Friends and family

Another friend to join us on the trip; Lena, and so we all climb in the van and drive away from Camp Athens towards the island of Evia and her father’s beautiful home on the coast – our home for the next 5 days.  We were under strict instructions from Lena to relax, relax and then do some more relaxing, which as you can imagine we are pretty good at by now, but this was different.  This was an extended period of time out of the van, with a real opportunity to rejuvenate before setting off travelling again, and in beautiful surroundings…and, and this is a big and, to sit still and save some much needed dosh!  It had been bloody donkeys since we had caught up with Lena properly (and she crashed the Porsche) so it was truly wonderful to share each others company, and we had the enormous pleasure of meeting cousin Kristina and her husband Agoustinas (who probably wont speak to me again when he see’s how I’ve spelt his name), and their baby daughter Sophia, who tested all my non-maternal instincts when she spent the car journey to the local taverna copying everything I did.  The taverna too was the kind of place we had been hoping to stumble on during our time in Greece; a family run place packed full of Greeks with a great atmosphere, and it provided a taster of the Evia delicacy of cheese bread.  Cheese. And bread.  All mingled together in hot gooey wonderment.  Beautiful, and seriously damaging on the waste line I’m sure.

So, lots of swimming, fantastic food, and jugs of Pimms later (thank you Matt), we were ready to leave Evia, and drop Lena back in Athens before heading off across mainland Greece; both feeling very happy to be on the road again after our refreshing pit stop – Lena if you are reading this, thank you for your endless generosity, we were so happy we got to see you and look forward to living in your new world of anti-capitalism (it just needs a little tweaking for the Nobel).

Surprisingly, the drive across the mainland was far flatter than we expected and we found ourselves at a free stop on the hillsides next to a taverna, right next to our destination of Meteora.  This was quite possibly the quietest night’s sleep for some time – no dogs, no traffic, no squabbling Athenians…  Meteora is quite possibly one of the most dramatic sights in Greece; lots of monasteries perched up on top of strange rock formations,  apparently caused by strong river currents formerly running to an ancient sea.  You wonder how people accessed some of them, until you see the long rope and basket pulley system used to hoist them up…not for us.  We had a great morning driving around the hill sides , but the August tour bus crowds put us off going into any.  Onwards west then, to Igoumenitsa to secure ourselves some tickets for the next part of our journey.

It seemed crazy that over a month had passed since we were last at this port, and the 160 euro tickets that ‘no point buying, they wont go up’ were now over 200 euro’s.  Damn.  We now had the added complexity of getting the van to Corfu and then onwards to Italy.  After a bit of shopping around and tweaking of our Italy destination though we managed to secure both ferries for 150 euro’s, and the opportunity to experience ‘camping on board’ for the Italy journey.  We triumphantly headed to a nearby beach where we knew we could camp free for the night.  It was sunny when we arrived, but as the grey clouds started rolling in, and the other vans promptly packed up and headed off we wondered if we should be doing the same…especially when we looked around and saw huge branches and other vegetation that had obviously come down in a storm the previous night.  So just us and an Italian camper were left, both looking up at the tree’s overhead warily, but eventually giving each other the thumbs up and saying ‘we’ll stay if you do’ in broken Italian/English.  Quite possibly the biggest storm I’ve seen in ages blew right overhead, masses of rain, huge claps of thunder, and the largest scale mass exodus of sunbathers from a beach ever.  Perversely, after two months of wall to wall blistering sun, it was amazing to be trapped in the van by rain…in fact, like proper Brits I think we even made ourselves a cup of tea while we watched the lightening.  Needless to say, it soon made way for the evening sun and we were left with the quietest beach in the whole of Greece that night, just us, the Italian and hundreds of stray dogs.

We decided that by way of a goodbye to mainland Greece we would treat ourselves to a stay on the lovely Sofas campsite again…so a wonderful day and evening was had, catching up internet time, cooking up the veggies Lena had packed us off with, and even watching some Olympics in the bar.  Perfect, then it was back to the beach for another free stop before getting our ferry to Corfu the next day…to see my parents, who just happened to be on holiday there celebrating 40 years of matrimony…amazing.

The ferry to Corfu was quick and easy, except it was the first ferry I’ve ever known where all the vehicles had to reverse on, which is no easy feat in Gus, but if the Czech HGV driver can do it then so can we.  We pootled our way up from the south of the island and located my parents hotel, left a message to meet the next day and then drove north to find some freecamping.  North Corfu took my breath away to be honest – it is so dramatically beautiful with sheer cliffs plunging into clear turquoise waters – if you can find somewhere away from the kids burning about on quad bikes, it is heaven and my idea of paradise.  Yet again I had timed my book reading bang on and was halfway through The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell…another gold star for Coleman. 

We spent the next day knocking back complimentary drinks courtesy of my parents in their all-inclusive hotel.  They even sneaked us in for a crafty lunch, while we caught up on the last three months.  It gave us the idea of doing a trip based solely around wandering into all-inclusive hotels and seeing what delightfully free food and drink you can pilfer along the way…maybe next year.  We found a campsite around the corner, with the luxury of a swimming pool, and made a trip to Paleokatritsa for some last Greek snorkelling.  Then on our final day on Corfu we went to Kerkyra town with my parents for a very long lunch by the sea, where we were witness to some champion eating skills from Hooper in order to finish up all the food we had ordered and been too full to eat.  That’s my boy.  It was over 40C yet again so before we caught our ferry to Italy we all headed back the hotel that just keeps giving for a dip in the sea.  It was on the way back to the hotel that Michael paid my mum the ultimate compliment, when he said “that’s a nice whatever it is you’re wearing”….haha!  What a beautiful 3 days on Corfu, and simply wonderful to spend it with my folks.  Now onwards to Italy.