by Nick Jenkin
Nick – But of course Venice is in danger. We took an hour to reach the open sea, a distance of about 6 miles, because the ship had to crawl along a special channel, with breakwaters on the Venice side to avoid the wake. But still the ghastly, giant cruise ships float through the city, dwarfing its history and causing erosion and pollution. I personally hate to see them. Why they can’t dock outside of the city is a mystery to me. How long before a major disaster like the “Costa Concordia” happens right there on one of the canals?
Known as ‘The floating city’ or, more ominously nowadays, ‘The sinking city’, Venice is under threat. Apparently, it has sunk, or the waters have risen, 9 inches over the last century. The ‘aqua-alta’, high water, happens more frequently every year because of rising sea levels due to climate change (no discussion). The squares and lower floors of the buildings become flooded and the foundations suffer.
But Venice is also flooded by 30 million tourists every year, on a resident population of only 50,000. This mass tourism damages the very environment they have come to see and erodes the quality of life for residents and tourists alike. With more residents leaving every year, it’s possible it could become just another pointless theme park like Las Vegas. That would be an aesthetic, historic and social disaster. The real Venice itself is disappearing beneath a sea of bodies, selfie sticks and wheelie cases. Venice was once known as ‘La Serenissima’ but no more is it serene.
And, of course, Nancy and I are part of this tourist tsunami.
Nancy – But there is change in the air. All over Europe, in Barcelona, Crete and Dubrovnik for example, there have been demonstrations against unbridled mass tourism which asks the question – how do you control tourism without harming the local economy? Enough of the lecturing.
With the Venice lagoon out of sight we relaxed in the stern and soaked up the sun. It was lovely, especially after miserable London – the sun on the sea, the warmth on our skin – we breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Nick – But this was party time so, eventually, I suggested a shower and a change of clothes before taking a glass of wine and nibbles in the for’ard lounge. With little competition, we found a table overlooking the bow with the bridge directly above us. Chilling out, we played captain as we sat and watched the sunny world moving towards us as the horizon ahead remain stationary. Somewhere over that horizon was Greece, our home.
Nancy – Hours passed and we both had a bit of a doze as the sun went down. I checked out the duty-free shop and bought some perfume, I had suddenly run low.
Nick – It amazes me how Nancy can suddenly run low just when there is a duty-free shop to hand and especially when she has so many perfumes already. I have one fragrance which is quite enough.
Nancy – He hasn’t got a clue, poor fella. Fragrances are like shoes and handbags, you can never have enough! Nick likes ‘Issy Miyake’ for men but he calls it his ‘smelly stuff’. I buy him one as a Christmas present so he never runs out.
Nick – I explored the ship and all its little forgotten corners. In one of those corners, I found, looking alone and uncelebrated, an oval plaque which proudly bore the name “Hellenic Spirit. ANEK lines. Chania” prefixed by the abbreviation “M/V”, which I discovered stands for “Motor Vessel”, the common prefix for passenger ships. Around the top was the name of the shipyard, “Fosen Mek. Verksteder A/S” (“Verksteder” means workshop and “A/S” means a limited company). Below that were the words “Rissa, Norway 2001”. So, it was made in Norway for ANEK lines, Chania, Crete in 2001.
It is difficult to explain the place of ships in Greece’s heritage. They operate just like buses, between the islands and the mainland. Except that watching one dock in Symi is more like watching ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The enormous craft slowly positions itself, inch perfectly, for docking, its machines hissing and clanging as it makes slight adjustments. Like ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, there is a bang as the ramp at the stern begins to lower. I always expect a little alien to be standing there, backlit by a bright light! Then from the bridge come instructions over the loud speakers to the passengers as they gaze out of their portholes, having been transported through time and space.
ANEK is the largest passenger shipping company in Greece and started in 1967 after a Cretan car ferry sank with the loss of 200 lives, amid a scandal about safety regulations. On Crete, people from all walks of life, got together to start up this multi-shareholder company to provide safe and reliable transport and connect them with the rest of the planet.
