Once again we are feeling like we are running out of time and having to pass on places that we want to visit. Corfu was one of the places in Greece that Ton really wanted to visit. When she lived in England a long time ago she remembered a TV show she really liked that was set in Corfu so here we are.
Getting here was a bit of an adventure. Corfu is an off shore island and requires a ferry to get here. We were looking at options for the ferry and the best place looked like Igoumenitsa in Greece. It was about 200 miles, but google had it at over 5 hours driving time for cars. Talking to Albanians they mentioned an alternative which was a ferry from Sarande in Albania to Corfu. Some on line research showed one ferry a day leaving at 4 pm but since there is a time zone change it would also arrive at 4pm. The problem the website was unclear about the price for François. It showed a price for campers (in Europe that usually means trailers) and passenger vans, but not motorhomes. Ton and I had a lot of discussion about what to do and finally we decided to head to the ferry terminal in Sarande.
The initial drive to Sarande was unexpectedly easy. The road had been recently upgraded, and we covered the first 150 km’s much faster than we anticipated. We were both congratulating ourselves on our good decision when Greta Garmin told us to exit our good road. First we saw a sign indicating Sarande, then right behind a sign with a big ! and 10% grade. I could see it switchbacking up the mountain in front of us and thought the last 35km’s were going to be a little more challenge.
While the road was a little rough and very steep, we really had no big adventures in the hour it took us to cover the 35km’s. The real adventure began in Sarande. I had programmed the ferry terminal into Greta, but I told Ton to watch for signs for the ferry terminal as the roads into the ferry terminals are usually pretty wide to accommodate truck traffic. But as we got nearer and nearer to the terminal there were no signs for the ferry, just busier urban roads. Finally we got to a road marked one way, but also with a do not enter sign for trucks and busses. We are neither but my alarm bells were going off.
The road itself was one lane wide and plenty wide enough for François if the good people of Sarande had any self discipline. The problem was that about every 50 yards would be some uncaring person double parked and reducing the lane to about 7.5 feet, we were just squeezing thru with inches to spare on both sides, between the trees and light poles on my side and the inconsiderate person on Tons side. I think it was the most stressful kilometer I have driven here. There are no pictures because we were both too busy trying to not scrape François.
When we finally reached the ferry company they told us we were too tall for their boat, they could have listed the height restriction on their website it would have saved us a lot of effort. So we were off to Igoumanista. After back tracking and squeezing down the same road again we were off to Greece, and the drive was easy. At the border we seemed to bother the Greek Immigration guy as he was engrossed in a Soccer game, so he stamped our passports and moved us on quite quickly.
We made it to Igouminista where we had our choice of ferries, and were loaded and underway 15 minutes after we arrived. We have settled into a big campground that is due to close at the end of the week for the winter, there is one other couple on site. Tomorrow we will be off to see Corfu.