Sunday 25th October

Our time in Italy has taught us that we need to plan a bit more as we’ve had six days in the country but have only really visited Bologna.  It’s nice to meander and chill at times, but a bit of focus would have been useful!  Our first few days were “lost” learning how slow the coast road is and we should have fought our reluctance to take toll roads sooner as now I think we could have taken in Pisa, Florence, Bologna and then Venice, and still sailed today for Igoumenitsa from there.  At least it gives us an excuse to come back to Italy.

It was an easy 2.5 hour drive on the toll autostrada A14 straight to Ancona this morning, with the clearest port directions and quickest check-in I’ve ever experienced - I know it’s a Sunday and we’re at the end of the season, but it was so easy I thought something must be wrong! SPOT We’d booked a so called “open deck” ticket for ourselves and the vehicle, which allows us to set up the roof tent on the ferry over night, saving on the not insubstantial cost of a cabin (all ferries should do this!).  We’re sharing the deck with a handful of camper vans and a trailer of English setters (and one pointer) belonging to a group of Italians off to hunt partridge in Macedonia.  We were offered a couple of the dogs to keep us warm tonight but we graciously declined (as they’ve already peed on our Land Rover, imagine what might happen in the tent).

We spent a couple of hours once the ferry was underway looking over our Greece map and the Lonely Planet guide in order to create a rough itinerary to try to ensure we make the best use of our time there, although we’ve left enough flexibility in case we are taken by a particular area or are recommended somewhere else to see.   First stop is to buy a Greek road atlas as the Michelin 1:700 000 map we have lacks the detail required to get more off the beaten track. SPOT

News came in yesterday from Leeds that the bin man strike there has now entered its seventh week. Crikey.  We’re both thinking of you all - hang in there and hopefully it will be over soon.  We finally seem to have rented our flat too, although we’ll believe it when the guy actually moves in...