As I stood there on this empty ship, plying its way south down the Adriatic, I imagined it being launched into Norway’s icy waters before an engineer came along to solder this plaque into place, and proudly give it a last polish with his oily rag.
Nancy – Come on Nick I am getting grumpy, I need food.
Nick – At the far end of the stern, down some steps, I found the doghouse. Mustn’t tell Nancy, she will be tempted to send me there. In Britain, if your pet crosses the channel it must be vaccinated, microchipped and have a pet passport. In Greece, however, shipping travel is predominantly internal, and the ships have kennels on board so the owners can take their pets on holiday or to visit relatives. It is wonderful to see them fussing them or walking them on the decks instead of worrying about them left all alone at home. Sometimes they even bring smaller lap dogs into the ship’s lounges.
Nancy – Nick!
Nick – So it was off to the restaurant. This was not a time to argue! A hungry Nancy is a formidable foe.
Nancy – We had a choice of 2 restaurants, the a-la-carte and the self-service. The a-la-carte looked posh but empty. We imagined us sitting there feeling superior but pitiful in our isolation. Not quite us. The self-service restaurant seemed to do similar food and had more people in it. Despite being hungry, I was in the mood to have fun.
Nick – One whiff of food and Nancy cheered up. We collected our dishes and headed for the till.
This is where it got silly. I had been on the lookout for the Retsina but there was not a bottle in sight! The steward at the till, smartly dressed in his waistcoat and bow tie, was totting up the bill when I asked him, in my best Greek, if he had any Retsina. Well, I couldn’t be sure whether he answered me or not so I repeated the question, checking my Greek to make sure I wasn’t saying something rude. Again, he seemed to ignore me. I looked at Nancy who looked back at me. Perhaps he was a friend of those travellers we had met in our digs in Padua. ‘Retsina?’ I asked, leaving out all the complicated Greek. Then we saw it. He lifted his chin the merest smidgen. It was almost unnoticeable.
Nancy started giggling which set me off. I looked back at the waiter, pointed a finger at his chin and, lowering my right eyebrow, said, ‘Is that a “Yes” or “No”.’ The waiter lifted his chin ever so slightly, again, but this time he had a slight smile of his own. ‘Is that a yes?’ I said. Another chin. It’s a, ‘No, you haven’t got any Retsina?’ There was another tilt of the chin. ‘Okay, I get it. You haven’t got any Retsina,’ tilt of the chin, ‘so I’ll have a bottle of red.’ We were all laughing as he opened a bottle of red for us. Greek lesson over. We soon learnt that, in Greece, a slight lift of the chin means ‘No’ or, if you are on the road and meet another driver coming the other way, ‘Hello’.
Nancy – I am very quick at picking up mannerisms and, without helping it, I sometimes lift my chin to say ‘No’ to Nick. He hates it.
Nick – It is usually when we have had a falling out and I can’t get Nancy to acknowledge a word I’m saying in the first place. It drives me bonkers!
Nancy – I know!
Nick – Nancy tried the fish, I had ‘Keerino brissola’ – pork chop to you and me. Greek pork chops are enormous and delicious.
Nancy – I went easy on the red wine waiting for a nice glass of white in the lounge later.
Nick – After a very giggly meal, we did eventually reach the lounge.
Nancy – It was Nick’s fault, he kept messing around.
Nick – I settled in with the rest of the red and Nancy found a ‘very satisfactory’ white. It was 9ish but there was hardly anyone else around. Music was playing and we were not in a hurry to retire, after all we had earned this break and there was nothing to get up for the next day, but it was going to be a long night in an empty bar. Then, as if on cue, several white coated crew members arrived, ordered a round of drinks and began laughing and joking as they relaxed. Most irregular. What would the captain think?
Then the captain arrived. It was his birthday. They toasted him and then began to take turns in singing karaoke songs and reciting party pieces. It was just what the doctor ordered. Even the captain took his turn.
Nancy – But who’s driving the boat?
Nick – Steering the ship darling. Have another glass of wine.
