Athens
Rome was soon followed by a delightful overnight ferry trip lasting about nine hours, and involved some ridiculously
uncomfortable seats and about a one metre square space of carpet which quickly became my “bed” for the trip,
though it didn’t take long for the majority of our tour to realise the bar was a much better option than trying to sleep
the trip away. This ferry took us from one ancient superpower’s home to another, with our return to Athens. Like
Paris, we knew we would be returning to Athens so Chris and I had deliberately left some of the things on our to-do
list unchecked, the most significant of which being a trip up a pretty steep hill to the Acropolis. Essentially being an
ancient citadel based on top of a hill, the area contained some pretty important buildings, the most well-known
probably being the Parthenon. Apart from getting a pretty amazing insight into the size of the buildings and
architectural style, the Acropolis is also home to a truly breathtaking view, being completely surrounded by a
panoramic view of the beautiful white city stretching almost as far as the eye can see. From memory it was either
Athens or Rome that we found out that the Egyptian segment of our tour had been cancelled due to some 600
deaths in the days before we were due to fly out, which although was met with incredible disappointment from the
half of our tour that had signed up for it, the realisation that I would be returning to the Greek Islands helped
cushion the blow a bit.
Corfu
From Athens we travelled to Corfu, via yet another one of the most frustrating modes of transport known to man,
which signalled the start of “our holiday within a holiday” as our tour manager so perfectly put it. Whereas the
majority of the trip so far had been comprised of walking tours and early starts, the Greek Islands portion of the tour
was all about relaxing around the pool and on the beach, and really did make for a great week and a bit of relaxation.
Corfu itself, or at least the area of it in which we stayed at, was nothing really special compared to the Greek Islands
we had already visited, though that said it still was a beautiful place. We were pretty isolated in terms of places to
visit, with a few shops either side of our hotel supplying us with food and alcohol and that’s pretty much it. The
highlight was definitely an optional extra that almost our entire tour elected to do, which was a day out on a boat
sailing around the area, stopping off every hour or so for a swim, pretty similar to the boat ride we did on our first
Greek Islands visit.
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