Portugal to Greece (part 1)
Portugal – Barcelona – Civitavecchia
Hi friends, a quick update on our journey from Portugal through Spain and Italy towards Greece.
Caitríona: As I type this, we are travelling down the south east coast of Italy towards the port of Brindisi. We are booked on an overnight ferry tonight from Brindisi to Igoumenitsa in NW Greece. So far, all has gone smoothly on our trip and here’s hoping that we will arrive safely tomorrow morning 🤞🏻🤞🏻
We have completed lots of paperwork, some of which we were asked for, some not. As yet, we haven’t taken Covid tests but that may be a requirement in Brindisi or Igoumenitsa. We have travelled as fast as we could to get through Spain (1,166km) and Italy (636km) with as few stops as possible. Obviously we need to stop for fuel and to sleep, but that has been it.
We left Portugal on Wednesday (30th Sept);
Adeus, Portugal … back over the bridge over the Rio Guadiana.
Ola de nuevo, España!
Once we had crossed into Spain, we drove past Seville and then north in the direction of Madrid. Midway up through Spain, we turned east and headed towards Valencia, stopping finally at a truckers’ stop at 2am for some rest. It’s such a shame to miss seeing sites along the way, but it is cooler and quieter driving at night.
On Thursday, we drove past Valencia and then up the picturesque Mediterranean coast to Barcelona where we booked our overnight sailing to Italy. We cooked dinner in the van as we waited for our ship to depart.
There was a spectacular dam and lake in the hills above Valencia.
Valencia and the east coast in the far distance ahead.
Having reached the east coast at Valencia, we then turned north to drive up the coast, towards Barcelona. It’s about 350km from Valencia to Barcelona.
The hills north of Valencia.
Stopping for lunch, somewhere between Valencia and Barcelona
Waiting in line for the ferry at Barcelona port. We were about five hours early!
This ferry is so huge, we can’t fit it all into one photograph!
from the website!
First in the queue, unaccustomed as we are 😂
We caught the Grimaldi Lines ‘Barcelona’ from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, north of Rome, on Thursday night. It was a 20 hour sailing across the Mediterranean but it wasn’t quite the luxury Mediterranean cruise you might imagine, due to high winds. Saul took a very fetching photo of me enjoying my first cruise on the Med … looking more like the crossing from Holyhead to Dublin! There is an outdoor pool and jacuzzi on this enormous ship but, due to Covid, they are not open. The ship had lots of freight and dozens of new cars onboard, but very few passengers, to our relief.
Morgan found a fascinating video online of how the sister ferry of ours, the Grimaldi ‘Roma’, was sliced down the middle to have an extension inserted in the middle. Our ship, the Barcelona, appears to have had the same work done, as the middle section looks much newer. I’ll add the YouTube clip below for those who might be interested. I’ve never heard of adding an extension to a ship before, nor have I ever been on a ship anything like as long as this!
Sailing out from Barcelona at 11pm
Barcelona port is enormous!
Heavy lifting in Barcelona’s docks:
Another bit of excitement was when we saw a small boat arrive up alongside our enormous cruise ferry as we were exiting the port. A man hopped out from our ship onto this tiny little boat and it headed back to port with him!
On deck the following morning
Not quite the windswept look I had in mind for our Mediterranean cruise! 😂
Our ferry sailed between Corsica and Sardinia, on the way to Civitavecchia (Corsica is north of Sardinia)
This is Morgan with Corsica in the background (I think!)
And this side shows Sardinia
Oh if only the pool were open!
Dinner on board; it was prohibited to take your own food or drink on board!
And so it was yesterday evening that we arrived at the port of Civitavecchia, Italy:
From Civitavecchia, we drove 1.5 hrs that evening to get beyond Rome while there was minimal traffic – neither of us fancied taking on Rome traffic by day, if we could avoid it! Then we stopped for the night in the parking area behind a garage, one where lorries were parked up.
We are now on the road southeast towards Brindisi which is right at the back of the heel of Italy’s boot. Our ferry departs tonight at 9.30pm, so we hope to update you with some Greek photos tomorrow, all going to plan 🙂
Pitstop east of Napoli for some diesel and food and coffee 😍
We discovered at this garage that if you choose the pumps that are not self-service, the diesel is 40c extra per litre 😲 Lesson learned!
But the coffee was great!
The hills south east of Napoli:
Next stop, Brindisi.