Nikos World: Life All at Sea

********WARNING - A BIT BORING THIS POST******** A BIT OF A RANT ACTUALLY**************

Not that I'm overly superstitious, but my Greek Granny never travelled on a Tuesday as Constantinople fell twice on a Tuesday, first to the smelly old 4th crusade Brexiters in 1204, and then in 1453 to Erdogan's forebears. These dates where both on a 13th but I thought that a 31st day of the month would be safe enough.

So it came to pass that we boarded the ANEK ferry Asterion a vessel previously operated in the English channel under the name Norman Trader. ANEK have got wise to keeping the old LD Lines name - this vessel is a sister ship of the ill-fated Norman Atlantic*. It is also quite small and slow compared to what we thought we had paid for.

Spot the happy deck campers:

This is deck class, tents pitched hopefully on vibrating wet steel. This year we were to luxuriate in a cabin.

As we departed Ancona life looked up in the restaurant

Mutti in law is propositioned with ouzo by friendly Turkish lorry drivers

Here is the cabin - an air conditioned cupboard but a haven

Next morning we miss breakfast because the ship's tannoy system cannot be heard from with a cabin. We are also unable to buy coffee because the ship cannot establish an internet link FFS!

This small half deck contains all the amenities.

It appeared to us and many fellow passengers that this is a badly run and organised vessel . This camper van appears to have collected ANEK Lines yellow paint on its way up to the top deck.

This is the second time that the fat Turkish woman in the Silver Opel Zafira bumped her door into our car - Mrs N intervenes when the ship docks to discharge at intermediate stop Igoumenitsa

Igoumentisa - intermediate stop in northern Greece

Top deck chaos - Patras and Igoumenitsa traffic all mixed up and grid locked.

Nice!

We proceed down to Patras and narrowly miss the superior Superfast ferry going North

Due to the various debarcles we arrived at Patras 4 hours late at 1am

Our campervan friends are guided down the slippery ramp

Pleased to be off this ship!

Thankfully we find a 24 hour fuel station on the outskirts of Patras - and diesel is cheap!

In conclusion:

Do not travel on this ANEK lines ferry the Asterion which is badly organised and possible dangerous. The facilities are poor and the onboard stevadores have no clue how to load this vessel. It is also slow in comparisons to the far superior cruise ferries which operate this route normally.

*This is what happened to its sister ship Norman Atlantic in December 2014:

It would appear from press reports that the crew were no more organised than the bunch we had.

The fall of Constantinople on Tuesday, April 13, 1204 to the Fourth Crusade was a bleak day for Hellenism. However, Tuesday May 29, 1453, was even worse, as Constantinople fell again, this time to the Ottoman Empire, followed by almost 400 years of Ottoman rule across Greece. - See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/10/13/why-superstitious-greeks-fear-tuesday-the-13th/#sthash.xp0jAavs.dpuf

Tuesday, April 13, 1204and secondly to Shiteface Erdogan's predeccsssorsANEK asterion

This is deck class, tents pitched hopefully on vibrating wet steel. This year we were to luxuriate in a cabin.

As we departed Ancona life looked up in the restaurant

Mutti in law is propositioned with ouzo by friendly Turkish lorry drivers

Here is the cabin

Next morning we miss braekfast because the ship's tannoy system cannot be haerd from with a cabin. We are also unable to buy coffee because the ship cannot establis an internet link FFS!

It appeared to us and many fellow passengers that this is a badly run and organised vessel .