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ITALY-GREECE via Ferries and catamarans

Ferries/Ships The ITALY-GREECE connection has become bigger than ever with literally tens of ships going back and forth between the two countries every day, linking Greece to mainland Europe. The troubles with the ex-Yugoslavia have made that old route impassable, although indications are that it will soon start opening up again. Of course if one were to undertake the additional 1000km of road journey through Jugoslavia instead of the comfort of a ferry boat to save a few penies, or francs or cents, then the above paragraph is uneccessary. But the majority of us, who would like to avoid travelling for hours and hours in a car, the ferry seems to be the only choice.

There are so many ferries that prices have plummeted recently and you can go across to Greece for just DRA10,000 which is just $40, #30, AUS$80, CDN$60 or BF1200! Of course for that price, you would have to sleep on deck, but then, with temperatures of more than 20C during the night, the company of many other people and great singing, who would want a cabin?

Naturally, bringing a car, entails additional charges, but believe it or not, the most expensive part is the cabin itself, and not the car.

There are four ports of call in Italy, and three in Greece. The Italian side has Trieste(near the Slovenian border), Ancona, Bari and Brindisi, and Greece has Kerkyra, Igoumenitsa and Patras.

The quickest crossing is from Brindisi where you can make it in just three hours with a new catamaran service. The slowest is from Trieste where it takes just under 24 hours for the crossing to Igoumenitsa or 31 hours for Patras. To do that you would have to be in Greece for about a month otherwise losing 3 days travelling on the ferry would not be easily justified.

Prices range from DRA 5500 per person, per crossing, to DRA 77500 per person, per crossing.

The fares depend on the season one would travel, broken into high and low season or high, mid and low for some companies. The high season depends on whether you are entering Greece or exiting. For ANEK lines (they own the huge 3000+ people/1200+ cars Venizelos ship), high season from Italy is from 29 June to 10 August, while from Greece, it is from 7 August to 8 September.

For Fraglines, high season is from 26 July to 10 August on the Italian side and 16 August to 31 August on the Greek side.

Season fares have absolutely nothing to do with costs; the ferry companies know when there are school holidays in Europe and take advantage of people's inability to alter their schedules. The bext time to visit Greece is in June or September, and this is reflected by the lower ferry fares.



For the current timetables, click here please.

Bus services from Germany to Greece with prices and schedules




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