Yippee! Greece at Last
Nick – The cabin was comfortable, not that either of us particular noticed. We slept like logs. Nancy, now I know why I married her, left me sleepy in bed and returned with coffee. Outside it was sunny and the sea was still there, and still blue.
As we lay, looking out of the window, I could see the journey in my mind. There was our ship, like a small, metal monopoly piece, speeding down the map of the Adriatic. Off the starboard side was the Italian coastline and on our port side, to the east was the Adriatic coast. When we left Venice, we were opposite Slovenia but now, if we were close enough, we could have seen the myriad of beautiful islands and beaches that make up Croatia. One of the oddest things about the Adriatic coast, that maybe reflects the discord in the area, is that the country of Croatia is cut completely in 2 by a 12-mile strip of coastline allowing the otherwise landlocked Bosnia Herzegovina access to the coast. So, if I want to go from north Croatia to south Croatia I must pass through another country. I was reading, however, that Croatia is building an enormous bridge to avoid the need.
This is the Balkans. After the wars in the 1990s, they are still seen by many as unstable, with ethnic and nationalist feelings running high. I remember when Nancy and myself were travelling in Croatia we were relaxing on a beach when we realised that on both sides of the bay, were the shells of burnt out hotels, legacy of the wars. We were ignorant tourists
Nancy – Breakfast was calling, so after a slow, luxurious shower we found croissants and coffee and ate them on deck. We had all day to loaf about and intended to make the most of it. You can see Nick has gone quiet because when he is left with just lazing about he has very little to say. He is not very good at doing nothing. We walked the deck, explored the upper decks and went down the front of the boat
Nick – The bow darling. The bow is the pointy bit. And it is a ship. A ship usually crosses oceans, is big enough to have a crew, and, what everyone always says, a ship can carry a boat but a boat cannot carry a ship.
Nancy – So, darling, if I have a motor boat big enough to cross the channel, with a tender hanging on the back and have you as crew member, it is a ship.
Nick – I was trying to be authoritative.
Nancy – Patronising, you mean.
Nick – I suppose so. Ship or boat? The answer is: there is no definitive answer. Some people say it has to have an extra deck to be a ship or be over 40 tons weight but the fact is that humans always want a finite answer with everything nice and neat but in this case the argument just seems to go round and round.
Nancy – We went down the front of the boat, took an empty table and watched the world come towards us.
Nick – Unawares, we sailed south between Albania and the heel of Italy, while the Adriatic Sea changed into the Ionian Sea even though it looked the same. We were due into Patra at 8.30 that evening and had one stop to make beforehand, at Igoumenitsa – try saying that fast, the morning after the night before.
At 2 o’clock, we left the back of Corfu on our starboard side and Igoumenitsa appeared in a small bay ahead. We went astern and watched a handful of people leave the boat and a handful join it. This was sleepy Sunday.
The first time we took a carload of essential items to Greece, we left the boat at Igoumenitsa and drove to Athens across the mainland.
Nancy – ‘Ship’, we left the ‘ship’!
Nick – We could remember every little detail of the drive and, from the bow, could trace the coast road we had taken and the mountains of the mainland behind it. Today, though, we were floating in a blue, indolent haze. Islands came and islands went, the Peloponnese rose out of the sea and then we turned left into the gulf of Patra.
Nancy – ‘Port’, darling. We turned to ‘port’!
Nick – For goodness’ sake, go back to sleep.
As the sun set behind us, the lights of Patra appeared as distant dots on the horizon. Slowly they grew into the shape of a city and within one hour we were on dry land, signing in at the reception desk of Hotel Delfini (Hotel Dolphin). Remarkably, we found it by following our noses, without a hitch and without the need for a sat-nav. Wonders will never cease!
