The journey continues...Patras to Piraeus

Trip Start May 18, 2007

Trip End Jul 18, 2007

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Where I stayed

Hotel Lilia Athens

(Athens hotels)

Flag of Greece Piraeus, Attica, Greece
Friday, July 6, 2007

Hi everyone:
Our ferry journey is over and now we are on land for a few more hours before the next and last ferry before we are actually and FINALLY in Greece! This has gone down as our longest travel "day" but a memorable one for sure!

We woke up at 7am after a wonderfully restful night with no bumps or rough seas - just a nice rocking chair for 8 hrs! Beautiful! We had a quick breakfast and went back to the cabin where Ryan quickly fell back asleep until Laurie pulled him out of his cocoon and got ready to disembark! Laurie was aware of people gathering their bags about 2 hrs before we should have and when she asked a crew member he told her that we were only an hour from Patras! WOW, we totally missed the fact that we had a 1 hour time change and a good thing as we would have been scrambling for the dock. The good thing about being first on the boat AND keeping an eye on everything is that we were first in the line to disembark and since we had our bus tickets purchased the night before, we were able to walk off the ferry and board the bus which was waiting for the ferry arrival

Arriving at Ios

. All went VERY smoothly!

The 3 hr bus ride from Patras to Piraeus was not bad and we drove along the Aegean coastline the entire trip. We chatted with a nice man who was a consultant for the Blue Star ferries which we had just gotten off of and he shared a lot of local Greek information with us and things to be mindful of in Santorini.

The bus dropped us off at the Piraeus Port and we got a taxi to our Hotel Lilia http://www.liliahotel.gr/en_reception.htm with tickets in hand for the next and last ferry ride for the morning. The Hotel Lilia was a nice little hotel about 5 minutes from the Port and conveniently located just a block or so from the yacht marina - we tend to attract these big yachts! After check in we wandered down to the marina and found the restaurant which was highly recommended by Nikos at the Hotel Lilia.

We had heard and read so much about these stinking Gyros and Greek salad so we had both and they were delicious and filled us up to the brim! We found a little room for some yummy gelato before heading up to the room where Laurie pulled out all the stops and cut her Canadian Gin losses down a bit, down to $4.00 (I know, big whoop but .40 cents is a TON when playing against the KING of this game

Hotel Lilia at the Port of Piraeus

! Dad - this Canadian Gin is so different than what you and Grandma used to play, and has all sorts of twists and turns. I could swear that Ryan makes up new rules along the way, especially when he is UP 4 bucks on me.... I am working SO hard at turning it around and after 3 hrs of play it is exhausting but I persevere!)

Today's walk: 3.5 miles
Total for the journey (257 miles, 50 days)

Love,
Ryan and Laurie