Greeced Lightening

April 2025

My travels for this blog ...

The rain has been relentless. It's been either drizzling or pouring for days now.

Martina's band, Il Mago del Gelato (The Icecream Wizard) had a gig in Torino, and even though the gig was sold out, they offered me an accredito, a freebie, and after checking out their music online I just couldn't not go. I'd never forgive myself.

So, after another day of enjoying Tarek's place, doing more gardening, and scrubbing the place till it was squeaky clean, it was finally time to leave my lakeside paradise.

It's been such a gift to have somewhere to hang out for awhile, especially when that somewhere has been Tarek and Claire's beautiful place, in such a sublime location. It's been great to not carry my things around. And to enjoy the beautiful hikes, forests, lakes and history of this magnificent place.

But eventually it was time to go.

I did the long long walk around the lake and then up to Gozzano again, but this time it was really pouring for a lot of the way, and I got absolutely drenched, as did my backpack and guitar.

The rain was so heavy that my umbrella leaked, so I was pretty sloshed by the time I got to the station, only to find that my train had been delayed due to the heavy rain and flooding. But it eventually turned up and, luckily for me, my connecting train to Torino had also been delayed, which was a good thing, as I would've missed it had it been on time.

I've gotta say, by the way, that TrenItalia run an incredibly tight ship, even though they run trains. Besides the unavoidable weather related delay today, every single one of my trains in Italy have been scrupulously on time. They leave German DeutscheBahn for dead.

But maybe that's not a very insightful comparison, because, in terms of punctuality, pretty much all other European train systems leave Deutsche Bahn in their whoosh.

I was gobsmacked at the amount of water that had accumulated down on the plains. It'd been raining for days, and the rivers were already full, before the recent even bigger downpours made them break their banks. We passed over some raging torrents, which was no surprise, as the rain was torrential.

But luckily the train made it through.

Below Left, Centre: Fields turned to lakes.

Below Right: Torino Susa railway station, an eye catching modern building. There was only light drizzle by the time I got there, thankfully.

I was immediately amazed at how different Torino is to Milano. It's so much quieter, but it's still grand, in a different kind of way. So much of the city has wide, impressive streets, and in the city centre all the buildings have beautiful wide arched walkways under them, making the whole place hugely pedestrian friendly.

These huge walkways are packed with large spacious cafés and shops, selling the most delicious food and drinks and selling beautiful things. It sorta feels like what I imagine it was like in the 1940s, all these old businesses, still in the original buildings that have housed them for decades.

The window displays are old. The signage is old, and so is the decor.

All the cafés were full. It seems like the only thing people do in this city is sit around, drink coffee and eat delicious Italian cakes and biscotti.

It actually might have something to do with the fact that it's the Thursday before Easter, so people have probably finished work for the Easter holiday, and are doing what Italians do - going to cafés to drink coffee - instead of getting sloshed on beer at pubs.

They just get sloshed on Aperols and Prosecco later on.

Actually, not really. I haven't been to a trashy night venue in Italy ever. People don't really binge drink so much in Italy or Greece, like they do in Northern Europe. Well that's my impression. And actually it's backed up by what I've read. People seem to much prefer drinking wine around here, they're so much more couth.

Torino has a population of about 850,000, which compares to Milano's over 3 million. That's a huge difference in vibe.

There's a lot of marble dudes lazing about this city.

Below: The beautiful central station, Torino Porta Nuova.

Below: The magnificent Piazza San Carlo, surrounded by stunning architecture.

Below Left, Centre: The Palazzo Madama, which was actually the first Senate in the Kingdom of Italy.

Below Right, Bottom Left: Crossing the Dora Riparia, which was flooding. The water was skimming the bottom of the bridge, and there was a huge buildup of dead trees and branches on the other side. Later on they closed the road, as water was coming over.

