Drive Around the World by Danny Rosner Blay & Sandra Khazam

Author:Danny Rosner Blay & Sandra Khazam [Rosner Blay, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Subjects: Blay, Danny - Travel., Khazam, Sandra - Travel., Voyages around the world., Voyages and travels., Automobile travel., Four-wheel driving.
ISBN: 9781742982885
Publisher: Hybrid Publishers
Published: 2013-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

day 229 to 239

21–1 December

Veroia Greece to Pamukkale Turkey

Via Kavala – Alexandroupoli – Canakkale, Turkey – Bergama – Selcuk

25,912

tripmeter 1,509 km

soundtrack

Achilles Last Stand – Led Zeppelin

Get Another Plan – Abstract Truth

Blue Rondo a La Turk – Dave Brubeck Quartet

Rest Assured – Eric B. & Rakim

Fish in my Dish – Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

D Our days in Hellas are spent variously cruising around back roads, villages and towns, and eating exceptionally well, of course. Without putting too fine a point on it, we’re relieved to leave Albania behind and belt along deserted, quality roads. We’ve been aiming for Thessaloniki but the weather is inclement and the kids hungry so we stop earlier at Veroia. After we negotiate the counter-intuitive central town’s streets and lanes, we finally find a hotel. Dinner is alone in a large fish and seafood restaurant, and, while pushing 7pm when we arrive, the owner needs to fire up the lights and heating to make us feel welcome. Still, the octopus, calamari, fish and salad are highly commendable. The simple things in life … The first restaurant we tried was not serving dinner until 8pm and it became apparent that, at least in this part of Greece, evening meals are enjoyed late and long. Once the kids are in bed, Sandy and I start planning the next few days, long before most of the town is tucked in, and well into the night.

We begin trying to learn some Greek, and Maddy in particular starts to memorise the Greek alphabet – no mean feat. I try remembering some of the Greek I learned from kids at school but only come up with words that would most likely get me into serious strife. This point is reinforced when Raffy asks me quite loudly one day if I remember something that we saw when we were in the Malaysian city of Melacca. I have some explaining to do when there are some surprised sideways glances.

Kavala, with its view of the island Thassos, again provides us with a wet welcome, and while we’re double parked in the foreshore road bedlam, Sandy dodges the traffic and finds us a room. Parking is in the basement, down a very steep internal driveway and under two low concrete beams and an antique heating unit that look like a height problem for the truck, then round a tight corner at the bottom. The other parking options are fundamentally absent – the streets are chockas with cars, vans and scooters, even on the footpath. We give it a go.

But leaving the next morning proves interesting. Oh, the checkout is fine, but the car park proves surprisingly traumatic. The angle of the turn into the driveway ramp from the basement and the incline mean that, for the first time on the entire trip, I have to use the low-ratio four-wheel drive. In a concrete car park!

We briefly explore the old part of the city built hard up against the coast and marvel at an old viaduct.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.