Nancy – Hotel Delfini is a grand hotel, right on the sea front, that was offering a good rate for one night. Patra is renowned in Greece for its festivals, especially its carnival, and when we stayed before, we arrived in the middle of one. Brilliantly situated in the centre of town for restaurants and bars, we were kept awake, most of the night, by the thumping of a sound system in a nearby square. This time we chose a quiet hotel on the edge of town with a view of the sea. All we needed was a place to rest our head and close enough to a place to eat. The staff were friendly and we fell back into practicing our best Greek which brought the usual mixture of smiles and approval. Like all countries, Greece really appreciates travellers who at least attempt to speak the language rather than those who merely raise their voices as if the locals are deaf.
Nick – Our room was a little tired, but we weren’t going to be there long enough to rate it. Because we were only carrying one change of clothes we washed some essential items in the sink and put them on the balcony, in the hope that they would be dry enough to wear the next morning. After rapid showers, we had no option but to wear the same clothes we had worn that day. Desperately, we sprayed ourselves with our smellies in the hope that no one would notice. Nancy used her expensive new Chanel for the first time, not bad, but we must have smelt like a bordello as we went searching for a taverna.
Not 200 metres from the hotel, note the change from yards to metres, we found an acceptable restaurant on the beach, overlooking the sea. Mind you, it was so dark out there, it could have been the Sahara Desert for all we knew.
It is very odd. In Britain, we had been lucky enough to live by the sea for over 10 years. However, every time we booked a holiday, at home or abroad, we chose exactly the same kind of place – on the sea, by a beach and a harbour, and somewhere with a bit of history. After a while, it dawned on us that we both have a love affair going on with the sea.
When we moved to Greece, we bought a house next to the sea, with a small harbour, a beach and a bit of history! Now that we had been at sea all day, what did we do, we chose a restaurant by the sea even though we couldn’t see it! Are we boring or what!
It was a lovely restaurant but being out of season, and a Monday, it was completely empty, apart from us. The waiter, the son of the owner, wanted to talk (this must be Greece) and, after a couple of bottles of Retsina, we became garrulous. We spoke to him in Greek, well a sort of Greek, and he replied in better English than our Greek. It is the usual interchange we have in Greece, both sides wanting to practice the other persons language. As usual, he stayed long enough to pull out a seat at our table and make himself at home, and we exchanged histories. By the end of the evening we were great friends.
Nancy – My cold had developed and I was at the sneezing stage. Apparently, because sneezing was once an early sign of the plague in Britain we still say, ‘Bless you.’ In Greece, it’s the same, we say, “Yassou” meaning “Your health”. However, this evening, when I sneezed, our host used the word ‘Yitses’. That was a new one on us so the p
oor young man was forced to explain that it was a word brought down to the towns by the old mountain folk and means – yes, you’ve guessed it, ‘Your health.’
Nick – I am afraid we are real Grecophiles so you may have found that part boring.
Nancy – Thank you darling!
Nick – Sorry dear.
Nancy – Because we had been away for 2 weeks we were simply happy to be back and chose typical Greek food to eat, and it was delicious. At last, we were on home soil.
Day 5, The Road to Athens
Nick – You may be pleased to hear that the journey from Patra to Athens, all 130 miles of it, was uneventful. A scenic ride in 2 legs. The first took us southeast along the top of the Peloponnese, for 80 miles, then the second, northeast into Piraeus, Athens, for the boat at 3pm.
It was a glorious Tuesday morning, the sun was beaming and so were we. This was the last journey by bike before we caught the ferry to Symi and home. Three more hours sitting astride, what by now had become, our trusty steed, and that was it, done. We had decided the night before to hit the trail and catch breakfast on the way. With 5 hours to do a 3-hour journey, we took our time getting up and were still donning our helmets around 9, pure luxury.
Despite having a terrible night’s sleep in Patra, the last time we visited, we really liked the city. It is the third largest city in Greece and being a university city, it has a young population and thus a thriving nightlife with some really good restaurants and tavernas.
Nancy – Typical, all about food and drink. Patra is the place where St Andrew lived, and preached Christianity, and where he was horribly crucified by the Romans. He chose to be crucified on a diagonal cross because, as history has it, he thought he was not worthy to be crucified on the same shape cross as Jesus.