Once we got the news that it was time to go to Australia, it also meant that we had to get ourselves and Blac back to Belgium ASAP. First though, we had visitors (in Greece) until New Years Day, so we'd had to leave as soon as they had gone.
To facilitate a speedy return across Europe we booked a ferry ride from Patras (Greece) to Venice (Italy). This ferry trip was scheduled to take 31 hours, and saved us a bit over 1300kms of driving (by my calculations), and many border crossings (through Macedonia and Serbia, which isn't like crossing Schengen borders). The drive, from Athens to Patras plus Venice to Belgium, was approximately 1400kms.
If you take one of these ferries with your motorhome in summer they allow you to 'camp onboard' ie, you can sleep in your own motorhome. Unfortunately this isn't allowed in winter, and tickets weren't cheap so we bought the cheapest ones available: deck.
I searched online but I couldn't get much idea of what to expect with sleeping in 'deck' class. I knew we should take blankets and cushions, and that best sleeping places for deck customers are typically quickly snapped up. I was a little worried that we'd have 2 sleepless nights. However, when we boarded I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the seats for sleeping. There was even room to stretch out, bench seats. And, in low season everyone gets an okay spot to kip.
We also took 'picnic' food onboard, which saved us buying quite so much food at the cafe.
For anyone else wondering what deck sleeping on an Anek - Superfast Ferry is like, here's a picture from our ferry.
To facilitate a speedy return across Europe we booked a ferry ride from Patras (Greece) to Venice (Italy). This ferry trip was scheduled to take 31 hours, and saved us a bit over 1300kms of driving (by my calculations), and many border crossings (through Macedonia and Serbia, which isn't like crossing Schengen borders). The drive, from Athens to Patras plus Venice to Belgium, was approximately 1400kms.
If you take one of these ferries with your motorhome in summer they allow you to 'camp onboard' ie, you can sleep in your own motorhome. Unfortunately this isn't allowed in winter, and tickets weren't cheap so we bought the cheapest ones available: deck.
I searched online but I couldn't get much idea of what to expect with sleeping in 'deck' class. I knew we should take blankets and cushions, and that best sleeping places for deck customers are typically quickly snapped up. I was a little worried that we'd have 2 sleepless nights. However, when we boarded I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the seats for sleeping. There was even room to stretch out, bench seats. And, in low season everyone gets an okay spot to kip.
We also took 'picnic' food onboard, which saved us buying quite so much food at the cafe.
For anyone else wondering what deck sleeping on an Anek - Superfast Ferry is like, here's a picture from our ferry.
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| Sleeping on the Deck of an Anek - Superfast Ferry. |
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| Our journey from Venice to Belgium took us through Austria, which we needed to do before there was much more snow. |
Want to say Thank You for your reports on overlanding Europe!
ReplyDeleteAnd wish you all the best for Australia!
Hopefully you will continue this blog some day travelling through Down under ...
Jogi