InterRailing In Italy and Greece

Things got more difficult once we had reached Bari. On arriving at the train station we had no idea how to get to the port. We asked a number of people (finding someone who can speak English can take a few goes) who were able to point in the general direction of where it was. They said it was a fair way and we'd be best off getting a taxi. As there was a big bus area outside the station we felt certain that there must be a simple bus to the port. We looked at the maps of the area but it wasn't obvious where along the coast the port was. We asked at the bus ticket point and were shown a piece of paper showing '20/'. We believed that the man had understood us so we went looking for a number 20 bus. There were no signs for the stop nearby despite there being signs for many other numbered buses. Eventually we found a bus with '20/' on the front. It was at around this point that we realised that a '20/' bus is very different to a '20' bus! What a crazy system.

We got on the bus, bought a ticket off the driver and sat down waiting for the bus to go. After a few minutes he guestured that we needed to get off the bus. We were confused but got off the bus. The driver didn't speak any English but he managed to get someone else to join him who explained that the bus wasn't going and we'd have to wait for the next one in 15-20 minutes. We waited and two minutes later another driver got on the bus. We joined him and managed to understand from him that this bus was going to the port. And so we set off...

After the most complex bus journey ever we arrived at the port. The worker at a nearby tourist information pointed us to the 'SuperFast Ferries' termnial. We headed off to the blue building and checked in. We had a number of hours before we could board so we headed off into Bari and had lunch. Bari is worth a quick walk around if you have time. It has a few attractive building and a nice coast line.

The InterRail ticket includes what is known as a 'deck place'. This means that we don't have a cabin or seat allocated to us. Basically we are hobos on a boat. We managed to spend a few hours in the lounge at the front of the boat, buying a large bottle of water to justify us being there. The ship is a reasonable size if you want to have a walk round. There are two restaurants, a few bars and a shop. The biggest problem for us was where to sleep. We asked at reception about what where we could go. We basically had to find a random seat somewhere. If we could find some airline style seats then we could use them.

We managed to find two free seats and attempted to sleep. We encountered a number of problem.

• The lights remained on throughout the night - an eye mask would be useful here.
• The seats were very unconfortable. There was no way of resting on your side.
• People from around the boat sat outside the seating room talking loadly and not giving any consideration to those trying to sleep.

The food for dinner and breakfast was quite expensive but as we were on a ferry we didn't have much choice. Dinner was a very canteen-style afair. Cerial was available for breakfast but it was very expensive for tiny portions.

We required an compulsary upgrade to InterCity and a reservation to Korinth. We could then get the metro from Korinth to Athens Larissa station. The first thing that strikes you when you try to do anything in Greece is the alphabet. They use the Greek alphabet rather than the Roman alphabet that we are used to (although road signs tend to be shown in both alphabets). Luckily the woman behind the till spoke some English and we were able to get our tickets.

At 13:55pm we boarded our train. It was surprisingly small and slow - Their InterCity train was equivalent to most other places regional train. Fortunately the coastal views from the window made up for it. The train was very clean and had its own cleaner who we saw cleaning the window at the end of our cariage at least three times throughout our trip.

We almost went wrong when the train pulled into 'Corinth'. We got out thinking it was our stop. Luckily a attendant there stopped us and asked us where we were going. We said 'Athens' and he insisted that we had to stay on the train. We got back on and the trains reversed. Naturally we were worried. Luckily some time later we pulled into 'Korinth' which was the correct stop. From here we got the metro to a stop that they called 'Athens'. It actually turned out to be Larissa station which was near our hotel.