Preparing for the trial run...

On our return home from Parga back home we started to realise the magnitude of all what we needed to plan and only three months in which to achieve it. There were lists to write of what was needed, routes to plan through Europe, ferries and hotels to book etc. As we had never driven in mainland Europe in our own car before (other than a booze and fag run). We had to find out what we needed to do for the car hi viz vests, spare bulbs, warning triangle, car recovery insurance, the list goes on and on.

In addition there was the not insubstantial work of getting the house and garden into some sort of state so it could withstand three months of neglect without taking too much harm.

We looked at various routes through Europe down to Ancona in Central Italy from where we would catch the ferry for Igumenitsa in Greece finally deciding to go through Belgium, Germany and Switzerland rather than through France which is in fact the quickest and slightly shortest route. The reason for this choice is that the Belgian and German motorways are not tolled whereas the French ones are and quite heavily. This we weighed up against the possibility of the none tolled roads probably being in worse condition and also perhaps more heavily used due to the cheaper cost. As we had not travel overland from Yorkshire to Greece we decided that it would be a three stop trip, once a Folkstone before taking the chunnel, then somewhere in between Saarbruken and Strasbourg and a third stop somewhere near Milan with obviously a forth night on the ferry across to Greece. We thought the cost would be something like £800 to £900 for the round trip including ferries accommodation and Diesel. You can get these thing quite horribly wrong!!!

We borrowed a Satellite dish which with look would fit into the car 1.2 Meters. We had asked in Parga what the Expats there were using for UK TV. They said that you could get most of it with a smallish dish although most web site say 2.5 to 3 meters which is bloody huge. Anyway, being the prudent sort I though I would take this 1.2 meter dish and try before you buy rather than drop a cobbler and find I couldn't get anything. I also borrowed a Joker decoder in case my Sky+ decoder didn't work, I hoped it would because the two hour time differential means that many things which you would like to watch are on at silly o'clock.

Anyway, with the preparation work done, well as near done as you can when it's all new to you, we sat back and awaited January 28th 2009 which was "D" day (departure day) for us.

Coming soon "D Day"