WEDNESDAY 20th JUNE 2012

GREECE

Set out for Brindisi on the west coast of Italy where we are to catch a day ferry to Igoumenista in Greece. This is a bit of an itinerary change as we are supposed to get an overnight ferry from Bari to Patras, but this service has been withdrawn due to the economic problems in Greece!
The drive was quite interesting for me with a lot of nice farms (vines, olives and general) and pretty countryside at the start, but as we got further east things dried out rapidly and by the time we reached the east coast at Bari it was hot, dry and dusty!
We turned south down the coast and made Brindisi and the ferry port in good time - had to wait an hour and a half before collecting our tickets and boarding the big ferry - it sailed very late. It was typical "organized chaos" which is the Italian/Greek way, with us having to tow our cases about two hundred metres across the dock, dodging the numerous semi trailers that were driving up the ramp! Then we had to get our cases into a secure wire cage next to the trucks, and then get up into the ferry! Lots of huffing and puffing! Amazing how some people respond in a tight situation and some just go to water!
Once upstairs we found some lounges and settled in for the trip, which turned out to be quite pleasant, with a flat calm sea and pretty good facilities on the boat! We had dinner later, which was an enormous four course meal served in about thirty minutes! Phew!
Got to Igoumenista having put our clocks forward an hour, pretty late and retrieved our cases, dodged the semis and found our bus for a ninety second ride to the hotel! Yep that's right the hotel was only a sones throw from the dock!!! The Angelika Palace!!! Mmmmmm maybe not such a good name! Very basic hotel room but it was large, had wifi and aircon! The view through a shattered window was of a filthy vacant block!!!!!
We crashed into bed and slept pretty well!



THURSDAY 21st JUNE 2012

ATHENS

Set out for Athens this morning along a very narrow and windy road along the coast, the views spectacular!
Immediately noticeable that Greece is in dire straights!!!! Right from the hotel, around the town and then onto the highway things were grotty - rubbish everywhere, graffiti on everything and many shops and buildings closed up!
The further we got, the worse it got - the only sign of progress was the construction of a major highway to replace the goat track we were on!!! I presume it is a private venture because it extended for nearly a hundred kilometres - a toll way like all the others we have travelled!
The drive along the coast was great despite the road condition and the degraded farms and towns. And our lunch stop was overlooking the the famous Anterios Rion Bridge! An amazing construction it is about three kilometres long and stretches across the Gulf of Corinth alleviating a huge drive across the country to get to Athens!
After lunch we drove over the bridge and headed east towards Athens, a drive along the Gulf with some lovely coastal towns along the way! It was very hot - over the old century - and about sixty kilometres short of the city we stopped at Corinthian Canal which is a narrow man made canal that divides the region of Pelopennes from the mainland. It was cut eighty metres deep and thirty metres wide into the limestone and there are small boats which traverse it regularly! Quite impressive!
On towards Athens we headed and Oh My Lordy! What a hot, dirty, grotty place it looked! Unfortunately we came in through the port suburbs which is always the bum end of town, and we thought maybe it would get better - ahhh no!!!! By the time we reached our hotel we just wanted to turn around and get the hell out of there!!!!!
What a bloody dump!!! Every spare wall was graffitied, the streets covered in litter, beggars on every corner and every second building boarded up and vandalized! We saw banks with brown paper pasted over the windows and doors locked!
Our hotel, the Novotel Athens, was very nice although in an unsavory area! Lovely bar and restaurant area and big, modern rooms! Our only hitch was that the air con in our room was not functioning properly and despite us asking for it to be looked at we could not get the temperature down! Had to leave to door open to allow the cold air in the passage to get in!
Later when the others did an optional dinner excursion, the four of us enjoyed a nice meal at the hotel restaurant, a relaxing break from the hustle and bustle!
We enjoyed a chat with the local waiter, who gave us a great insiders view of the problems in Greece! He had bought a tiny house some years ago to try and secure the future of his family and had suffered a seven fold increase in his repayments since the GFC, while his wages had been reduced! Although he voted to remain in the European Union he was not at all confident that the thirteen party coalition could turn the problems around! He actually wished they could return to their own currency so that his house would be devalued and his repayments reduced! Apparently 43% of eighteen to twenty five year olds are unemployed and the total unemployment is astronomical!
The poor bloke was quite emotional as he told us his story and we realized just how much strife the country is in!