This river is a tributary of the Po River, which also runs through the city, and is the longest river in Italy. It runs across the whole of northern Italy, all the way from the alps on the northwestern border with France, to its mouth near Venezia.

It was amazing, and I was really lucky with the flooding. If I wasn't careful the first thing I know I'd be back in Po River again.

But actually I was trashed. I'd had a succession of late nights, surprise surprise, and have been doing some long travel days. I finally made it to my hostel, and I came, I saw, and I conked out.

I needed a second wind for the gig.

Above Centre: Life from a dorm bed

Above Right : Wife: "I hope you're sittting down while you're doing it!"

Husband:  "Yeah, sure."

Pretty soon it was dark, and I was wandering the streets, as usual.

And the gig!

It was amazing! Martina's band played in a venue within an ex-factory that's been converted into an art space. Great spot. It was packed full of all their fans, who knew a lot of the songs. The band were fantastic, all very accomplished musicians, most of whom studied jazz at Milan's Music Conservatorium, like Martina.

They totally rocked the house. It was so great. I danced my socks off, but they stayed on.

Yes! Crowdsurfing still exists!

I caught up with Martina and the crew after the gig, it was so great to see them again, especially as everyone was so charged after a particularly amazing gig. I wish I had more time to hang out with those guys.

In fact I'd actually love to stay in Milano for another week or two, there's so much to do there, and Eva and Martina know loads of cool things that are going on in the city and in Torino.

There's a jazz festival coming up in Torino just next week, for example.

Eva's really into music and art, she's a video producer, and has already told me about lots of gigs and exhibitions happening around the place.

Ahhhh, I wish I could be in many places at the same time.

So anyway eventually everyone was pretty tired, so I strolled home in the rain in the middle of the night, as I seem to being doing a lot lately.

Above Centre: Hamas is right. No, the killing of innocent people is never right. Understandable, but misguided. And always a recipe for further disaster. Israel, with its hugely disproportionate revenge killings, knows this too.

But selfish and pathological leaders on both sides have their own personal agendas, and none of those agendas involve anything remotely related to basic care and compassion for their own people, or for anyone else.

Below Left, Centre: The view from my dorm balcony the next morning. It was sunny! Hallelujah.

Below Right: I remember these Italian actors from when I was a kid, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer (their real names are actually Mario Girotti and  Carlo Pedersoli, of all things). They starred in spaghetti western films, and made a whole string of movies that were box office successes.

When I think about it, I don't think I even really cottoned on that they were Italian, even though the films were dubbed. I found out that Terence (the blonde one) actually dubbed his own voice for the English film versions.

Above Left: Famous Italian actors Roberto Begnini and Massimo Troisi. Benigni became famous in the west after winning an Academy award for the film "La Vita è Bella," (Life Is Beautiful). Great film.

Above Centre: Where else but Italy to have a museum just for one coffee company. Italy doesn't even grow one bean of coffee. What a scam.

But the city looked stunning in the sunshine.

I strolled over to the Egyptian Museum, as I'd excitedly read that it has the second biggest collection of Egyptian artefacts (including mummies) in the whole world, surpassed only by the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo, which I visited once upon a time. I was super keen to see its collection, as I've always been a mummies' boy.

The entry tickets are valid only for a specific entry time, and luckily there was one ticket left when I booked.

So I got to the museum early for my allotted entry time.

But, you wouldn't believe it, there'd been some sort of water damage in a part of the building as a result of the torrential rain and flooding, and the whole museum was closed for at least the day. Major bummer!

As usual, however, that disappointment just led me to other places in this beautiful city that I wouldn't have had time to see otherwise.

I really love Torino, it's a cracker of a city.

I somehow found myself in the central market area.

I wandered around some really cool districts before heading back to my hostel, collecting my gear, and heading to the beautiful Torino Porta Nuova central railway station again.

To Venezia

Eventually I jumped on a train (well, a bunch of them) to Venice. It's the Friday before Easter, known as Good Friday (not sure why Jesus' death is regarded as good, or whether it has anything to do with no one having to go to work), so all the trains were packed to the luggage racks.

