The Epic Journey was originally conceived of in three parts, adding up to 16 weeks plus a bit in the UK to get home from the ferry:
1. An outward leg to somewhere Epic
2. A slower bit with some free time taking ferries across to Greece and Italy and having some chill-out time en route, eating leetle feeshes in harbour towns and who knows maybe finding a yoga camp somewhere scenic on a Greek Island, omm.
3. A homeward leg taking in as wide a circle as possible (both physically and also mentally possible, as we may have run out of motivation some time earlier).
Part 1 took exactly 7 weeks, and we are now on to Part 2, which is the bit across Turkey and Greece and on a ferry to Italy.
For Part 3, at a minimum we reckon it will take about 5 weeks from Bari, the ferry arrival point in Italy, to get to Santander, the ferry departure point in Spain. We could possibly shortcut this a bit – take a ferry further up Italy to Ancona; take a ferry from Genova along the Med – but let’s use that as our working assumption.
After a bit of PawRithmetic (fortunately 4 mascots have 16 paws so that’s one week per paw) the conclusion is that we have a whole mascot, 4 paws, to spend on Phase 2.
Two big challenges lie immediately ahead:
a) the information and route arithmetic for Greek ferries is horribly challenging, so we are spending hours in front of the PC trying to find crossing details rather than enjoying where we are, which is Bad;
b) Sid and Doris are not very good at spending time relaxing when there is a journey ahead waiting to be done. It’s all that rally training – don’t use up your penalty-free lateness till the end.
Cliffhanger ending – will Sid and Doris manage to chill out on Corfu or island-hop round the Agean?
PS We have just found a two-day tour of Gallipoli and Troy which will take the bikes, and this will sort out the big challenge of leaving Istanbul without being squashed by heavy trucks. We had an original vague plan involving a a ferry to Bandirma but this is much better. Because we are Epic but we do not need to be obsessive purists.