31st October 2010 – 566 miles

The clock change in the UK threw us a bit (not sure why?!) but nonetheless we left on schedule and arrived at Brindisi – the ferry port that will take us to Igoumenitsa in Greece – early.

The journey was relatively uneventful, except for the fact that Shihab had lost his (wife’s) camera when getting out of the car to fill up for petrol.

It would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that:

1. The camera was given to his wife as a birthday present.  Sorry Jasmine!
2. The 400+ snaps taken throughout last summer were not stored and so now lost … priceless!
3.  Shihab had also left his sunglasses in the hotel in Milan.
4. Shihab now no longer has a camera either!

After an eight hour ferry ride, we arrived at Igoumenitsa at 1130pm and decided to make up for lost time and attempt to drive to Istanbul through the night.

As it happened, a new motorway had been built which took us straight across Greece – albeit up and down mountains and through tunnels – the only downside being we didn’t see any of it!

With a couple of breaks napping at motorway lay-bys and a detour to seek a petrol station at 3.30am, we managed to get to within 250 miles of the Greece-Turkey border, a full 24 hours on the road!