Excellent exit strategies No. 1: Ioannina – Kerkyra by Seabird
Consider the following: An everyday afternoon in central Athens. You are snailing your way down Vasilis Sofias avenue and suddenly realise motion has become more sluggish than usual. Yes, you have just been initiated into the club of car-driving bus-lane victims as the result of a very commendable drive by the Hellenic state to get more citizens out of their oversized SUVs (Supermarket Utility Vehicles) and into overcrowded SOWs (Saunas On Wheels). It has seen previously slow-flowing 3-lane avenues compressed into two bottlenecked strips of even slower traffic so that the occasional and infrequent blue bus may zoom by without hindrance of anything from roller-skating civilians to low-flying zeppelins. You are not happy.
Solution: Get out of the city! In fact, just to be on the safe side, get out of Attica all together. Not all at once, though. Sneak out when your neighbours least expect it.
Plan your exodus carefully. Find out what alternative modes of transportation you have at your disposal.
The fastest method of escape must be by plane. Or so you thought. What are the chances of getting tied up in a demonstration by the olive-growing industry at Spata Airport with farmers protesting against the oncoming closure of Olympic Airlines, threatening their yearly multi-million-Euro orders for in-flight olives? This may sound like a strange example but reality can often be even more absurd. For whatever the unforeseen reason may be, fact is that the phenomenon of airport delays are increasing in occurrence.
Why not, and here’s a crazy thought, follow the fine example Mister Karamanlis is giving us? Let us leave our cars in the garage (or on the sidewalk) and take the bus. KTEL services cover the whole country, most of which leave from a lovely terminal in a pleasant industrial area beside the National Highway. Please note the words “lovely” and “pleasant” are used with a certain degree of poetic licence.
Nevertheless, the frustration you save by being driven more than makes up for the additional journey time. Half the fun of holidays is the travelling itself (unless it’s done around the national mass exodus of Easter and August 15th) and it is the simple pleasure of gazing out at the passing world that makes these trips so amazing. The trees, the mountains, the lakes, the villages, the people, the animals, the coast, the clouds. It is your own personal road movie to which you keep a mental diary of scenes and images.
The further you go the more the scenery changes, there’s always something new around the bend, over the hill, through the tunnel. It’s like being a kid again on the back seat of your parent’s car, the busdriver becomes your surrogate dad, fellow passengers your brothers and sisters on a family outing. You enjoy every minute of it. Until the bus breaks down and everyone has to disembark in the middle of nowhere.
Green fluid is leaking from the engine. All the men who have read magazines on motor engineering group around the driver who has now become a spanner-and-hammer mechanic; students and fashionistas take up a more distant position to smoke a cigarette, lest the green liquid, whatever it is, should be is flammable. A worried old lady tries to reach her relatives at the destination on someone’s mobile phone…no signal. We are in a dead spot, the cast of ‘Lost’ stuck on a desert mountain. Soon we shall run out of supplies and will have to start eating each other. Half an hour later an empty bus appears, we are saved!
It is just after 19:00 as the bus pulls into the KTEL terminal of Ioannina. An hour’s worth of daylight still remains to make my first impressions of the city that Ali Pasha once called home. Arriving at the western shore of lake Pamvotida it isn’t hard to imagine why. With a magnificent view towards the eastern mountains, Ioannina city nestles itself comfortably on the lakeside. Remnants of Ottoman rule are immediately visible as a minaret towers out above green trees of the kastro, its walls creating a calm island beside the vibrant bustle of predominantly young students and couples at popular cafes. In the light of sunset I amble along the embankments, caringly laid out with ample room for pedestrians; tasteful sculptures align the sidewalk and adorn the view. It reminds me of Montreux on Switzerland’s Lac Leman, and in fact prompts the thought that a major international Jazz festival in Ioannina would not be out of place in a city which has managed to balance its influential history with modern trendiness.
Ioannina’s castle dates back to 528 AD under Justinian. It endured throughout the Byzantine era until it was handed over to Turkish rule in 1430. In 1788 the Albanian-born Ali Pasha became the head of the city by cunning and violence. He had the walls renovated and another outer limit built, securing the northern and southern acropolis to this day.
Under the aegis of European Historical Monuments and the municipal administration the kastro has become a flagship of archaeological preservation. You are not walking amongst ruins, but complete structures and streets. One acropolis houses the municipal museum, but the really fascinating location is at the ‘Its Kale’ where Ali Pasha’s caged grave can still be seen. The grounds have been so well preserved that you feel as you have stepped into a time gap. In the twilight beyond the minaret a full moon rises above the distant mountains, on the other side hundreds of migrating birds swirl and twitter in a reddening sky. A converted cooking house has served as the museum’s “canteen” since 1992 but this year came under new management (Ioannina’s ‘Stin Ithaki’ taverna). It serves drinks and coffees during the day and a variety of interesting dishes from 20:00. The Pasha’s former cookhouse has become the centre of attraction once more for people in search of tranquillity and beauty.
