Cretan Diary - The Journey

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The Journey (by Matthew)

Our experiences of driving from Crewe, UK - Crete, GR

The Planning

This was my holiday for 2009 and consisted of travelling to Crete and travelling around Europe. It all came about from some friends of the family, Mike and Jenny , packing up from their life in Cheshire and moving to a sunnier life in Crete, Greece.

They had the dilemma of moving a lot of their possessions and also Mike's office equipment from one country to the other. As my dad is a good friend, both in work and personally, to the family. a suggestion that came up: as well as the usual "sort it through a courier company"‚ was to utilise my Dad's Toyota Hiace and give him the opportunity for a week or two visiting the sights and life of Europe. When the opportunity of joining him was mentioned, I jumped at the chance of a Holiday and, for me, an experience I have never had - to visit and travel through Europe.

It was tasked to me to use my skills on the Internet to look at the logistics of getting across 3 seas and multiple different countries for the most economical price. A slightly harder task than I first thought!

Starting off, I needed to plan the journey. We chose to take the ferry from Dover to Calais and then straight down to the foot of Italy to a port called Brindisi; on to another ferry to the port of Patras in Greece, and head towards Athens, where we could then take another ferry from Piraeus to Heraklion in Crete and drive over to the village near Vamos. Quite an easy-looking trip, summarised in a single paragraph!

The journey, just getting there, would be 2,309 miles and is shown below. (Diesel at an estimated £1.20 per litre and 30mpg = 6.7mpl would cost £413.50 ).

For the return trip we decided that we would like to see a little more of Europe as we would only be driving through France, Switzerland and Italy as quickly as possible to get there and meet the ferries. My only previous trip abroad was to Las Vegas and, although its a pretty fantastic first place to visit for a first time, I wanted to take every opportunity to see Europe on the way back, so my ideal trip would involve seeing a little of Italy, Austria, Germany and Belgium.

This return leg would involve a 2,452 mile trip and is shown below.

Now that the initial plans were pencilled down, it was time to look at the logistics and start getting some quotes together for the ferries.

The Booking

I started off by searching the Internet for holiday booking companies, with the hope of giving them the plan and them coming back with a nice itemised trip, with ferries and information. However, for all the ones that replied, it would appear that they don't class a "self-drive" as a holiday and would not be able to help us out. After this I decided to do the ferry booking myself and talk directly to the companies.

Booking the Dover to Calais ferry was simple. I booked these through www.ferrysavers.co.uk and, for the van and two occupants, we were looking at approx. £120.00 return and all we needed were the driving documents (insurance, proof of ownership etc.), passports and tickets. It turned out that all we needed was a flash of the passports as the technology had taken the Registration plate and already booked us in.

The next stage would be the Greek ferries and, after a bit of searching, I came across a company's website www.greekferries.gr and a lady called Maria who was exceptionally helpful from start to finish. She helped us to select the correct ferries at each stop in line with our time line.

They were as follows.

BRINDISI - PATRAS / ENDEAVOR LINES

Dep. 15.09.09 at 18:30 - Arr. 16.09 at 10:30 / Ferry: Ionian Queen

PIRAEUS - HERACLION / SUPERFAST FERRIES

Dep. 16.09.09 at 15:30 - Arr. 16.09 at 22:00 / Ferry: Superfast XII

HERACLION - PIRAEUS/ SUPERFAST FERRIES

Dep. 21.09.09 at 23:45 - Arr. 22.09 at 07:30 / Ferry: Superfast XII

PATRAS - BRINDISI / ENDEAVOR LINES

Dep. 23.09.09 at 17:30 - Arr. 23.09 at 07:30 / Ferry: Elli T

The total for the ferries was around €640 and included a Sleeping cabin on the Endeavor ferries and deck seats on the Superfast.

OK, that's the important stuff booked; now it's just a case of getting to them all on time!

The Driving

After we had packed the van full (and this was falling out of an open door full!) we set off in the middle of the night towards Dover. We arrived at Dover around an hour early for check in but were pleased to find out that the auto recognition software had already scanned the number plate on the van and checked us in; just a simple case of showing our passports and driving onboard. We even managed to get on the current one earlier than expected.

An Hour or so later and we arrive at Calais and start our ascent through France. We only managed one croissant, petrol and rest stop before arriving at the Switzerland Border Patrol around 12 hours later. This required a flash of the passports and we were on our way again.