But somehow I managed to get a seat every time, because my trains were mostly originating from my transfer stations, so were there a bit earlier.

Below Left: Rolling in to Milano Centrale. I had about an hour there.

Below: The station building's quite magnificent.

I went for a walk into the station district to get food, then took another train to Verona, and then another to Venezia Mestre. The port for my ferry to Greece leaves from a port about a half hour's bus ride from there.

I checked in to my hostel, and then decided to take a train over to Venezia island, as I'd never been there at night.

Venice is beautiful of course, and it was packed full of tourists, unsurprisingly, as this is one of the busiest weekends of the year.

I'm glad I won't be going there during the day on this Easter weekend, it must be nuts.

Venezia is also beautiful at night, but my old phone can't show you that. It goes to sleep after dark.

So just so you can see what it's like during the day, here's a small selection of pics from when I went there a few years back.

Above Right: Lali being all beautiful

When I got back to Mestre I stopped at a bar and saw an incredible guitarist ripping off a whole pile of rock classics, including really difficult-to-play Hendrix and Deep Purple numbers. I was so impressed. The rest of the musicians were pretty basic though, the wiz guitarist humbly carried the whole band.

Back To Greece

My poor bike's waiting for me in Greece.

I'd better get back to her.

The next day I took a local bus to the Venetian ferry port of Fusina, to catch my ferry all the way down the Adriatic Sea. My destination is the Grecian port of Igoumanitsa, a 24 hour ferry ride away.

It's a really convoluted way to get back to my bike, and considerably more pricey than flying. But I'm trying to do the right thing environmentally, by keeping my bum out of the air.

Besides doing downward dogs, of course, and zipping down hills on my bicycle.

The long ferry ride was over in a flash, somehow. After we left any sight of the Italian coast I spent the whole time catching up on writing, looking at old pics, and hanging out with Korbinian and Rosie.

They're a German couple from the alps near Munich, who had their old van down below in the ship, and are off to visit a friend on the island of Thanos, which you reach from the town of Karvali, a place I rode through a few weeks ago.

They're super sweet, and once travelled to Oz for many months, telling me how much they loved it. They'd planned to go on to Southeast Asia, but Rosie became pregnant, so that was the end of that.

I finally crashed on the floor of the café at 1am, for a short but solid sleep.

In no time we were heading towards the Albanian coast, and could see the coast of Corfu. The ferry passed between the mainland and that large island, which is part of Greece, even though actually the top half of it lies directly across from Albania.

We got to Igoumanitsa only a little late, which surprised me for a long trip, as most of the ones I've taken around the Mediterranean lately have arrived well past their use by date.

I stopped for food. Greek prices are much cheaper than Italian ones.

I siesta-ed in my guest house, then strolled to the coast.

Igoumanitsa is the main ferry port that services the island of Corfu, a hugely popular tourist destination. But this town itself appears relatively free of the hordes, as they just drive through in their own cars or on buses, on the way to another more officially designated paradise.

So this town has a pretty sleepy and relaxed feel about it, even on this busy Easter weekend. I saw the ferries coming and going, there was so much traffic around the port around arrival and departure times, but it was pretty much dead otherwise.

The coast is beautiful here, have a look ...

Above Centre: I ordered an Alpha beer cos I'm that sort of male, even though I'm always trying to be a Beta man.

I caught up on sleep, and the next day checked out at the last minute, stored my bag and guitar, and went strolling and eating.

Below: There's a beautiful walking track that runs along the coast, which I strolled along for awhile. It was beautiful, and I would've walked for ages longer if I could, but needed to jump on a bus.

Above Right: On the way to the bus station 70 year old Sakis invited me to sit with him and have coffee, and I was happy to accept, even though I was in a rush. He's the sweetest guy, and could speak a little English, because he has an American friend. Sakis went to school for only 4 years, but is as sharp as an oyster shell, and so kind and warm.

