London to Athens by train and ferry

The journey

It is said that every journey begins with but a step. In my case, my journey began with a taxi to Nottingham train station. My route down to London was somewhat indirect, featuring a night at my university where I picked up and submitted my bound thesis, but the next day my journey could really begin.

The first stage of the journey was non-stop from London to Brindisi in southern Italy; the journey is relatively quick too: I was standing on the platform of Brindisi station only 26 hours after my train departed from London.

Starting with the eurostar, cloudy London soon gave way to the flat open fields of northern France. After a short transfer from Paris Nord to Paris Bercy, I watched the sun setting over the built-up areas of Paris as the night train pulled out on its way to Milan. Arrival into Milan was at in the daylight at 6am, but I woke an hour earlier to see that the buildings of Paris had been replaced by huge mountains silhouetting the dark-blue sky, and lights winding their way through the valleys. After just an hour at Milan station, I joined a day-train non-stop to Brindisi. Initially traversing the flat rolling hills of Tuscany, the hills slowly grew in number and size as the train made its way south. The sky was clear blue for the whole journey, and although I was separated from the heat by an air-conditioned cabin, it was becoming visibly warmer. By the time the track was following the coast, the sea was light blue, people and boats could be seen enjoying the weather, and the air-conditioning of the train was beginning to struggle to keep the carriage cool. The approach of the deep south was marked by the obvious presence of Palm trees, and this is what greeted me when finally arriving in Brindisi.

It would have been possible to transfer directly to a ferry, but I wanted to take a break and visit nearby Lecce (called "the Florence of the south") so I stayed one night in Brindisi and had a few hours exploring Lecce, before catching an overnight ferry to Patra in Greece, where I was met by the cousin of a friend. There was some time before the train, so we had a nice Pita-bread Souvlaki lunch. Catching the train, eventually, finally, after a further 4 hours, I finally reached Athens, completing the 3000km journey in a little over 4 days.



The next move

Far from being bored on such a long journey, when I wasn't looking at the scenery, I was thankful that I could take the time to read my guidebooks and plan my trip in more detail. It became obvious that Greece deserved far more attention then as a brief stop-over on the way to Istanbul, as I had originally planned, I may now spend up to a week here, visiting some of the key world heritage sites, and visiting some islands (boat schedules permitting). In addition, it has become necessary for me to return to England briefly during my trip, and this will probably happen in 4 weeks. My intention is to fly out and back again to the same place, without breaking the route, continue from where I left off, and maintain the "overland" aim as I push eastwards. Finally, the situation in Iran at the moment is too hot, and I'm monitoring it closely, considering how it might effect my trip. There is very little danger for me, but if communications are limited and public transport is heavily disrupted, it will make it difficult to travel through what is already a challenging country. Stay tuned to see what happens...