies you for claims of hardiness!
ReplyDeleteBob:
ReplyDeleteTimes of austerity mean that the 18 hour voyage on deck 3rd class is spent eating only that measily portion of meatballs (although tastier than the IKEA variety). Trailer loading/unloading was fun especially as a crucial section of the instruction manual was missing: Once forward a catcher device locks the front wheel and Mrs Nikos can relax a bit.
HWL: Luxurious - Initially yes but as the night rolled on I ended up on the steel vibrating deck (suspect air leak?).
This method of travelling appears to me to be volcano-proof. Have a truly fantastic time. I've promised my son that when he's 9 we'll spend a summer travelling the Greek islands, although there's a chance that by then peer pressure and football might have marginalised his interest in Greek mythology. In fact I saved £100 today into my new travelling account. Although this is somewhat undermined by my choosing to spend £150 on flights to Rome next Easter. I've justified it to myself by reminding myself that I want my son to grow up thoroughly immersed in classical civilisations. And ice cream. Looking forward to following your trip!
ReplyDeleteRio
ReplyDeleteRome is certainly the place to go for beautiful ice cream and you could even wave at the Pope too!
Thanks for writing in, N