gud to be bak... gud to be bak... as Slade once said.

Well we've made it back to Sunny Greece once more and this time we've taken a different travel method to get here which I will briefly relate here as it may be of some use to anyone else wishing to drive out rather than be stuck in a damp stuffy old aeroplane.

Picture: Geoff and Sandra on the "Pride of York" Just prior to leaving Hull.

Picture: Geoff enjoying a glass of very nice wine after a great meal onboard the P&O Ferry

We decided to try the Hull - Zeebrugge Ferry as it's only about 30 miles into Hull from our village and also it save a 250 mile drive down to Calais or Folkestone for the channel ferry or tunnel. With us having Sandra's dad with us this time we would need to have an overnight stop on the south coast so some of the cost of the ferry was offset by this. The cost for three of us with two inside cabins (although we were upgraded to outside ones) and the cars was £370 Geoff's cabin obviously had a single room supplement on it. This price also included all our meals (3 course evening meal and buffet breakfast) which were good restaurant quality and basically eat as much as you want. Just a bottle of wine to pay for at about £12 which is reasonable. The ship is very well set up to fill the time of day for you with a cinema and cabaret on board. Despite the choppy seas everyone arrived in Belgium the next morning having had a good comfortable nights sleep. We disembarked at at about 09:30 finally getting on the road for 10 o'clock heading for Brussels and filled with Diesel at 1:24 Euros and on to Luxembourg, Strasbourg and then to our overnight stop at Kepple - Grafenhausen in Germany. Two road tolls on this leg of the journey for A4 Metz to Strasbourg (4.80 Euros) and A4 just outside Strasbourg (7.90 Euros) it could be avoided but it's more miles to do so. Total Miles from Zeebrugge to here 370.

We stay at the Eurohotel which is about half way between Strasbourg and Basel on the E35 and very conveniently placed about 400 mts from the motorway so no big detour to get on and off for the night. A meal in one of the restaurants in the old Bavarian village set us up for the night. Bed and Breakfast in the hotel is 62 Euros breakfast for a double room and 49 Euros for a single, Breakfast 8 Euros per person. Next morning at around 08:00 after a fine buffet breakfast and a fill up with diesel at 1.21 euros, we set off for Switzerland.

The border control at Basel checks for a valid vignette to use the countries motorway and tunnel systems. The last time we came through with a 2009 one and they did not stop us but this time they did so we had to buy one for 2010 at 30 Swiss Franks, give them Euros and they give you the change in Franks so I don't know where we will spend those HMmmmmm.

Once into Switzerland keep heading for the Gottard tunnel which is the longest in Europe I think at 18 kilometers and is a masterpiece of engineering although the ventilation system didn't seem to be working particularly well when we went through it and although we were recirculating air in the car you could still get a whiff of the fumes from outside. On exiting the tunnel keep going on the same road heading for Italy and Milan and you enter Italy in their lake district at lake Como. There are two motorway tolls north of Milan one just outside Como and the other just before Milan at 1.80 Euros and 1.40 Euros respectively. From Milan follow the motorway across the north of the country to Venice passing Lake Garda on route the toll for this section of the journey is 17.70 but it's almost door to door and after departing the motorway it's only a couple of miles to the causeway which takes you into Venice and the ferry terminal. Total mileage driven from Germany to Venice 422, arriving at 15:45.


Picture: On the "Lefka Ori" leaving Venice in places you can almost reach out into the streets pretty good vantage point methinks.


We caught the Anek lines ferry for Igoumentisa and Patras (you pay the same price for either destination) and enjoyed the beauty of Venice as the ferry slowly made it's way through the town, unfortunately it was sort of twilight when we departed at 20:00 so we could see it great initially but things got rather dark towards the end although the lights in the town are a special sight. It takes about an hour to leave Venice astern.

Picture: Sandra and her Dad sat in Venice harbour waiting to depart, yes it was cool but it had been raining most of the day, and you're 500 miles further north than here.

The food on board Anek Lines is not as good as P&O but it's still adequate and not too expensive, again we had been upgraded with our accommodation to big family rooms instead of our normal budget jobs which was very nice but all rooms are the same size when you're asleep. The ship is a bit like a cruise liner with swimming pool etc but for us it's just a transport system although people do seem to make use of it. It's a full day to Igoumenitsa and two nights on board if you want to go to Patras. We arrived in Greece at 8 o'clock in the evening although it was gone half past when we got off the ship, then just about an hour and a bit to home.

Right well that's just about got the nuts and bolts of the journey out of the way, I'm sure that the people back at home will be wondering how Geoffrey has coped with it all. Well, as a couple of people saw before we set off the car was as usual packed to the gunnel's and a small cocoon area left for Geoff. I thought this may be a little claustrophobic for him but he seem to enjoy being wrapped in his own little chrysalis. He relished the ferry journeys and marvelled at the scenery all the way here and to date seems as if he's born to it. Yesterday and today the temperatures have been in the low to mid thirties and because of the dry heat (and the shade) he seems quite happy sitting here on the balcony watching the world go by.

When we arrived back at our house at about 10 pm on Wednesday night we turned on the water and found to our dismay that water was squirting all over the bathroom so we had to fill up some containers and turn the water off again until I could look into it on Thursday morning. I found that we had not one but two cracked fittings on the shower taps so having purchased two replacement bits and fitted them turned the water back on to find that a washer had gone in the toilet feed and it was also leaking all over the bathroom, this I hadn't noticed because of the spectacular nature of the first waterfall. I improvised a new washer in true Waddingham/Heath Robinson Fashion and fixed this. Then the toilet would not stop flushing so I've had to strip down the entire cistern to get that to work again. The house has had a thorough clean from top to bottom to get rid of all the things which have taken up residency since we left in June spiders flies and the like, although knowing Sandra's must do attitude towards the hoover this would have happened even if she hadn't found a dead fly anywhere. all this and more was ably assisted by our new apprentice Geoff.

Anyway Geoff has now been introduced to the notable locals and I'm sure will be speaking fluent Greek by the end of the first week here as he made passable attempts at French, German and Italian on the journey here.