Sounds perfect, and it would be if it was mid-afternoon and you were stretched out on the beach at Woolacombe or Tenby, but we are on Greece's Ionian coast and this is the temperature at 4am. Well, that's the outside temperature, the van is excellently insulated so it's a few degrees warmer inside and we are hot, tired, a bit grumpy and awake.
Otherwise things are great, we escaped crowded Corfu two days ago and drove to a campsite a few kilometres south of Igoumetsita. We had no high hopes regarding Camping Kalami, it was simply a convenient ACSI site on the road south towards Lefkada. In fact it has proved to be rather splendid.
The terraced pitches overlook a big bay, mountains fall straight into the sea, some rocky, others forested, and the pitches are shaded.
So too is the site's narrow beach, a bit gravelly, but a fabulous place to swim. So we'll stay here for a few days until we start to run out of food and need to shop.
We do try to stay in touch with events no matter what 'corner of a foreign field' we happen to be camped in. Three days ago we excelled ourselves, briefly ahead of the curve when Sarah Whatsapped Gill well before the story broke in the mainstream media with, "btw sounds like this might be it for the Queen." Soon our phones filled with less succinct but more deferential confirmations. Anyone who has read the blog will understand that I am no monarchist. Nevertheless, irrespective of particular political persuasions the significance of the Queen both at home and abroad is undeniable. Her passing will mark the end of an era. Will it changes anything in terms of Britain's future? I doubt it, the arcane rituals of accession, its ridiculous Ruritanian pomp and circumstance, all assert the importance of precedent and continuity. Does anything better encapsulate 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' than the British Constitution?
An aura of cognitive dissonance has pervaded the past few days, events at home at odds with the realities of our travelling life. The only other British person we have come across is here in Camping Kalami. He is married to an Irish woman; they live in County Cork and are travelling through Greece on a journey from Bulgaria to Alicante, having sold a place in the former and bought one near the latter. We chatted about this and that, clearly events in London were not something that concerned him, so we didn't mention them. Nevertheless we check our phones regularly as things unfold, as all the while life goes on.
Our short stay on Corfu had been full of minor irritations - the traffic, crowds, less than amenable locals, - our departure did nothing to make amends. Our ferry to the mainland was at 1pm. We stocked up at Lidl before heading for the port, arriving about an hour before our departure time.
The harbour is quite extensive, big enough to handle the enormous TUI cruise boat that towered over the local ferries.
There was no signage whatsoever to indicate where our ferry might dock. I parked up and Gill headed to the ticket office to ask where we should go. She got short shrift. "You have arrived too early, find a parking place," the somewhat superior woman behind the desk advised.
Gill persisted, "So where is best to park for the ferry to Igoumetsita?" The reply was designed to be as unhelpful possible, "There are many places to park, you are free to choose."
We took to wandering about, an uncomfortable experience in 38° heat. We were not alone, the sole Western Europeans among a gaggle of confused Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Macedonians. Pan-Balkan bewilderment prevailed. Vessels arrived and departed, eventually I managed to match the Cyrillic script on my ticket with some Greek on the side of a small ferry.
This must be it I decided. Dodging the forty ton trucks exiting the boat, which looked too small to accommodate them all, I found one of the crew. I showed him the PDF on my phone. It prompted the first helpful reply of the day, "Yes, bring camper." So we did.
It's only 2km from the north of Corfu to the mainland, but that is part of Albania. The distance from Corfu town to Igoumetsita is somewhat longer, a similar distance as Dover to Calais, but it takes 45 minutes longer. Still, dreaming of being in a slow boat chugging across the flat calm Med, shadows sharp as daggers, the heat soft and voluptuous, it's one of my grey winter's day fantasies back home, so when it's for real savour the moment.
The Albanian coast looked unpopulated and arid, white mountains, gaunt under a white hot sky, just looking at them made me thirsty.
We were placed at the front of the boat so one of the first to disembark. Heading south on the coast road to Parga, two way but narrow, pot-holed and gravelly at times, twisting along the shore, high above a sea glinting silver through the eucalyptus trees - this is the Greece I remember from our travels in the Peloponnese seven years ago! A pang of emotion, like you get when you meet an old friend and assert 'you haven't changed at all'. Not true, but pretence is different from not telling the truth, like in Lear when the old king exclaims, "Oh reason not the need!"
No comments:
Post a Comment