Chapter 4 - DAY 19 - Farewell to Greece

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GOOD BYE TO GREECE

Today was a transit day from our Cruise ship to the overnight Ferry from Greece to Italy so not too much to report.
We returned to the Port of Athens to end our amazing Greek Island Cruise. Like the rest of our tour it was designed to give us a snapshot of the islands and it certainly did that. I guess it’s no surprise that Mykonos and Santorini were the highlights however the whole cruise experience was a lot of fun and a very nice change from our day to day tour routine.

One of the big advantages of touring as part of an organised group is that your bags are always taken care of. We put our bags outside our room before we went to bed and they were picked up and taken to the coach meaning we could just walk off when then ship docked. We did need to pack an overnight bag because we went straight from the cruise to an overnight ferry to Italy and our bags stayed on the coach until we reached our Italian Hotel.

KORINTHOS CANAL
It was a drive of a couple of hours to the port of Patras. One the way we stopped at an incredible man made canal, the Korinthos Canal. It was completed in 1893 and separates the Peloponnesian Peninsula from the Greek Mainland. It is 6.4km long but only 21.3 metres (70 feet)wide at water level, making it of very limited use considering the size of modern commercial ships. The stunning thing though is the 80 metre drop from where we stood to the water level. Again it is just another amazing engineering and logistical feat considering the materials available in the 1800s.

PATRAS FERRY
At Patras we caught the Anek Hellenic Spirit Ferry to Italy, we left at 2.30pm Greek time, the ship was a new one and the facilities on board were great. Most people jumped onto the internet (just 3 Euros for 2 hours) to catch up with emails and let people know what’s happening at home. The trip from Patra to Ancona on the east coast of Italy took 22 hours! Previous insight trips had taken the Ferry to Bari which is a much shorter trip (about 8 hours) but the standard of the boats was so bad and they had so many complaints they changed to Anek Ferries out of Patras. His meant a much longer journey but in a much better ship, a reasonable compromise.

At dinner Kay (one of a group of 6 West Australians travelling together) presented Brendan and Mario our driver with shirts that she had customised with their favourite sayings and also to reflect their mannerisms. The shirts were extremely well done and gave everyone a good laugh to!

We used the travel time to catch up and publish our Blogs for the Greek Islands and also relax and have a few drinks with some of the people we get on really well with on the tour.

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Photos

On Board Cabin
Packing up ready to leave ship, the cabins were a good size and very comfortable. Note the impressive rectangular window!

The Korinthos Canal
A man made wonder - from the top to water level is 80 metres

Beautiful Beers
Since we have been in Europe we haven't had a bad beer, they are masters of a nice cold lager or pilsner. So much better than the UK