Having made the last minute decision to skip San Marino we realised quickly we had travelled at least an hour and a half in the wrong direction and now had a 6-hour journey down to where we were heading. This would have been fine as we knew we were staying for 6 days with our friend at the other end, had we not experienced what everyone fears most with a hire car…the dreaded engine light coming on (obviously in the middle on nowhere)! A quick phone call to the AA let us know that a mechanic would be sent out to check the car within 2 hours. This was not a great start to our journey. Exactly 2 hours later a tow truck arrived and informed us they would be taking us to the Volkswagen dealership in the nearest town, almost an hour away in the wrong direction to our final destination. Having witnessed our beloved ‘Hamster’ being loaded onto the truck we jumped into the front cab and headed off to Terni. They were absolutely lovely to us at Volkswagen. Giving us espresso and juices while we waited and chatting to us in limited English, but we had to laugh when the response to “How long will this take?” was an Italian shrug of the shoulders that appeared to say…“How long is a piece of string?!”. It turned out that the answer to that question was another 2 hours. The brand new car we had hired had either a collapsed pipe or collapsed pump (our Italian isn’t great and neither is our knowledge of car engines) and although they had replaced it they had told us that because the mechanic didn’t feel confident in a right hand drive he hadn’t been able to test the car properly before handing back over to us. This left us mildly concerned that it might happen again, as we sped back down the road that we had already driven twice that day, towards our final destination. I do have to add though that both the AA and Volkswagen were brilliant. From the engine light switching on to being back on the road took 6 hours in total. The AA rang 3 times to check in that we were ok and everyone we had dealings with was so kind and friendly. Our fears of breaking down in our least favourite country had come true and we had come out of it unscathed! We finally got to Torremaggiore (a town in Southern Italy) at 11pm tired and ready for the ice-cold beer and pizza that Parsley had waiting for us (thank heaven for good friends). We spent 6 glorious days relaxing with our bestie in the heat of southern Italy whilst characteristically indulging in all the culinary delights that it had to offer. On one day we ventured out for a day at the beach, to an area called the Gargano, which is a National Park lined with olive trees and truly picturesque Italian villages. It was definitely a day well spent, however, the rest of our time was blissfully wiled away enjoying good company, drinking too many aperitivos and staying up way too late (we are not made for Italian timing). Italy had redeemed itself slightly (although the lady who screamed at Dani for using the woman’s bathrooms at the beach and did not even apologise when she was flashed Dani’s bikini top didn’t help) but we still aren’t sold and are not planning to go back again anytime soon. Having felt the last ferry trip had been acceptable we had booked another crossing with the same company (Grimaldi), this time from Italy to Greece. It turned out that their smaller commuter style ships weren’t nearly as nice and this ship had none of the amenities we had been expecting. More like a cargo ship than a ferry, we crammed into the small seated area available and counted down each uncomfortable minute of the 8 hour journey. As is always the case when you’re arriving somewhere late at night, the ferry was over an hour behind schedule and finally at 1.30am we drove off the ship. Having decided we would stay at a motel for the night, we were lucky enough to stumble across Holiday Zigos, which was not only open at 2am but also was also reasonably priced at €40 ($60.25 AUD/47.90 USD) for the night. Comfortable and clean we were grateful for a bed and dropped off to sleep almost immediately. The wife of the owner popped her head around the door at 10am the following morning and asked if we wanted breakfast and we decided it was worth the €5 ($7.50 AUD/6 USD) each not to have to worry about preparing it ourselves. We walked into the breakfast area and there was a feast before us. There were pastries, spanakopita, bread, jams and a wonderful omelette...great way to start the day! Having had a lazy morning it was time to get back on the road and it was as we were packing up that we realised the fridge in the car wasn’t working! We tried all the girl things of switching things on and off as well as fiddling with the fuse box to no avail. It was now time to contact Spaceship for their advice and after our 6-hour delay less than a week before we were dreading their response. Dani was on the phone to the lovely man in the maintenance department who was talking her through a series of unsuccessful checks and quick fixes…once again turning the fridge on and off and examining a couple of the fuses. Eventually he had to concede that this may not be an easy fix and so asked her if she had any DIY knowledge...the answer to this question is ABSOLUTELY NOT! I could see the look of panic in her eyes so I offered to take over. He asked me kindly to dismantle the whole back of the car in order to access the back of the fridge. Halfway through removing the middle panel in the car the phone disconnected. Knowing they were likely to call back I continued to unscrew the panel and remove it from the car. When he called back he said, “Just before you dismantle the car (too bloody late!!!!) I just want you to check one of the other fuses”. Sure enough THAT fuse HAD blown and the whole dismantling of the car had been completely redundant. The familiar hum of the fridge kicked in as soon as we replaced the fuse and half grateful and half furious I thanked the man and hung up the phone. Finally we were ready to go and headed off into Greece. Unfortunately Greece’s campsites are mainly limited to the coastline and as we would be returning to Greece later in our Eurotrip we were just driving through the northern mainland. A quick Google search had offered us 3 viable options. 2 near where we wanted to be and one in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere…nowhere (Kastraki) sounded great, so that was where we set the satnav. We drove into the most beautiful landscape of enormous towering rock formations with tiny monasteries perched on top. Now it turns out that this is a fairly heavily touristed part of mainland Greece but at the time we were unaware of this and were gobsmacked at our luck of stumbling across such a beautiful location. Camping Vrachos (€18/$27.15 AUD/21.60 USD) was one of the best we’ve stayed at with a tavern, great amenities and an easy walk into the nearest town. This was not going to be the quick one night stop we had planned. After pitching up for the night and making friends with the campground cats (which Dani named Persephone, Amsterdam and Hoover) we settled down to watch some CSI and drifted off to sleep early. Waking up to the surrounding mountains bright and early the next day was heaven and I think it was this campsite that truly sold us on the whole camping thing. We wandered up to the local village in the morning and stocked up on all our favourite Greek classics. Tzatziki, taramasalata, spanakopita, olives, feta…before heading into the souvenir shops to spend yet more money on all the things we get in every country. Our ultimate downfall was the lovely family that ran the shop, as they were so nice we ended up spending double our usual buying t-shirts for both Dani and one of our nieces as well as a dress for me to wear to one of the many weddings we would be attending later that summer. Armed with food and souvenirs we ambled back up the hill to the campground. We could have stayed there forever but it was decided that after two days we should continue making our way up to Bulgaria, so I found a campsite about 40 minutes out of Thessaloniki to stay in the following night.
This campground (Camping Agiannis/€14/$21.10 AUD/16.80 USD)was nothing like the paradise we had just left. It was 90% permanent caravans that had patios built around them and the pitches available had nothing more that an electricity box. We decided very quickly that we would leave early the next morning; explore Thessaloniki and then head straight into Bulgaria. That night we had the pleasure of attempting to find sleep whilst listening to the delightful lull of Bulgarian pop music and left as soon as we had had breakfast the next morning. Thessaloniki is a sweet costal city to wander around and we had a great time exploring the old ruins and churches that are dotted about. Before we headed off we restocked the fridge full of Greek goodies in anticipation of our imminent departure. Next stop…Bulgaria!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Follow us on Instagram or send us a messageArchives
November 2018
Categories
All
|