My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

…and last night I could­n’t sleep…

Callum and Chris slept on the beach here on Serifos last night cos it was so hot in the tent, even with both doors open, and I slept in the hot tent cos it was so windy down on the beach!!  Callum slept until 8.30 even whilst wild sand­storms raged about him.  The ele­ments are cer­tainly chal­len­ging, and makes us think yet more about cli­mate change and the urgent need to act quickly to avoid yet more wild windy heat that makes cul­tiv­a­tion impossible.

We ate a won­der­ful meal last night up in the old Hora, built on an incred­ibly pre­cip­it­ous hill to avoid attacks by pir­ates,  a truly beau­ti­ful and atmo­spher­ic place and a won­der­ful cafe to match.

So tomor­row we leave Serifos to Kimilos for a couple of days before we get the night boat back to Pireus, and then the train to Thessaloniki and up into Bulgaria and Romania.

But we haven’t yet been able to make reser­va­tions for the overnight train from Thessaloniki.  Crris tried at the sta­tion in Athens, but was told that book­ing was­n’t open yet.  I tried the next day in Athens at the book­ing office and a very help­ful woman told me “Come back tomor­row, or Friday”.  We could­n’t afford and did­n’t want to spend anoth­er couple of days in Athens and when I asked her if we could make the reser­va­tion by phone or inter­net she smiled politely and said “No”.  I asked if she thought it would be OK to get it on the day and she said “Probably” and smiled.  Of course she can­’t guar­an­tee it, and I think her prob­ably is good enough for me.  It’ll have to be!

But it also high­lights that trav­el­ling this way isn’t easy or stress free.  We’re booked on  train from Budapest to Paris and have booked hos­tels in Brasov and Budapest, so let’s hope we can get there!

Why oh why has our gov­ern­ment pledged to keep cheap flights (i.e harm­ful to the envir­on­ment) with­in reach of ordin­ary people, but isn’t doing any­thing to make train travel cheap­er and easier?