Three Ferry Stories & a Happy Ending

Getting from Barcelona to Paleochora involved three ferries and dealing with Italy. We decided to have a week or so there despite our relative lack of enthusiasm for the place. This is how it went:

Ferry 1: Barcelona to Livorno.

This was a very pleasant crossing of about 19 hours. In addition to a lot of freight there were about 20 private cars, some bikers and about 20 foot passengers, so the public space was deserted. We had a very comfortable cabin. When it came to disembarcation we were all kept waiting for the upper deck ramp to be lowered. It did take a while and there was some frustration. Suddenly one of the foot passengers was sitting on the floor! He got up and was seen lying on the floor. This happened several times and then we realised there was a scuffle going on between him and a waiting biker. Both parties were then restrained by various (slow to appear) ferry staff and passengers until the ramp came down. and they walked or rode off as if nothing had happened

Not knowing anything about Livorno and arriving in the evening we had booked into a real bargain of a hotel but typically there was terrible road signing at the port and we got badly lost, including sitting in a jam caused by a procession of some sort. With Italian coming in about No 5 in Ruth's languages we had some pretty interesting interchanges with locals to get us sorted.

It was worth it though:- brand new and sitting right next to a much less luxurious cafe where we bought pizza and watched an amazing TV programme. It was some sort of word quiz which featured a bimbo with little Italian language (!) walking backwards and forwards to turn over the letters. She was wearing a short flimsy dress and on each passage across the camera found an angle up or down said dress. Welcome to Berlusconis's Italy!

Tuscan Treat

The campsites we found near Livorno were not very appealing (certainly when compared to the best in France) so we drove a llittle further North to Torre del Lago near Viarregio, where we had camped in 1985. We couldn't find the actual site (failing memories?) but we found a reasonable one Camping Europa where by buying a 2009 European Site Guide we would qualify for a rate of 15 Euros per night including hot showers. Not bad! (We also had to buy swimming caps before using the pool.

No surprise: - very few Brits, and most of the Netherlands were there! We stayed four nights and for the second two we also had a very large party of badly behaved German students.

Our approach to Italy: Countryside, culture, food and drink - not beaches!

There is a lovely cycle ride under trees to Viarregio, but when you get there and past the opulent yachts at the port you find there is virtually no public beach - it is all bagnos like this one, where you pay an awful lot for things you don't want! We managed with nifty footwork to get a dip in the sea, but this brings on cravings for Greece!

.. so - no more beaches - we went on a daytrip to San Gimignano. The drives both there and back were very hairy! We have never bought a good scale map of Italy so did not pick up on the topography. By the end of the day we had averaged 23 mph over the driving time!

It is a tourist cliche but no less stunning for that! We stayed two hours - much of it tourist-watching in a very nice cafe with newly-found cheap beer - Morretti! When we got back to the car ( "free for two hours") we had a parking ticket! The attendant said we had not left anything to say when we arrived. We think she let us off, but maybe will not be able to return to Italy even if we want to, because we threw it away!

Across the thigh to Rimini

We used the new guide to help us find more 15 Euro a night camping over on the other side! We came up with a site at Gatteo del Mare. To get there we looked up a route on the Michelin site and it showed a very indirect one via Bologna. After the previous experinece we weren't going to argue! It was a long and difficult drive which took most of the day. It had been very warm, but as we reached the last part there was a sudden high wind and blackening of skies. We put up the tent with extra care and as the last ropes were being secured the rain started. We drove into the town (modern resort) and found a bar with internet. It kept raining! Fortunately despite it having looked closed earlier on we found the campsite restaurant open and very welcoming. We spent the whole evening there with two or three other happy camper couples as the thunder and lightning came and went. We nervously went back to the tent to find the benefits of good camping craft - very little inside was wet, and we survived the night!

The next two days were a lot better and we rode both North and South through the succession of near-identical resorts with the dreaded bagnos, the autostrada, the railway line and some disgraceful beer prices!

We did see some interesting things:

• Gatteo is at the mouth of the Rubicon, so we crossed it - as old JC had!