The food is surprisingly good. Baked Feta with capers and tomato, Epirus Vegetable Pie and Veli Pasha Chicken filled with Gruyere cheese. Even the intriguing Kazan Dipi, a dessert made of milk and rice juice, captures your taste-buds and imagination. How do you squeeze juice out of rice? If after all that lovely food you don’t feel like walking too far to catch a good night’s sleep, just opposite the ‘Its Kale’ gate is the traditional hotel Kastro. At 75 Euros for a double room in the most historical and quietest part of town your Ioannina experience is complete.
The next morning a short taxi ride brings me to Perama on the northern banks of the lake, known for its fairy-tale cave of stalactites and stalagmites, found by chance in 1940 when inhabitants were looking for a safe shelter against World War II bombardments. Instead of going underground, I’ve come to Perama for a different reason; to be swept up, up and away.
A small octagonal kiosk serves my point of departure. I buy a ticket and my baggage is checked in. It is a calm, windless morning. A few hundred metres away a fisherman in a small rowing boat wades his way through the slight haze hanging over the lake, followed by a paddle of ducks. In the distance the silhouette of the Kastro’s northern minaret breaks through the haze. It almost feels like I’ve stepped into a 60’s spy thriller, waiting for my connection on the banks of the Bosphorus. I don’t light another clandestine Russian cigarette. I can’t; I don’t smoke.
Suddenly, the faint hum of a twin-prop engine fills the air, coming in from the west. I have visual contact, a small dark speck descends towards the city, then turns 180 degrees to make its final approach. I can make out its wings now as it slowly levels with the surface of the lake. Smoothly, calmly, it skims the water letting up a symmetric spray as it jets in towards us. The ducks are unperturbed, as if one of their own had just drifted in. Here it is, the reason for my journey, Greece’s brand new AirSea plane service.
“Welcome on board, I’m first officer Petridis and our flight today will take just under 25 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelt, life vests are under the seats and emergency exits are located at the front and two at the back. Enjoy your flight.”
The de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter is untied from its dock as the captain starts up the engines. I have a clear view of the cockpit from my back seat since I’m the only passenger on board this morning. As the Seabird pulls out onto the open lake, the propellers rev up to a sonorous hum. We gather speed and the green of the lake’s algae whizzes by underneath. Without even so much as a bump the plane effortlessly lifts up out of the water and passes the kastro on the right hand side. I’m airborne for Kerkyra.
The Ioannina – Kerkyra service was initiated by AirSea Lines on July 12th 2005, following the successful reintroduction of the seaplane into Greek airspace from Kerkyra to Paxos Island in September 2004. (Athens used to have a Seaplane base at Flisvos in the 1900’s.) Expansion plans are moderately grand but even seaplanes can’t fly through Greece’s stubborn red tape. Bureaucratic procedures have delayed the mounting of way-finding signs in the surrounding area. The company itself has also been slow in marketing the new connection to Ioannina locals. The Kerkyra-Paxos route however is well established with many passengers lining up to fill the 19 seater. Floating docks are being installed in Patras and Cephalonia and the recent cessation by Olympic Airlines of the Ioannina-Thessaloniki route opens up a possibility for the fledgling Seabirds. There are even discussions taking place to enter the Aegean Sea, with Paros as an optional base. The flight’s cost (60 Euros between Ioannina and Kerkyra, 35 between Kerkyra and Paxos) is balanced out by the speed and sheer thrill of the trip. Without the hassle of crowded airports and hazardous highways, Seabirds actually put the fun back into travelling.
After 25 minutes flying low over clear mountaintops, flight PEV 502 descends over the Ionian sea towards Kerkyra. As smoothly as we took off, the skimming touchdown is hardly noticeable. Apparently I’ve chosen a perfect day, yet I wonder how enjoyable the landing is on a choppy winter sea. The algae green of lake Pamvotida is exchanged for the aquamarine green of Gouvia Marina. This is where you really feel the luxury element, floating past thousands of sailing yachts. The plane ties up next to another seabird, the props wind down and I am helped ashore by First Officer Petridis while Captain Daniel Englund, A Swedish seaplane pilot who flew this model for 4 years in the Maldives, carries my baggage to the terminal. How often do you get your luggage personally taken care of by the Captain? I am completely satisfied.
Well, perhaps not totally, for now I have to make my way back to Athens by an 8-hour bus ride. I’m left wishing I could hop on another seaplane to Flisvos. Or perhaps I should convince officials that the Schinias Olympic Rowing Centre could be put to good use again as an alternative ‘Spata on water’. Hold that thought.
