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Published: July 22nd 2008
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On Board The Ferry
We made the ferry a little later than expected, but all was well. Ancona actually looked much nicer than we were expecting it to be This one's unlikely to have a great many photos added later because we were in a bit of a rush to get the ferry. We left our villa in Umbria at about 11.20am (only 20 minutes past the plan), but with a one-hour check-in in Ancona (which we read about on the way...) and with absolutely no fact route there, time wasn't on our side. The route is stunning, though. Out past Perugia (and again past the Perugina Chocolate Factory, of earlier comment) and over the hills to the Adriatic side of Italy. We made it there with 45 minutes to go.
The process was simple. We showed out tickets, drove onto the boat, went to reception and were shown to our rather superb and spotless cabin of two bunk-beds. Jay and Asha bagsied the top ones, leaving the grown ups below. We have an outside cabin, which means we have a nice porthole for a view too. The boat left just 10 minutes late at 4.10pm and arrives in Igoumenitsa in the morning at 8am (Greek time). I am (Karl, that is, for a change...) sat on the boat now as it chugs at a very decent speed SSE-wards
On Board The Ferry
The kids in huge excitement - a huge ship, the car on board AND a cabin! towards Greece.
The kids were massively excited about getting to the port. Asha asked the usual "how long to go" question about 100 times during the journey and then fell asleep about 20 minutes before arrival, poor thing. We woke her just as we were coming up to the boat because we thought she'd be cross to miss it.
It's all rather exciting now. A new leg of the journey is always fun and I think this one's likely to be. The plan on arrival is to drive down to Delphi for a couple of nights. It's a log trek, so hopefully we'll make it in good spirits.
And, some words from Onita now (better late, etc...):
The excitement was high, we packed up easily and alittle too lazily in the morning, the kids went and said a sad goodbye to the rabbit, and Bruno waved us goodbye slipping in a bottle of his organic red wine. Asha faked a “I’m so sad mummy about saying goodbye to Italy”, and a more sincere “I’m so sad about saying goodbye to the rabbit” The route took us past Perugia, a wave at the chocolate factory, past Assisi, and a beautiful view of the monastery on the hill, into the mountains of the region of Eastern Italy. As the road started to wind Jay started to look sadder and sadder, until we realised a quick dose of travel sickness tablets were in order, this perked him up.
We had made lunch from leftovers in Umbria, and the journey was taking longer than we thought so we ate it in the car. Nobody really liked it and eventually it got chucked away at a petrol station. The kids both slept for a bit, listened to their music, talked a lot of childish gibberish that made us laugth, and then we got to Ancona …………. and it surprised us it wasn’t as built up and grey as you would expect a port to be. We realised too late, that we should have checked in an hour early, so only just made the ferry in time. We drove on and what confusion, we were herded into a space, that once the kids and Onita were out of the car no doors could be opened. We managed to grab some overnight stuff from the boot, avoid being run over by other vehicles, and headed upstairs to a very different experience. A beautiful, extravagant ship, with a hotel like reception desk and porters to take you to your cabin. Our cabin, we were all incredibly excited, it was huge, fantastic port hole to watch the world go by and ladders galore for the kids to climb. We settled on the kids being at the top, and grownups underneath, and then quickly went on deck to set sail and wave goodbye to Italy. We watched the seagulls, the sailing boats, our guide boat take us through the harbour. We ate Gyros on deck, much to Onitas’ guilt who was very aware of the Eastern European families huddled in corners eating dried bread with large bags of their belongings looking like they were making an emigration. The kids were so excited they kept insisting they were really tired, even though it was only six, the reason being they were desperate to get back to their top bunk beds. So we headed back to our cabin, had a very pro-longed excited bed time, chaotic cabin fever would be a good description, and around 11 every one was eventually in bed asleep. Jay dreamt of snakes, told us in the morning he wouldn’t sleep on the top bunk again on ferry boats because snakes lived there.
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Rick
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Being on time for frerries ....
Not like us then! Having booked the ferry with a 17:00 departure, I received the tickets and completely failed to look at them while planning the journey down. Just before we left Modena with a relatively comfortable travel cushion for the permanent traffic jam around Bologna, I looked at the tickets to find out to my dismay that departure was 15:00. Ooops! The traffic jam around Bologna was bigger than ever, so we took the same detour we took last year to avoid it down to Imola only to find that the traffic was still moving at around 5 miles an hour on the motorway. This left us with no alternative but to follow the old main road all the way down to Rimini, where luckily the traffic was running normally. We made it to Ancona just in time to be shown on to the ferry and watch several people arrive even later than us. The girls and Stephie have still not forgiven me.