Taking a ferry to Greece- RV and all

Sunday, September 27th,2015 

The next day our group left at noon, traveling 2 ½ hours south to wait for the ferry.  And wait.  And wait some more.  The ferry was late coming in, and was excruciatingly slow getting the trucks off.

 Norm and I have taken several ferries with the RV before, and usually the crew makes you go so fast it’s terrifying.  Tonight there was sometimes  5 to 10 minutes between exiting trucks!  No wonder they were late!  We finally saw that they were requiring these huge tractor-trailors to back up into the ferry!

Our route was from Ancona,Italy  to Igoumenitsa, Greece; on the way back, we will leave from Patras.

Dieter, our tour guide, had given us tips on how to board the ferry the night before.  He explained that we had German license plates, and that the loading crew would be shouting German at us.  He gave us a crash course in German.  All we could remember was that the German word for “left” sounded like “right”, and “back up” sounded like “forward”! Or was it “forward” sounded like “back”? We figured were in trouble!

Internet photo of our ferry

When it was the group’s turn, we all drove on board, and in a matter of minutes we were parked, and we headed off toward our staterooms to ditch our gear.   What we discovered was that the dining room was to close in 15 minutes!  What?  We just boarded, are they crazy?  We all immediately hustled to the dining room, bags and all, and enjoyed a lovely meal together.  We were all a bit frazzled, but with plenty of wine, we all relaxed and enjoyed.


After dinner Norm and I decided to explore the boat.  There didn’t seem to be many people other than a huge group of what seemed like teenagers (probably 20 somethings) having a HUGE party up on deck.  Actually, they had started “partying” earlier in the afternoon.

Everything is "relative"; this inside small stateroom felt like the "Ritz"
after sleeping in our RV's!

 We wanted nothing to do with that, so we checked out the lounge.  There was some guy playing piano in a room with only two other couples.  I cajoled Norm into dancing the foxtrot.  We had not danced in a couple of years, and boy, it showed!  A younger couple looked quite amused as they watched us, and then left.  We bumped into Thomas (the tail gunner) and others from our group and we gambled away a couple of euros  in the slot machines.

After all that excitement, we went to bed around 11PM.  Our staterooms were small inside cabins, but after being in our even smaller RV, it seemed quite roomy!  With a hot shower right there, I felt like I was in the Ritz! Everything in life is "relative"