Drive from Prevaza to Athens (With an Ode to BC Ferries)

The drive from Pervaza to Athens requires you to drive under a part of the Med at a narrowing point on the coast. There is a large bay inboard of the Greek coastline here and it creates a very beautiful barrier to coastal access. I’m not sure when the tunnel was built but it sure is cheap to pay the toll on a moto .70 cents E instead of 3.2E for a car. Even a better discount is the Korinthos bridge, the vehicle in front paid 13.20 and we paid 2.20.

The road is marked as E55 and for a bit we seemed to be on some goat trail, not sure if the GPS took us there on a ‘shorter route’ calc or not. I did get back on the more main highway in a bit and headed on it to almost Agirnio when a free Autobahn section opened up on the way to Antirrio the north end of the bridge. We enjoyed this for a while but what was most interesting is the beautiful country that is in this area. As we got closer to the bridge a gorge opened up to the east that was every bit as gorgeous as the Red Rock Canyon near Grand Junction, Colorado.

We crossed the bridge which is always windy and then chose to drive the toll highway to get us into Athens earlier in the afternoon. This section is cheap to drive but is in disrepair so it’s not the best. This section is on the Peloponnese peninsula side and again the gorges that opened up were very pretty, another looking a lot like a larger Dinosaur Park area of Alberta.

We decided at a break in the riding to go to the ferry terminal first to get our tickets for the morning ferry, and the GPS waypoint was dead on, led me right there but the afternoon was very hot, must have been mid 30’s in Athens. Tickets 103E in hand for a 7:25 am ferry to Santorini we headed on to Glyfada where our planned hotel for the night, Blue Sky was. We had stayed here in 2011 so we’d head back again. This was the only thing that didn’t work. Theris success led to a full house so they recommended another hotel in the area, the London Hotel. We drove there,  both skeptical  and the first room they showed us on the 3^rd floor was close to a guy that looked long term and kept his door open and played music.

So we asked about a room on another floor, were showed 1 on the 4^th floor #414, which was good and we showered and changed and I filled the bike with gas, assuming that fuel prices on the islands will be expensive. We then headed to a restaurant in the downtown area of Glyfada and Sandra had stuffed peppers and tomatoes again, and I finally had Moussaka. Hit the hay at 9:25 for a 5:25 wake up call. Room was 55E, paid in advance for a rear facing room with breakfast but we had to get up before breakfast so we asked and she told us that they’d have something for us.

Sure enough at 5:45 am, we came down, the frt desk guy took us to the breakfast room, served us cold meats cheeses, fruit, yogurt and Cappuccino’s. We were very impressed. We’ll have to give the hotel a good review on Trip advisor.

Our drive to the ferry terminal went off without a hitch as well. The streets were very quiet and we got there even before the 1 hr request time, boarded and watched as the last minute rush ensued.

The ferry left exactly on time and then went to Paros first, dumping people off, whipping cars and freight off quickly and all without tying up, then loaded and off we headed to Naxos where they did the same thing. We lost a lot of passengers to Naxos, but since the ferry does a loop we picked up a fair amount as well.  Finally Ios where the ritual was once again repeated. Each of these islands are very small and rural in nature. The draw here is the remoteness and their beaches.