Villa San Giovanni - Brindisi – Patras,Greece
A seaplane at Valletta Harbour, if only we had chartered this we could have been in Patras in a couple of hours!
Four changes of train today, so some anxiety as to whether they will all agree to carry bikes!
We headed off north on the train, up the west coast revisiting all of the places we had cycled down on our tour south. At Paola we turned inland to go over the ‘instep’ of Italy if you can call it that. This was new territory to us and rather lovely. There is still a certain amount of snow on the tops of the mountains and spring is a bit later in arriving in these parts. The broad beans, peas and salad crops looked a bit waterlogged but the acres of peach and other fruit orchards were in full blossom, so beautiful. Quite amazingly the 1 sheet of paper given by the travel agent with all our changes on it has worked a treat. There was no mention of bikes anywhere so we were very nervous, but the ticket collectors on each train, scratched their heads, looked puzzled and waved us on! It was a relief as we only had 10 minutes between some changes. At 3.30 we arrived in Brindisi, ironically having passed through the only totally flat landscape we have passed since leaving the UK- perfect for biking, but that will have to be another time.
Having expected to have the boat to ourselves with just a few truck drivers we were dismayed to find a party of about 150 American 15 - 20 year old students with their minders. We never did discover what they were doing either in Italy or Greece but guess it was something cultural. One has to say one thing for them they didn’t go near the bar, no one was drunk, loud or difficult the whole lot just stayed up in the top deck smoking ciggies.
The boat stopped at three AM to unload some lorries in Igoumenitsa which didn’t disturb anyone except Vivi, who having a Titanic moment thought the boat must have run aground, but all was well and the next thing we knew we were in Patras 2 hours early.
Little tug which shunted us around Patras Harbour
The Tourist Office was right outside the harbour gates and for the first time since leaving France it was a) open b) had staff who appeared willing and eager to help and c) it had free internet access whoopee, welcome to Greece. And the first thing you notice is that everyone moves about at a sensible pace and conversations are held a normal decibel levels and not conducted in a state of near hysteria!!
Scarily the hotels here are about half as much again as those in Italy but we are hoping this is only because we are so close to a major port. We booked ourselves into The Poseidon Hotel which is about 20k’s west of Patras and couldn’t believe how comfortable it is, so much so we are going to stay for two nights.
Before cycling out to the Poseidon we called in at the bike shop, where they are the agents for our ‘Specialized’ make of bike. There were four men hanging around outside and when we cycled up to them you would have thought we were the Prodigal sons (or fatted calves as we say at home!) They couldn’t believe how much luggage we were carrying – but then I suppose none of them have ever been away for 6 months either. Anyway Harry of 'Harry Malios Bikes' has agreed to service our bikes – something which is long overdue whilst we are away next week in Athens and on Evia. We needed to buy a decent map and one of the men took us at a fairly ‘smart’ pace to a shop with everything we needed.
Next stop was the pastry shop for some lunch. We were rather overwhelmed by the amount of choice but chose some delicious filo pies filled with cheese and other things. The perfect spot was found after a few miles, on a small beach overlooking the very azure sea with a lovely view of the bridge joining this end of the Peloponnese to the mainland.
Lunch spot
and BIG bridge
outside
Patras
When I was here a few years ago this was the longest bridge in the world, not sure if this is still the case, and it is a tremendous feat of engineering. We then had to burn off a great many calories before arriving for the night in Kaminia. The coast road was very peaceful, lots of bird song which is very refreshing. During the past few weeks we have seen very few birds except magpies in Italy, Sicily and Malta. Magpies, sparrows and feral pigeons seem to be the only birds not deemed to be edible or worth keeping in a cage.
If all our days on Greece are as good as today there will be no complaints!
Sunset 1st evening from Poseidon hotel.
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