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Day 22
We slept very late, having had such a poor night’s sleep on the boat the previous night. We got two scooters, using Sunil’s driving licence and mine. Ironically, Sunil has a licence but doesn’t drive. In fact I think the last time I saw him drive a car was shortly after he passed his test, so Chris and I did the driving, with Nathalia on the back of mine, and Sunil riding with Chris. This meant that we had at least one licence holder per bike.The first stop was Fira, the capital of Santorini and the location of the old port. Parking the scooters in the main square, we went looking for the cable car. Fira may be right on the coast, but it is actually built on the top of a cliff, so to get to water level you either have to climb down a very long and winding staircase or take the cable car, which we did. The town was very nice – unlike Perissa or Kamari it had more of a working sense about it. Dozens of narrow back alleys wound their way through jewellery shops, ice cream cafes, clothes shops, and restaurants, while the main streets were full of traffic and had businesses of all sorts. All the buildings were painted white, and the town appeared to be spotlessly clean.
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Day 21
It was about 12:30am when I first woke up, to find that Sunil and Nathalia had disappeared. A note was on the table explaining that my bag had been hidden under my chair. Curious, I picked up my bag and went to look for them.I found them on deck, right at the back of the boat, asleep in their own little windstorm. No-one was sleeping nearby, probably because they had at least half a brain and didn’t want to wake up with frostbite. This must have been Sunil’s idea, I thought, and with that I went back to the Saloon. I moved to the other side of the room, where a sizable area of sofa had been vacated, but a plastic bag clearly marked territory. I decided that the person didn’t need quite that much room, so I used the last few inches of the sofa as a pillow, which at least meant I didn’t have to sleep with my neck bent.
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Day 20
Having checked out, we took our bags down to the basement, and since the lift was out of action, this involved a long trip down the stairs, which passed uneventfully until the last step, where Chris managed to twist his ankle. Having a fifteen-kilo backpack on did not help matters – he limped into the luggage room moaning about being in pain. Being sensitive and caring friends, we immediately went to his aid.
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Day 19
We felt extremely lucky on the morning of unlucky Friday the thirteenth. Until we realised that due to the time difference between Italy and Greece, we had woken up an hour later than planned, and the ship’s crew were already doing housekeeping. A guy who was currently six cabins down the corridor was about to discover a major mismatch between the number of people on his inventory sheet, and the current population of cabin 118.Nathalia and myself were the closest to being ready, so we legged it down the corridor when the crewman was in the next cabin. When he opened the door less than ten seconds later, Chris was still in bed, and Sunil was packing his bag. The other three beds were all made up, and occupied by our luggage. Chris angrily demanded to know why he had been disturbed so early, and countered some suspicious queries by explaining that he was looking after our luggage for us, now would you please go away, we haven’t docked yet.
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Day 18
Brindisi turned out to be quite a nice place, contrary to my expectations of a dirty port town where the water would be basically a mixture of oil and diesel. Emerging from the station was like suddenly being transported into the middle of Las Vegas, but during the daytime. Booking agents competed to produce the largest, loudest and flashiest sign advertising low fares on ferries to Greece.We were wary of these offers, as I’d read reports of many of them being scams. Someone else seemed to be concerned too, and was hanging around the station looking at the various signs. We joined forces and went to the first agent we spotted with an HML (Hellenic Mediterranean Lines) logo, but only to ask them where the HML head office was.
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Day 17
Unlike previous cities where buying tickets for the public transport had sometimes proved difficult, Rome was a breeze. There was actually a ticket machine in the hostel itself, and there are only three types of ticket – a single journey, a day, and a week. I bought a day ticket, and waited for the bus at the stop outside the hostel.The fact that I had successfully purchased a ticket with which I was allowed to travel on any form of public transport in Rome for one day may appear slightly uninteresting, but this ticket that I had confidently pocketed and thought no more about was not yet legal. Rome, like many other cities, uses a system that I think is unnecessarily complicated. You see, the ticket is not valid for travel until the holder stamps the date and time on it using one of the strategically placed validation machines.
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Day 16
My phone had long stopped working, so I had no way of knowing what the time was when I got up. I had arranged to meet John, Chris and Sunil at the Coliseum at noon, so I had plenty of time. Ten days before, I had left them in a concentration camp north of Berlin, and since then they had visited Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Hamburg.I caught the bus and metro, and arrived at ten. Looked round for something to do, and spotted a ‘time elevator’ – a simulator ride thingy classified as ‘edutainment’ all about the history of Rome. Decided to give it a go. Very Disney, but it was quite well put together. It even included a light rain shower when the character on screen ran through a storm. The basic premise is that an Italian scientist invents time travel and goes back to important events in the history of Rome, including the founding by Romulus and Remus, the rise and fall of the Roman empire, history of gladiatorial fighting, the renaissance, and modern day Rome. Apparently there is one of these in London too.
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Day 15
Arriving in Rome, the city’s budget accommodation options were a bit thin on the ground, and availability seemed limited to a huge Hostelling International place a long way from the centre. Having no real choice in the matter, I got on the metro and headed west. I had to get off at Ottavio St Petro and change to a number 32 bus, and finally arrived at the hostel realising that it was actually off my map.It was a typical HI hostel – ultra clean, but anonymous and completely devoid of any helpful utilities like power sockets. It also featured a curfew and a lockout, which wasn’t terribly helpful when it takes so long to get there from the centre.
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Day 14
I woke up to find that the Italian hikers were dressed and packing. I checked the time and decided that 7am was too early for someone of my trekking experience to be getting up, so I dozed until eight, when the last of them left the room, casting an amused glance in my direction.An hour later the other guests were only just ready to check out when I arrived to do the same. I let them go in front, and regretted it. It started cordially enough, but soon arms were flailing and much fast and loud Italian was being exchanged. Eventually they left, and I presented myself to the now very worked up lodge owner to settle my bill. I was then stuck with the same problem the others had had, which was that the lodge’s credit card machine had stopped working. This was quite a problem, because I had no cash and the nearest cash point (ATM) was about 10 km away, and a long way down the mountain. It wasn’t a problem though. The owner wrote down her address and asked me to send a cheque. She didn’t even seem too bothered that it would be a couple of weeks.
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Day 13
It turned out that there were other guests at Zita’s, a German mountain biking couple. They spoke English in addition to German and a smattering of Italian, so we talked over breakfast about walking, cycling and why Britain hadn’t adopted the Euro.I left my big bag at Zita’s, using a complicated series of signs and muttered Italian to indicate that I would return for the next day, but no I wouldn’t be staying the night. I left with my day pack, in which I’d stowed a change of clothes, towel, waterproof, first aid kit, camera, water, map and documents. My plan was to undertake a circular trek back to Cortina, staying in a mountain refuge overnight.