I felt like he was a brother-from-another-mother from the moment he spoke to me.

Sakis was listening to Greek music on an actual radio. Do you know what that is?

Eventually I jumped on my bus. The scenery was divine.

I'd expected we'd be delayed for hours, because it was evening on Easter Monday, and we were heading in to Greek's second largest city. Many Greeks head out to their villages on weekends like this. There was congestion, but the journey was pretty quick actually, way faster than last time I entered this city by bus on a holiday weekend, which took forever.

Back Home To Thessaloniki

I decided to walk home from the bus station. I say home because the Crossroads Hostel feels just like it. I know the staff well, we've had loads of good times and beautiful conversations, and we were all super happy to see each other again.

Below: Strolling through industrial Thessaloniki

Above Right: The Diiketirio building, built in 1891, was once the headquarters of the Ottoman prefect. The Ottomans ruled Thessaloniki for nearly 500 years, until they were finally booted out in 1912, and the formal handover of power occurred right here in this very building, with the signing of legal documents.

A half a millennium of Turkish rule obviously had a huge influence over Greek society, food, music, art, language and architecture.

Eventually I made it to the hostel. So great to be back.

The next morn I needed to get my bike serviced, which ended up taking a couple of days, even though I was pretty keen to hit the road and head north.

The bike shop kept telling me it would be ready soon, and, then, when they finally called and said it was ready, it wasn't.

The Greek concept of χαλαρά (halara) is very much a part of life here, which basically means, "take it easy", and just stay laid-back. Of course, I love that concept, but I'm sorta in a hurry because I have people to meet, and work commitments coming up, and it means I'll either need to reroute, or ride a little more quickly, to meet them on time.

But of course all that just meant I had more time to chill in Thessaloniki, which I love, so I spent a lot of time at the hostel, jamming, writing, and strolling around the city, making sure to get in some solid exercise every day, because I love it (plus I know I'll be back on my bike and climbing hills very soon).

Below Centre: On a clear day you can see My Olympus across the Thermaic Gulf. The 2918m high mountain is Greece's tallest, and is hugely important in Greek mythology, as it's the home of many ancient Greek deities, including Poseidon, Dionysus, Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Apollo and Athena.

Sounds like a real God's breakfast to me.

Above: This ancient ship runs cruises in the gulf.

The city feels familiar to me now, as I've spent a chunk of time here over the last few months. I know a lot of places, and know my way around without needing to navigate. I love that.

One night we had a big celebration at the hostel, just because we always do when I'm there. This involved yet another huge cook up and Greek feast, a jam, and, of course, a little too much drinking.

And not enough sleep.

Above, Left to Right: Greek Limonya (lemon tree), me, Finnish Ida, Aussie Anarchy (true), German Paul and Peter, Austrian Jasmin, French Julie, Mexican Ricardo and Belgium Arno.

And Sofia's cute dial.

I had some beautiful conversations, especially with Jasmin from Vienna, and Julie from Paris. We talked about life, about making it special, and about learning to love all of it.

We talked about travel, and what that does for the soul.

And we all expressed our gratitude for the connections we've made on the road.

On Jasmin's suggestion we all sang this song ...

https://youtu.be/abGe6uM9Ias?si=VT8IX2Pub8jhXQfJ

Αντίο Θεσσαλονίκη

Yeah, goodbye Thessaloniki.

Soon it'll be time to head west on my bike, and into the hills of northern Greece.

And then, as much as I adore this country, I'll be leaving it.

I'll be heading onto to the rural back roads and into the hills of the country of North Macedonia, which has a reputation as a stunningly beautiful part of the Balkans.

Yeah, the road is long, with many a winding turn.

And, in the Balkans, many hills to bear.

And, scarily, many hills with bears.

Yeah, it really is a wonderful life.❤️

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