Longest Travel Period Ever!!!

Our next stop from Paris was supposed to be Prague, but since there is flooding throughout Central Europe, we decided that we would just make our way down to Greece and spend a few days there. We had reserved our trains to Prague, so we tried to see if we could get to the port town of Ancona, Italy instead. The overnight train from Paris to Venice was full, which we would have then taken a two hour train to Ancona, so we needed to find another way down there. A part of our reservation to Prague was an overnight from Paris to Munich. We found out that from Munich we could take a train to Padova, Italy and then from there get to Ancona. The only bad thing was that because we couldn't get to Ancona earlier, we would have to spend a day in Ancona, waiting for the next ferry to leave to Greece. We had experienced a night train from Milan to Paris, but in a cab with beds. This time, our cab was just six seats, no beds. We were seated with a surfer girl from Germany, a younger man from South France, and a girl from Austria. The surfer girl had travelled the world and competed with her surfing so it was very fun talking to her about all the cool places she has been. And all other three people in the cab spoke some English! The train lasted for 11 hours and by about the second hour, we were all talked out and people started dozing off. I was happy we were with all young people as the cab wasn't serious at all. Just talking about whatever. Those eleven hours went by so slowly because you can't get comfortable and if you do fall asleep, you wake up within the hour. But we eventually arrived in Munich and only had 20 minutes until our next train left. The next train was the same set up, but we had one empty seat so it was a little more comfortable. I was able to fall asleep for the first couple hours which was very very nice. But once I woke up, I realized we were going through Austria and it was some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen! Even though I was tired I didn't want to sleep. We stopped in Bratislava and I really wanted to get out and explore for the day, but we had somewhere to be. We arrived to Padova and this time had a two hour layover. But after all the time on the train, some time out of one was nice. The train to Ancona only took two and a half hours which went by very quickly. We wanted to eat dinner but we needed to figure out our ferry situation so after checking in to our place, we walked to the port to find the ticket office closed. I have always wanted to know what we are doing the next day in advance at the very least, but sometimes it is impossible. You would think that you would need tickets for a ferry that crosses the Adriatic Sea at least one day ahead, but everyone we talked to said its not that big of deal and just get your ticket the day of. Kind of hard to let go and just wing it. On our way back from the port we came across an authentic Italian pizza place and we were all starving. The pizza in Italy is very different from home. The crust is very thin, but not hard. It is chewy and soft. The cheese is not layered on, but instead placed in chunks, which leaves the area by the crust only covered with tomato sauce. And nobody shares a pizza. We noticed that the portion sizes throughout Europe have been so much smaller, except for pizza. This is the pizza I got!!! It was amazing!

As you can imagine, after that day of travel, and then a giant pizza, we all went back to the room and fell asleep. It was greatly needed because we had planned to get up early and walk back to the port to ensure that we would have a place on the ferry. It was a quick turnaround but we got to the port and waited in line, and reserved our deck fares for the ferry. What I thought was only going to be 18.5 hours, turned out to be 26 hours!!!! 26! And the deck fare literally meant deck fare. We weren't given a seat or anything so we had to just find a place on the deck, or the top two floors in an aisle. You can imagine the rush of people to find the best spots. People even brought blow up mattresses to sleep on. It was quite weird to have people just passed out in the middle of an aisle, but I guess that's the norm. We met two Canadian guys who were doing the same thing we were and instantly were friends. We hung out the whole time and found an opening where we all slept for the night on the ground. They were hilarious and had spent the night at the train station so they had tons of stories about how freaked out they got. I would like to tell you how awesome the ferry was, but 26 hours is a long time on a boat. By the time we arrived in Patras, Greece, I wanted to sprint off the ferry. The scenery was incredible and the water was so blue, but it was time to get off! Here are some pictures of the ferry ride. 

Very beautiful. But since the ferry took longer than expected, we missed the last bus from the Port to the bus station. So we had to take a taxi. When we got in the taxi, the man told us that we might be better off taking his taxi all the way to Kiato and then taking a fast train into Athens instead of taking the bus into Athens and it getting in at 11:30 at night. Because we didn't want that, we agreed to take the taxi to Kiato and get into Athens at 9:30. What ensued from Patras to Kiato was insane. First off there aren't lanes on the major highways, just a wide road where the slow cars drive just barely on the shoulder. We weren't one of those slow cars. At all! Looking back I appreciate how fast he was driving because we barely made the train, but during the ride I feared for my life a few times. The crazy thing was that there were cars going just as fast as ours. It was the fastest I have ever gone. He had a GPS that read how fast he was going and when we got to our hostel in Athens, we converted 185 kilometers/hour.....115 miles/hour!!!!! We were going that fast while passing semis against on coming traffic. I thank everything Holy that we made it in one piece haha. We hopped on the train and made it to our hostel. By the time we laid down, it was the longest period of traveling consecutively I can think of. But I was so happy to be in Athens!