Crete to Ireland, part 1: Greece

We finally have news that Saul’s passport is in the Irish Consular Office in Iraklio, hooray! This means we can collect it and start our journey back to Ireland. Saul’s Irish passport application has been ongoing since July of last year when we were in Portugal. He finally received his Irish passport in April, as applications were put on hold due to lockdown; but it took an additional couple of months to send back his British passport separately, and we couldn’t leave Crete until he got it back.

So we now are a family of four EU passport holders! Thank goodness, as this gives us the freedom to travel as we please within the EU. Due to Brexit, British passport holders can only be in ‘Schengen area’ countries for 90 days out of every 180 and this is causing an enormous headache for vanlifers. We’re thankful Saul had the option of applying for an Irish passport thanks to his prudent decision to marry an Irishwoman and move to Ireland in 1999 😍😁

So, 4th June is Day 0 when it comes to our return trip to Ireland. We still don’t know exactly how this journey is going to run because we have conflicting information about where we will need PCR tests, where to get them, and so on. We are allowing plenty of time and are not booking any ferries in advance because we can’t know when we will be available to travel until we get to the port and get accurate information.

Here’s what we think our trip will look like. It involves three ferry trips; first, a 12 hour sailing to Athens (Piraeus), next a 20 hour trip from Patras in western Crete to Ancona on the east coast of Italy. Then we drive from Italy to Cherbourg! And lastly, catch a 17 hour sailing from Cherbourg to Rosslare or Dublin:

While in Iraklio, we took a trip to Knossos and also to the Archaeological Museum, but we’ll post about those separately; what incredible places.

After this, we headed to Iraklio port to ask if we needed tests to travel to Piraeus on the mainland and the answer, happily, was no. It transpires that a Covid test is needed to travel out towards the islands, but not if returning to Athens. Our intention was to spend the weekend in the Iraklio area but we’re just not city people! So, while standing there wondering which night to sail to Piraeus, we thought, sure, why not just go this evening? And so, we booked our tickets there and then for that same evening and got ready to say farewell, for now, to Crete.

We docked in Piraeus, Athens, early on Saturday morning and drove straight from there to Patras. While it was tempting to spend some time in Athens… Covid… and so off we drove west. Beautiful Greece with its hills, mountains, blue skies, blue seas… 💙

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At Patras port, we ascertained that PCR tests are not necessary for entry to Italy, yay, once you’re only transiting through and will have left Italy within 36 hours. Our ferry was due to leave at 5pm but didn’t actually leave til 6.30! We were told to park the van on a ramp by the ferry where we watched enormous articulated lorries reverse onto the ferry. Respect to all those drivers!

On deck, biding farewell to Greece, Αντίο Ελλάδα:

And the following morning, buongiorno Italia: