18/12/24
Superfast ferries, operate routes between Italy and Greece, but also Albania and Croatia. They have suggested routes between Great Yarmouth and the Netherlands which never went ahead and also operate between Belgium and Scotland. They’re massive basically. They’re owned by Attica Group, which is 86% owned by Piraeus Bank. We were on one of their first ferries, Superfast II, which was built in 2009.
The journey was comfortable and you could barely tell you were at sea apart from the gentle rumbling. The first stop was at Igoumenitsa, just east of Corfu, on the west coast of Greece. We arrived at 6:30am, so 5:30am for us, and they played a lovely tune to ensure you didn’t sleep through it. We wondered whether if you had a cabin, they would play it in there even if you’d booked for Patras.
We weren’t going to be doing much sleeping anymore. The Sun wasn’t even up yet. The children that had plagued our sleep were out like a light and nothing disturbed them despite the many truckers loudly heading back to their trucks. Once dawn did arrive we were blessed with incredible views of the islands of Kefalonia and Lefkada as well as mainland Greece. We bought some plain black coffees, which were very expensive, €9 for two. Apparently there is even a word for as ‘expensive as on the boat’ in Greek.
We walked around outside on the deck in the burning hot sunshine, though if the wind blew it could be quite chilly when there was no Sun, then returned to our seats to nibble on bread, jam and fruit. The time slowly ticked by but the views changed frequently. Soon we could see the grand Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge, that links Pio and Antirrio. As well as Pátra, Greece’s third largest city. It’s overlooked by the mountain range of Panachaiko, the highest point being a mighty 1926m.
We got ready to leave the ship and headed back down the escalators to be reunited with our bikes. The bungees we’d brought with us proved invaluable, as they usually just have some flimsy bits of rope lying around. We pushed the bikes off the boat, overcome with nervous excitement, and in even hotter sunshine. A new country at last, which meant a whole new language and culture to familiarise ourselves with.
Once off the boat we had no idea where to go, a bus driver thankfully pointed us in the right direction. We rode along the dock, a lorry overtaking us as we neared the gate. At the gate a man pointed us along the road. Away from the city. It was wide and fast and at the end seemed to go up and onto a huge overpass. Before that happened we saw a smaller entrance road. We pushed our bikes up and over the giant kerbs and then waited to cross the street at a horrendously busy intersection.
The port attendant had clearly failed us; directing us to be subsumed into traffic was cruel. There was obviously a pedestrian entrance and exit as you can board the ferry as a foot passenger or perhaps they used the bus to avoid the hellish road. Anyhow, we managed to cross the road. While we were waiting to join the traffic, a Peugeot 406 estate overtook the other traffic down a narrow gap close to us. It scraped the dirt verge and gave us a fright. Is this how the Greeks will be driving around us?
We had no choice but to ride along the busy dual carriageway and moments later we were pleasantly surprised and relieved. It was only one moron. The rest of the drivers were very good at respecting our space and after the Italians it was a relief to have them actually wait for sufficient space before passing. A man on a moped went past tooting and showing us support by pumping his arm. We soon turned off the road into the city streets. There was lots of traffic and it continued to feel like a very different world. Swarms of mopeds and motorcycles darted around, it was 50:50 whether the rider wore a helmet or not.
Our little place to stay was about three kilometres away, up about 70m, near the castle. We managed to wind ourselves up there despite our exhaustion. When we arrived at the address, an elderly woman appeared. We didn’t think this was the host and she spoke lots of words we couldn’t follow. After a minute she pointed down the side and we found the key box. Once we’d opened the door the woman wandered into the house, and appeared to be looking around. After translating some of her mutterings we tried to tell her it was our house for a holiday. Eventually we called our host, and discovered the woman was her mother in law and wasn’t quite able to know what she was doing anymore. After a brief chat on loudspeaker with the host, she wandered back up to her house. Our host told us not to open the door if she came back!
We went to the shops and after visiting three supermarkets to get the lay of the land, bought some pasta, passata and vegan feta that seemed to be popular here. We also bought chocolate tahini. Every shop had half a dozen different brands of tahini. Frankie isn’t overly keen on it but Jonathan can devour the delicious sesame seed paste. Chocolate would hopefully bring Frankie round.
We popped into a bakery and bought some bread too. The kind baker taught us the words for please and thank you. We’d already looked them up but pronunciation is difficult to learn when the alphabet is completely new. We walked back via the Saint Nicholas Steps. It was a tiring 192 steps but a brilliant view from the top and it was 50m from the house. After dinner we could barely keep awake. The time difference meant we were going to bed very early compared to usual but we needed to rest. Tomorrow we would start our ride in Greece in earnest.
Surly They Won't Make It 