Road/Ferry

If you’re planning a longer holiday you might consider driving. There are two principal routes: drive to Italy then take ferries to Crete via mainland Greece or (and this is not recommended) wholly overland through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and mainland Greece. It’s a long, slow route and only worth considering if you want to visit those countries as well.

Allowing three days to get from, say, Calais to an Italian ferry port should provide a very relaxed journey. We find the Michelin web site an excellent aid for planning a trip across Europe. It’s quite simple to produce a door-to-door route with as much or as little detail as you want with options for shortest or quickest route or one to avoid tolls.

It also gives much information about remaining on the right side of the law in the counties you’re passing through - red triangles, what spare bulbs you are required to carry, etc., etc.

About ten ferry companies operate between Italy (Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Bari, Brindisi) and Greece (Corfu, Igoumenitsa and Patra). As none has a direct sailing to Crete you will have to go via the Greek mainland.

Our only experience is of the Ancona / Patra / Piraeus / Souda services and we had no problems. None of the ports shares the formality or control of Dover. Ancona is slightly organised but in Greece you drive along the main dockside road, turn on to the ferry, show your ticket and follow directions.

We used Anek ferries, recommended by a local travel agent and we’ll certainly use them in future. The boats were clean and comfortable, the food good and helpful staff gave excellent service. Journey times are about 19 hours Ancona to Patra and overnight Piraeus to Souda.

The quickest service to Patra is SuperFast Ferries although it is slightly more expensive than other companies. Minoan Lines also provides a service from Ancona while Blue Star operates between Patra and Brindisi. All offer various discounts when both international and domestic return fares are booked at the same time.

By sailing to Igoumenitsa you’ll see more of mainland Greece as it’s fairly well North on the west coast and a 300 mile drive to Athens. Patra is 135 miles from Athens on an excellent motorway (toll €3.20 in 2004).

It is advisable to book your ferry passage in advance during the summer season.

In 2003 we drove to the UK via Piraeus and Patra, Italy and central France, returning through eastern France, Germany, Austria and Italy. We took our time, only driving about five hours a day and spending three days in Paris but we could have done Ancona to Dover in two days without fuss.

We used ‘A’ roads in France, avoiding all tolls, experienced no traffic delays and covered very good distances in the times we allotted. The Michelin web site was enormously useful for route planning, hotel recommendations and general information.