Trip from Calais to Tunisia

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25th September:
The picture below shows us getting out of the car on the ferry from Dover to Calais We spent the night at a B&B just outside the town followed by breakfast with some hairy Belgium bikers.

26th September
Then onto the autoroutes through France, Belgium, Luxembourg back to France and then Switzerland and a night stop with Amel’s friend Anila an Basal. Getting used to the concept of marriage, we have both been single for so long…. We are also now jobless and homeless, it will take a while to appreciate both. Definitely picked up one speeding ticket and I guess they post them to the UK?

27th September
The next leg was from Basel to a small town outside Bologna to our first Couchsurfing stop. We were hosted by Sylvia and her sister and boyfriend, Raul who live in a huge house inheritend from their grandmother. Lovely people and Sylvia even gave us her bedroom.

28th September
We departed the next morning with a gift of homemade jam and headed south for Napoli - this was Italian driving in extreme (we arrived at rush hour), its an old city with narrow roads and too much traffic which leads to very spirited driving particularly by the mopeds, the drive the wrong way down one way streets, don’t bother with lights and literally dice with death on the wrong side of the road. Our Couchsurfing hosts for the night told us to ignore the mopeds, they know to look after themselves. Thankfully Teokharis & Giusj had an oasis of a flat with massive garage/workshop were we could park our car. We saw the city by night with our hosts, dirty cobbled streets throughout with what seems like a church for each Neopolitan; a beautiful harbour and architecture not to miss. The pizza is of course amazing. Our hosts were wonderful showing us the city until one in the morning on what was a work night for them.

29th - 30th September
The next day, back on the autoroute and a drive to the boot of Italy and a stay with Aziz, a Moroccan, in a small city Catanzaro. We were tired after several days on the road and Aziz kindly offered us two nights stay in is nice apartment.

1st October
Our final drive in Europe down to Messina where we took the ferry to Sicily and a night in a hotel overlooking the sea outside Palermo. The streets of Palermo were full of rubbish; it seems they are having the kind of strike that Napoli had last year.

2nd October
Down to the port in Palermo to catch the ferry to Tunis. A very badly run office in a portacabin where you queued first in one place to pick up your tickets that you had already bought and then another queue to have your passport checked. There were big queues of people and about 10 minutes to process each person. They gave us preferential treatment as we’re European, awful but we weren’t about to complain….

The ferry was full of Tunisian cars loaded high on the roofs, reminded my of more southern Africa. The crossing was a bit rough and I suffered although Amel is obviously made of sterner stuff. We arrived in Tunis around midnight and then had to go through the Tunisian passport, customs and car insurance rigmarole which meant going to five different offices, some more than once. We could only get a third party car insurance, £25 for two weeks but not sure if it means anything just makes us legal. Then an hours drive from Tunis to Hammamet and at last bed at 2am.

3rd October
We swam in the sea, had lunch and then moved from our hotel to the villa where Amel stays until the wedding and I stay until I’m kicked out on Wednesday when the family take over and I will end up in a hotel in Yasmine.

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