After our train trip across the width of Italy, we arrived at Brindisi. We managed our first kilometre with backpacks on. Finally managed to find an open ticket office and bought two tickets for a cabin on the ferry. The tickets cost half price because of our rail pass, otherwise we would have been stuck on deck accordingly to the ticket guy. In reality, the ferry had about 30 people on it and we could have sat or slept anywhere, so the ticket guy lied to us but at least we got beds with his lie.
We caught the free shuttle to the port, and went to pay the port tax with VISA but there was no VISA, nor any cash machines. We ended up having to borrow money from a kiwi couple who caught the ferry as well. We enjoyed the ferry ride - the boat had two bars, a restaurant, a large deck area and some shops. A group of 8 of us from Australia and NZ sat about and learnt some Greek together.
We arrived in Patra at 1pm the next day and headed off with the kiwi couple to find an ATM to pay them back and to look for accommodation. After another km with backpacks on we found a nice place to stay.
One problem with Greece is you can't put toilet paper down the toilet, you have to put it in the bin. This is because the Greeks used smaller plumbing when installing toilets than the rest of the world, to save money. Therefore, shared bathrooms are a bit more gross in Greece than anywhere else.
Patra is not a tourist town, despite being the main port of Greece. It has few hotels, fewer tourists shops and even fewer tourists. It is a really nice place though. We went out to lunch and dinner with the kiwi couple, had really nice, cheap food (now i have had way too many pork pita pockets) in local Greek places and walked around in a proper Greek city.
Unlike Olympia, which is a town built for tourism. After our night in Patra, we caught a train, the nicest train so far in Europe, down the Peloponnese to Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. We arrived at the train station, ready to look for accommodation, to be met by the owner of Pension Poseidon, the one recommended by Lonely Planet and did the 4 minute walk from one end of town to the other to stay at his place.
Olympia is full of tourist shops, 'Traditional Greek Restaurants', and hotels, with marble-paved roads and pavement. The place is nearly empty at this time of year except for the day-trippers to the ruin site. We saw the old running track, ruined temples, sculptures, prizes and such like from different times BC. Though we are both a bit over ruins at the moment.
We also saw the fire damage around Olympia. The fires Greece just dealt with seemed to be finally contained just around Olympia. Some people's back gardens in Olympia were charred and in the distances around the city the hills are filled with black olive trees and charred ground. They had begun to fell all the dead trees when we visited.
From Olympia we caught a coach to Tripoli, in the centre of the Peloponnese. The coach also functioned as the local bus, filled with 90 year old men and school kids. The drive took us through tiny villages, with all the donkeys tied up in the front yard, and up mountains, with sheer drops and broken barriers on one side of the narrow, windy road. We went through one town built on the side of a mountain with cafe areas balanced on platforms hanging over the edge.
After 3 hours we arrived in Tripoli to catch a bus to Nafplio. What they seem to like to do in Greece though, is send you to the nearest place to where you want to go, but not to the actual place and they don't tell you this. So we ended up in Argos and had to catch another bus to Nafplio.
The reason we wanted to go to Nafplio is because the Lonely Planet said Nafplio is one of the prettiest towns in Greece. However, as we have come to realise the Lonely Planet is usually only half right. Nafplio has a nice old town area revamped for tourists with lots of tourist shops, tourist restaurants and overpriced hotels but not that special. We stayed in the new town because we are not rich, and the new town is not special at all. Our early morning wake up call from a taxi driver banging repeatedly on all the doors at 6am was not appreciated by myself either.
From Nafplio we headed to Loutraki and, as the buses do, got dumped about 20 minutes away to figure out how to get to the actual town. Loutraki is where I use to live before in Greece. We stayed in a nice, guide-book recommended hotel (guide-book recommended is definitely the way to go), swam at the clear, blue beach 3 times, found my old house, looking much the same, and relaxed for 3 days in quite a nice tourist town next to the Corinth Canal.
And then we went to Athens. Full of tourists and expensive hotels. We stayed at a non-guide book recommended hotel where someone had duct-taped the wallpaper back together, the floor had sticky patches and the bathroom had holes in it. I got to have a go at the miserable old man owner when he tried to kick us out at 11.30 before the 12pm checkout, standard across Greece. Old Greek men are the most surly, miserable bunch I have ever met, other Greeks though are very nice.
In Athens we saw the Acropolis, wandered the tourist-filled streets with hardly a Greek in sight, got harassed to eat at every place we passed and had a good Greek Salad, Mousaka and ice-cream set menu.
After Athens we headed off to the port to catch our ferry to the Paros to enjoy some island life.
From Sophie and Ollie.