• A group of about 100 primary children being taken out for a bike ride



• Communal dance-exercise on the beach - probably the grey roubel!



• Five Swiss-registered Austin Healeys travelling in convoy

We also discovered the lovely local flatbread - Piadina!

We stayed three nights, and each day more people arrived. This was coming up to the Pentecost weekend and they were jamming the tents and vans in as close as possible. When on the third evening we had a re-run with the rain, and the family next door grew exponentially we decided we were glad to be leaving next morning. As we dried out and de-camped the vans were queuing for any empty space!

We were heading for Ancona and decided to take the coastal road rather than the autostrada given that it was a Bank Holiday. Wrong choice! Bad roads, bridge hold-ups, speed limits, pedestrian crossings. We arrived to check-in one minute before it theoretically closed - unfed and desperate for the loo! 100 km and nearly four hours without a break!

Ferry 2: Ancona to Patras (officially!)

This ferry must have been nearly full! This year it has "camping on board" where one deck is open and campers and caravan owners can plug into the electricity and sleep there. We were also put on this deck, but had a very, very expensive cabin. 95% of passengers were German and with kids. There were some novel other approaches to spending the night.

Just after we left Ancona at 4pm there was a call for any medical doctors to identify themselves. We thought no more about it! A nice Greek dinner and some episodes of the Sopranos followed as we watched the Italian coast and the sunset. We were due at Igonoumitsa (opposite Corfu) at 8am, so there was no surprise when there was an announcement in Greek at 7.30 - except that it mentioned Brindisi (firmly on Italian soil!) There was then a translation into English saying that owing to a passenger's heart condition we had come into Brindisi but were not being allowed to leave. (Nothing was said then, or for another eight hours in German or Italian) We fantasised about manslaughter allegations and the British Consul; but in fact got a very good account from the receptionist who wanted to talk in English. He said that there had been many incidents on the ship over the years: several deaths, men overboard like the drunken Polish lorry driver, overdoses etc, but that the Italians had always ended up being co-operative. This time they would not even send a helicopter, and this was now probably about money.

Anyway! We were to be ten hours late - so we would miss the evening ferry and would be arriving in Patras late at night. We emailed to a hotel used before and got a good price, arriving around midnight after some terrible navigational errors. (There is a new flyover near the hotel - and we also went the wrong way down the main highway as we left the port!)

So - a luxurious room with free WiFi and a great breakfast! We then drove steadily over to Athens outskirts on the toll-roads and stopped for lunch near the little beach used last year. Some cheap fish, but windy! We reached Piraeus almost perfectly and got new tickets so that we boarded very early.

Ferry 3: Piraeus to Chania

This should have been very straightforward! We had booked only reclining seats for this relatively short crossing. When we went to claim them we were asked if there was any particular reason why we wanted to be in the prison! Somewhere along the line in swapping tickets for the two different ships we had been allocated seats in an annexe used sometimes (and this was one such time) for prisoners in transit and their guards. We declined - but to get to the loo you went past the open door of this smoke-filled room with its burly police occupants and swarthy charges. The night started well in the lounge, with even the TV volume being turned off this time - but suddenly a distinctly swarthy Cretan stumbled into the lounge and started demanding that a (random?) man hand over something. then he started to molest the woman next to him. Passengers started waking up and protesting. The man (not an escaped prisoner - but in a bad way!) then moved on to someone else less compliant and the punches started. Bob called out for the police from the "brig" to do something and got the reply in English: "We can't do anything - we are only the police!" Eventually an ANEK employee appeared and bundled the man out. The slumber was less peaceful until the 5.30 docking after that!

It appears that the accused may have been involved in a nasty case where a whole Creatn village turned on the police (deaths??) when they intervened over their cannabis growing enterprise. The trial is ongoing in Athens.

We were off fairly promptly and killed time until LIDL opened! Then it was round there and two more supermarkets to stock up on what Paleohora has trouble supplying:- potting compost, French wine, exotic sauces etc. We had a pleasant drive on the tunnel route, visted the baker in Topolia and arrived at about noon on Tuesday 2nd June.