Athens (Greece not Georgia)

Another early start today, so much for holidays being relaxing. Today we had to leave Kefalonia and start our trek across country. Kefalonia had certainly grown on us, it was a bit of a slow burner. We realised that it is actually like that when you go somewhere new, it takes time to acclimatise, then it improves each day and then you just don’t want to leave. We drove to the port and dropped off our hire car and waited for our bus to show up. When it did we were on it for about a minute as it drove to the ferry. We found some seats on the top deck and just sat about, we had about a three hour crossing and there was not much to do. I felt the tiredness from the last few days catching up with me so I lay down across four of the seats and had a bit of a nap. It wasn’t the most comfortable, and I had the obligatory photo taken of when I have a nana nap, but I definitely felt better afterwards.
The ferry took us to Patras, and there was nothing that we saw there that made us feel like we were missing anything by not stopping there. Although Allegra did comment that it was the first time she had seen grass for a while. Off the ferry and then back on the bus for about a three hour ride to Athens, again pretty uneventful although it was not a bad trip, coastal for most of the way so there was always a view of the sea.
We got to Athens and the bus terminal and it just reminded us of times travelling in Asia, it didn’t feel very European. For a start Athens looks quite rough, certainly the road in didn’t have any prettiness to it. Then we got off the bus and the heat hit us, it was 36 or 37 degrees. We realised that we didn’t actually have much idea of where to go to catch the bus that would take us near to our destination so we had to wander round asking people for help. Luckily everyone was super helpful and we managed to buy tickets and find the bus stop and even better than that, the bus turned up. That was what made it feel like Asia, that feeling of being a bit lost but it all working out in the end. That, and the heat.
When we leave tomorrow it is from a different bus terminal near where we are staying so we thought it would be a good idea to check that out, as it was supposed to be a 7am bus and we didn’t want any extra pressure in the morning. So we found the ticket desk, and it turns out they have to print tickets out for you, so that was good to find out. Once we had done that I just asked about the later bus because when I booked online there were only four tickets left, which is why we had to get the early bus, and no one was looking forward to that. It turns out they had put a second bus on and we were able to switch our tickets so that was a massive win, an extra couple of hours in bed tomorrow.
After all that we got to our apartment, which is pretty basic but absolutely fine for the one night we need it for. Jess and I went off to the shop to get stuff for dinner and apart from that we just did not much. An early morning and a long day of travel are quite tiring. Not quite so early and not quite so long tomorrow, with a reward of being back on an island at the end to look forward to. Jess: I just wanted to add that hats off to captain Paul who has booked all the accommodation, cars, ferries and buses and mostly kept us on the right track. He has also done all the cooking when needed so we are very lucky to have him 😍.Читать далее