What's going on with Leslie and Frans

A long drive of about 1250 miles that we divided in 4 days brought us South to the city of Brindisi in Italy. The first day we camped along the river Moesel in Germany where we experienced some real German “hoempapa” music in the evening. Our next stop was along Lake Lugano, just on the Italian side where we arrived at dawn. From here we drove the next day along Lake Como towards Milan from where we headed south towards the Adriatic coast. An hour driving past Ancona we found a nice campsite for the night and it was funny to experience being the last (and only) visitors for this season. The campsite restaurant’s cook really made an effort to cook a great Italian meal for us. Finally the last stop before the boat in Brindisi was 25 kilometer before this South Italian city. The next morning we went on board of one of the big ferry ships that departs daily from Brindisi to Igouminitsa in Greece. The weather was great and the sea-state was even better, smooth like a mirror! Especially the arrival at the Greek-Albanian coast was very pretty with an amazing sunset over the Greek Island of Corfu. After a short stop on this Island we arrived in Igouminitsa in the dark from where it was about 40 minutes driving to a campsite in Parga along the West coast in Greece.

After a nice relaxed stop for 2 days on a beach campsite in Parga we drove further south and had a cultural stops in Olympia where the birthplace of the Olympics is and where we experienced real life Greek music until the early hours. The drive from Olympia to Mystras, with one of the best conserved Byzantium ruins in Greece, showed us the mountains of this peninsula on it’s best. Our most Southern campsite on the Peloponnesus was at a beautiful beach just South of Monemvasia which is a fortified city that only can be reached by a small causeway leading to a rocky Island and which also is a world heritage site.

After a long coastal drive from Monemvasia up North over some spectacular mountain passes, we stopped at the city of Nafplio for one night (campsite next to an archeological site), before visiting the old Epidaurus Theatre (one of Greeks biggest and best conserved ancient theatres) and crossing the Corinthian canal whit it’s sinking bridges and spectacular views from above when big ships get trough this narrow passage. From here a highways leaded to the hectic city of Athens were it took us a little while to find our campsite due to total traffic chaos. Here I experienced possible the most hectic traffic in all of the European cities. Compared with this chaos, Paris and Rome were “easy”! Athens it self had some beautiful features though. Of course we went to the Acropolis, which was beautiful, but I still think the highlight was our visit to the National Archeological museum. It was amazing how many priceless artifacts were collected here. Furthermore we saw the changing of the guards wearing the “funny” Greek traditional uniforms in front of the memorial of the Unknown Soldier and finally we enjoyed walking around and enjoying good food in Athens most original Greek area, Plaka.

Leaving our car guarded on the campsite in Athens we went on a ferry crossing to the Island of Santorini, which is the most Southern Island of the Cycladic archipelago. The crossing took 9 hours but to save an extra night camping in Athens we combined it with a night so we could have some sleep until sailing at 7 am in the morning into the giant old volcanic crater on which Rim the villages of Santorini are situated. The arrival was amazing. Imagine a 900 feet high crater rim, a blue ocean in front of it, s steep road zigzagging up to the top on which several white cities are build with narrow streets, bars, restaurants, museums, shops, old Greek windmills and not to forget a zillion cats! As we left all our camping gear in Athens we had a reservation for a hotel for 4 nights and we did not regret that for one minute. Hotel “Sunrise” was situated only 10 minutes walking from the centre of the capital city “Fira”. To explore the island we rented a small motorbike, which is great on small roads and hot weather. Especially the little white town of Oia with its white windmills and spectacular sunsets was our favorite. We took way too many photo’s, ate way too much food, spent way too much money but loved every minute of this beautiful spot on the globe which actually is mentioned as being the possible Atlantis that was lost during an earthquake long, long ago.

After returning to the mainland we headed West from Athens to spent some time in and around Delphi were we of course visited the Oracle site, the famous temples and not to forget the local archeological museum. The weather here was somewhat clouded but the temperatures still were very good, considered that it was already almost October!

Up North we did find a campsite close to this “throne of the gods” but again; we were the only campers on the almost closed camping. We did “go out” to the campsite’s nightclub “the shark club” but the only other visitors were some goddess’s statues that stared over the ocean into oblivion! The next day we went to Mount Olympus National Park where we hiked a part up the mountain towards the mountain refuge. Because we did not really schedule a two days hike we turned around but still got a pretty good view of this National Park.

Arriving at the end of the day in Meteora gave us an amazing image on these rock formations on which several monasteries are situated. From our campground in Kastraki we had a beautiful view on this mountain landscape. We spent the whole day climbing steps up and down to visit the six monasteries from which we thought the one that was used in the James Bond movie “For your eyes only” was the most spectacular situated. We experienced Meteora as one of the magic places from our travel although it certainly took some of our physical condition.

Arriving on a campsite that I was on 22 years ago was pretty weird. It seemed that almost nothing changed over the years but I guess that was only a first impression. It was also funny to see that the same neighbors from Meteora also here were our neighbors. In the late afternoon after our arrival we visited a beautiful cave only 15 minutes driving from our campsite and the next day we drove around the Vikos Gorge National Park where we visited some very authentic mountain villages. In the evening we had to leave Ioaninna to head towards Igouminitsa to catch a night ferry back to Brindisi in Italy. When we watched our last sunset over the Greek mountains we felt sad to leave this very nice and hospital country.

After a relaxed night in a private cabin on the ferry we arrived in Italy early in the morning where we started our intended drive towards the capital of Italy, Rome. The weather was so, so with many clouds and now and than even some rain. But after we handled the Rome traffic and navigation to a campsite just outside the circular road around this big city we finally settled down. In the evening we got a touch of the city by visiting the famous Trevi fountains before going on a real sight seeing trip the next day. As we only were in Rome for one full day it was obvious that we had to make choices in what to visit. We ended up by visiting the Vatican museums including the Sistine Chapel, The St Pieter square, the coliseum, the Forum, The memorial of the Unknown Soldier and the Pantheon. In between we enjoyed good drinks but very average food! After a last visit to again the Trevi fountains we went back to our campsite to give our feet the necessary relaxation time before driving back towards our home.

After a long day driving through Italy we found a still open campsite along Lake Lugano (almost déjà vu) for just one night. In the evening we experienced the first cold temperatures since long time and in the morning we had to pack our tent rather quickly due to a morning rain. The last day of our travel was the longest related to miles on one day namely 600 miles. In the evening at about 8.30 am we arrived safely back at our home in Boxtel.