My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

To Greece by train - and other journeys of the mind, body and soul

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Journey Plan

Here’s our updated itin­er­ary — it may still change!. Much is still up in the air, so expect this to change! Many points are still to be set, but we hope to stay on track and avoid going off the rails! (Thanks, Alastair, for keep­ing my meta­phors straight…)

Thu, 16 July Edinburgh d 08:00
London a 12:42 Kings Cross
London d 13:32 St Pancras (Eurostar)
Paris a 16:47 Gare du Nord
(day in Paris)
Fri, 17 July Paris d 20:33 Gare de Bercy
Sat, 18 July Venice Santa Lucia a 09:34 S Lucia
Venice d 22:11 Mestre
Sun, 19 July S Lucia d 07:15
Ancona a 11:47
Ancona d 17:00 Minoan Lines
Mon, 20 July Patra a 15:00
Patra d 17:07
Kaito a 19:07
Kaito d 19:36
Athens a 21:04 (Larissa sta­tion)
(2 days in Athens)
Thu, 23 July Athens d 4 mins past the hour
Piraeus d 16:00
Paros a 21:00
(camp­ing on Antiparos)
a
Sun, 26 July Paros d 08:25
Serifos a 09:50
Wed, 29 July Serifos d 08:50
Kimolos a 10:25
Fri, 31 July Kimolos d 23:50
Sat, 1 August Piraeus a 06:15
Athens d 14:53
Thessaloniki a 20:51
Thessaloniki d 23:45
Sun, 2 August Bucharest a 17:19
Bucharest 17:33
Brasov a 20:35
(day in Brasov)
Mon, 3 August Brasov d 19:10
Tue, 4 August Budapest Nyugati a 06:17
(day in Budapest)
Wed, 05 August Budapest Keleti d 13:10
Vienna a 16:08
Vienna d 16:20
Salzburg a 18:58
Munich a 20:34
Munich d 22:44 Hauptbahnhof
Thu, 06 August Paris a 09:30 Gare de l’Est
Paris d 11:13 Gare du Nord
London a 12:29 St Pancras
London d 13:30 Kings Cross
Edinburgh a 18:04

11 Comments

11 Comments so far ↓

  • Albert Beale

    Aha — so you _are_ cross­ing from Italy to Greece by boat, and not brav­ing the still-rather-rup­tured, I think, routes through former Yugoslavia on the way out.
    Sounds like a nice 24-hour cruise! My equi­val­ent boat trip — dec­ades ago — was from Brindisi, not Ancona, and I don’t remem­ber it as being that much fun…

  • chris

    That was­n’t the trip where the boat from Athens was bombed by the Israeli secret ser­vice was it? (Or have I com­pletely made that up?)

  • Albert Beale

    No — my Patras-Brindisi jour­ney was much earli­er, in my stu­dent bum­ming-around-Europe-for-the-sum­mer era.
    The Israelis blow­ing up the “Ship of Return” (though I guess that’s about 20 years back now!) was luck­ily just before all the Palestinians and the journ­al­ists and the inter­na­tion­al solid­ar­ity act­iv­ists got on board!
    Still, I ended up spend­ing 10 days in and around Athens cour­tesy of Middle Eastern oil rev­en­ues, with some quite inter­est­ing people…

  • Albert Beale

    Actually, the idea of your (not, as it hap­pens) going through former Yugoslavia on the way reminds me that for the first time in very many years I had a genu­inely appro­pri­ate opp0rtunity just the oth­er day — in the con­text of a dis­cus­sion at a book launch in Housmans — to do my party piece about the sub-dia­lect­ic­al vari­ations of Serbo-Croat. A party piece which I fear you, Chris, must have had inflic­ted on you at some stage over the years I’ve known you…

  • Alastair Cameron

    “Much still up in the air,” you say — what about all those nitrous oxides??! Get your decisions made straight away, for the sake of the environment…

  • chris

    Hah! You’re right enough. Must mind my meta­phors (good Greek word!). How about “Many points are still to be set, but we hope to stay on track and avoid going off the rails”?

  • Travel update

    […] Journey Plan […]

  • beth

    Hey! my house­mate Emily is in Budapest right now, she says she’s found some lovely thermal baths owned by the city. It would be so amaz­ing if you could meet up, but she’s leav­ing for Belgrade and Sarajevo soon. She stayed in this hotel — Hotel Ibis, Raday Utca 6, Pest. I don’t know if she liked it, but if you need one there one is.

  • jane

    Hi Beth — do you have a mobile for her? Mine is +447519582130 xx

  • Astrid Hess

    oh, I just saw your jour­ney plan — you are going back via Austria, Munic, Paris, London. So obvi­ously no chance to meet.
    If you are in Bucharest you must see Ceausescu’s palace — then you will under­stand the term gigan­to­mania. In Rumania pock­et-pick­ing is epi­dem­ic, btw. People are so poor, some­times it is heart­break­ing, esp. when you see the children.

  • chris

    Thanks for the warn­ing, Astrid. We already had purses stolen on the Athen metro, so we are being hyper-vigil­ant 🙂 Sorry we will not be stop­ping in Germany on this trip — we will see you anoth­er time I hope!

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