Greece, again

For our autumn visit to Greece, we drive to Ancona with two stopovers, where we board the ferry to Igoumenitsa. From there we head into the Greek countryside, where we will look at our first boat.

The first day drags on: the Gotthard is closed because of an accident, so we go over the San Bernardino. Italian motorways are somehow a tough place, there are really some people there who are not quite right in the head. I like it, because it never gets boring and you don’t nod off. Alexandra hates being on Italian motorways. Too many maniacs on these roads.

We spend the night out in the sticks near Salsomaggiore, where, according to its own publicity, the most beautiful thermal baths in the world stand. The Art Deco building is really impressive. It takes barely 15 seconds before I am escorted out as a “bad” influencer.

We spend the next two nights in Ravenna, a lovely little town.

From Ravenna we head to Ancona, where, as I suppose is normal, we fight our way through the chaos to the ferry to Greece. This time we did not hold back and take the Superfast ferry, which instead of 24 hours takes only 22, pretty impressive. And the cabin is nice, as is the food on board. The Greeks do not compromise in the kitchen, which really surprised us on a ferry.

The Greek motorway could not be more different from the Italian one. Culture shock: the roads are mostly deserted and driving on the motorway suddenly becomes a relaxed experience, which honestly feels almost unreal. No crowding stress at all on this stretch.

We use the time we gained to go and look at our first boat: a Lagoon 420. It is sitting high and dry somewhere out in the sticks, probably in the cheapest berth within a 1000-kilometre radius. And that yacht has already been there for 2 years, lonely and a bit lost. Actually a cool boat: it is the first 420 ever built and spent its youth at boat shows, so it was built with great attention to detail. A particularly nice Lagoon, because Lagoons are usually cheap charter tubs with Ikea chic, but this one is much nicer.

But for us it still is not the right one. We think it is exactly right for young people looking for a project, but not for us. Besides, the beast is really too big for the two of us. Here is our honest opinion:

The next day we head to Lefkas, where we take over the Belize 43, which we have chartered for two weeks, and wait for the hired sailor Sofia. More on that next week.

*This blog post has been automatically translated by a Large Language Model.