Switzerland provided us with a stop for some lunch and a lot of tunnels to drive through (most between 1 and 2 km in length, although the last one was 23kms), so a quick note is to be awake and prepared as the repetitiveness of the tunnel walls and lighting can be quite dangerous if your concentration slips.

We left Switzerland around 3 hours later and arrived in Italy. We were planning to stop in Milan, roughly half way to Brindisi, but the planned stop didn't really work out, as we got lost a few times due to the slow thinking of sat nav and the immensely busy Italian traffic. You will need to keep your wits about you here and constantly check your mirrors as there is a huge amount of carefree/careless mopeds and scooters shooting around into every available gap.

We decided to leave Milan and just get onto the Autostrada (Motorway) which is a surprisingly nice way of travelling. It is all Toll run and will charge you from the entry station to your exit station. Make sure that you keep your entry ticket safe as you will need to hand this over to the Toll operator at your exit. (If you lose this there may be standard toll fine if they cannot trace your number plate from the entry. We know this from experience as, when we decided not to stop in Milan after all, due to the time and there was still 400miles left, we re-entered the autostrada but this time there was no one at the barrier and it was up, so we just drove straight on to it, and carried on to Brindisi, where we were unable to show our entry ticket and, as we didn't have one, were charged 70 euros,) The average charge for tolls was between 5 and 10 euros, but did go as high as 40 and, as we were on a very tight schedule, most of the roads we were on were toll roads, which to be honest were very good.

We made a good drive down the East Coast of Italy and came to a stop for some sleep ( in the cab again). There are a lot of service stations on the way, but it may be best to swot up on your Italian phrases as we found little that could speak English and the old pointing 'I want that please' won't always work. The general phrase books were helpful enough for us to order an expresso, coffee with milk and two Panini!

We only had a day and a half budgeted to drive the 1,298 miles (est. 19 hours) to Brindisi to catch the ferry, which we made with around 4 hours to spare, where a well earned Beer and powernap was taken.

We checked in, and then got onto the second ferry of the trip, where we signed in at the main reception and received our room key. The room itself was nice enough - two single beds; en-suite shower and toilet; everything you need after a 14 hour trip. The food area offered you more Greek and Italian menus, as expected, and it was quite nice. I think we had the meatballs and chips and a side Salad, but there must have been around 8 or so other choices. After this we went for a coffee and sit down on the deck to enjoy the sights and take comfort that someone else was driving! The dark came quite quickly and so did the cold, so we headed back inside to see what the entertainment was.

There wasn't a huge amount on offer: some TVs, a small casino (fruit machines and a roulette table) and a small duty-free shop, so sleep was a reasonably good idea here.

In the morning, after a nice shower, we packed up and got back to the van so that we could start the Greece leg of the journey. The sun was out in full and it was hot in Patras, but we had another ferry to catch so effectively drove all the way through to Piraeus along the Greek motorways (which were excellent, the best yet, and no tolls).

NB. Almost all the main roads in Greece and Crete seem to resemble a one lane road with a metre or so 'hard shoulder'. The driving etiquette here involves driving as far into the hard shoulder as you can (without coming off) to allow anyone faster (and usually crazier, given some of the bends) space to overtake you. We found no trouble on the roads and it was fairly scenic and quite a pleasure, albeit slightly un-nerving with the amount of Shrines along the side. (It would appear custom over there to have a shrine erected as a memory in the spot that someone has died).

We made it to Pireaus in good time, but you need to note the port number you are leaving on as there are around 14 to choose from. We got lost a few times, driving around the one we thought was correct, but eventually found someone who understood us and helped point the van in the right direction. Boarding again provided no problems after checking in and we drove onto the rather nice looking 'SuperFast'. This was a lot tidier that the Endeavor, but was only going to be providing transport for around 7 hours, so we decided not to purchase a cabin here and stick to the chairs/deck seats. There were plenty of seats on board, some more shops, quiet areas to sleep and another well-stocked food court; even a pool on top deck if you felt adventurous (we didn't, but it was still pleasant, sunny and warm out there anyway).

Night was approaching when we started to pull into Heraklion's Port and the scenery of Crete's hills and the winding street lights were quite pleasant. We drove off and completed the last leg of this journey in one go (you can certainly appreciate how hard the van had to work with a full load and a very hilly terrain), but a couple of hours later, around midnight, we arrived in the village, after taking a few wrong turns down very narrow and windy roads.

We called our friends up for some guidance, but unfortunately only had a sleeping dog as a landmark! Fortunately this made sense to him and he set off to act as guide for us to their new home.

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