The idea of entering Italy at Ancona rather than Venice was to avoid hanging about in Patras until midnight and the unpleasant ships now on that route. Our French friends from Kandanos had done this but reverted telling us of disembarkation difficulties in Ancona. Greyrocks should have listened!
We had lunch and a beach afternoon on Chania's Nea Hora, followed by some time-killing near the port at Souda, easy embarkation and a fairly pleasant overnight voyage. En route from Piraeus to Patras there was a navigational error. This shouldn't have happened after all these years. We suddenly found road signs for "ferry port", but it was for no ferries that we knew anything about. Greyrocks are SatNav refuseniks, but the new Hudl has GPS, and it was brought into use for the rescue. We had wasted about 9 miles and half an hour, but there was no urgency - other than to find out the result of the referendum which was by then imminent. We stopped at a service station on the Corinth road only to find their WiFi was down. A little later we stopped at a roadside bar in a medium-sized town and got the news. Needless to say there followed an extensive post-mortem including some rich language with us surrounded - we thought - by non English-speakers. Suddenly a woman at a neighbouring table said "Excuse me, are you from Sydney?" Bizarre!
We pootled along towards Patras - making a detour to a town with a little train up the mountain, a line of a dozen motor-homes on its little beach and a massive traffic diversion because of railway construction. This was, in fact, a feature of the whole day's journey:- long lengths of roadwork on both National and parallel minor road, lengthy and barely adequately signed detours and the sudden appearance unopened stations with no evident track. It was good to see some investment in infrastructure in Greece, but frustrating to be metres away from a better road with no way of getting to it!
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| It all seemed so simple at this point! |
In Patras we found the cheapest diesel in Greece and filled up in the hope (fulfilled) of not needing any in Italy. We had beers in bright sun at the marina and were given several plates of mezes. We checked in and repeated the procedure at a bar on the port complex and got through security to a small queue. We were siphoned off because of the bike rack, but still got on quite quickly and when we were given an upgrade to an outside cabin we thought things were going really well. It was a good ship, with plenty of public space and a decent cafeteria, but then we stopped - somewhere near Kefalonia. Nothing was said but it was clear we would be late into Igounemitsa. Ruth was awake when we did, and next day Bob went ask and was told that we would be something like two hours late. This really mattered as we had planned a hotel that we expected to reach in daylight. We sent a warning email to the hotel and enjoyed the rest of the voyage.Good old ANEK (blue and yellow corporate colours, you note!)! A ferry from Greece to Italy with a huge German-speaking passenger base and plenty of French, has unscheduled announcements in only Greek and English! In this case it was that only the driver could go down to the car deck. Ten percent of people understood this leading to remarkable chaos all over the ship as folk with all sorts of luggage, buggies and cool boxes were re-directed down two flights of stairs to wait the eventual arrival of their vehicle. The delay meant that the competing Minoan ship was already berthed and one poor man in hi-vis was trying to regulate the merging of the two queues of HGVs, private cars and coaches, with school groups and elderly coach parties tried to get themselves and baggage into coaches that were in said queue, and families tried to locate and re-join their cars with children, dogs, etc! Ghastly! The whole procedure took us two hours, culminating in the complete closure of the exit whist a train went across the level crossing. A "never-again" situation!
By now it was dark. Route-finding was straightforward but we sat in a long tailback from the major road whilst a team dozen rally cars roared up the wrong lane. Welcome to Italy! Still, we settled onto the autostrada and thought we might still make it in time for a much needed beer. We were to stay at a well-rated simple hotel with a Forli address. We had a thumbnail map and a set of access instructions in Italian, but it was very dark. We had not set up the Hudl for navigation. We thought we knew where we were going, but at the junction no signs seemed to relate to anything! It took four difficult conversations with (slightly drunk) punters and staff in various bars, several U-turns in the middle of deserted industrial estates, and nearly an hour and a half of frustrations and - yes - recriminations before we found the place - and not an open bar in sight! This was an evening that was probably a seven-year nadir for Greyrocks!
Next day's 250 mile drive to Arenzano on the Ligurian coast was a doddle after that, and the motel were to use was visible from the autostrada. We made a trip down to the seafront and had a very good meal. Phew! And the next day we got over the border to Menton before buying cheap diesel and finding our chain hotel in Aix-en-Provence. Through all these days there was beautiful sunshine, but on the last leg - to Lattes - there wasn't, and it was touch-and-go on the rain front; but we made it to catch Reception before lunch, got installed and did a supermarket run before it started. Some good luck, but the meteo was not promising for this week and indeed yesterday Greyrocks was part of climatic history! Read on!
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