Ikaria then to Rome

---

---

A quick run down of my travels from when I last left off (on the boat from Kushadasi to Samos)......

Shan and I caught the ferry from Kusadasi and arrived in Samos more than a little hungover from our nights adventures in Kusadasi and decided that given there was a boat going in a coupe of hours to Ikaria, an Island we realy wanted to visit, despitre our hangovers from the night before we had better get on it.......best decision of the trip we made. Although at the time we were both craving a bed, hanging out for another 3-4 hours was a great decision.

To paint a picture think no package tourists, white sandy beaches, crystal clear water and no traffic noise. This pretty much summed up where we stayed on Ikaria (and the Island generally). We stayed in the "resort" town of Arministis....man this is a happening place...not!!! Honestly though it made a welcome change and we lapped it up. We spent a couple of days just lying on the beach.....it was hard to find a comfortable spot as we battled the other 16 people for prime position and then on our last day we again braved European driving and hired a car to tour the rest of the Island. We headed for the thermal springs which by this stage of our travels had beome a favourite. Like Kos, these springs flowed into a rock pool in the ocean, but they were much hotter!!!! We kiced back for an hour or so before realising that we had to get to the other side of the island, return the car and catch our ferry....given it had taken us over an hour to drive to the springs we were in a slight rush and on windy roads with steep clifs the description "white knuckle terror" was spot on. As we rounded a cliff we looked back and saw that our ferry was in sight, so Shan "Schumacher" Dillon weaved her driving magic.....then with fully loaded back packs we jogged (sprinted just wouldn't properly describe it) to the dock and were the last to board.

The ferry took us to Athens where we over nighted and then trained it to Patras for our ferry to Bari (again overnight). From bari we trained it to Rome......finally after about 2 days of travelling we arived at the last stage of our journey. Rome is Rome and probably my favourite European city.....have to say it had changed a little from the last time I'd been - but definitely for the better!!!!! A couple of days spent sightseeing and sampling Italian cuisine and wine & of course beer before flying back to London where Shan and I parted ways, me for Dublin and Shan for Scotland.

---