Cardiff to Crete

When my daughter Lara was about three, I found a copy of The Orchard book of Greek Myths in a charity shop.

Emma Chichester Clarke’s beautifully evocative illustrations and Geraldine McCaughrean’s wonderful narration became the go-to book for daytime snuggles and bedtime stories. It started Lara’s love affair with the Greek myths and ignited her desire to visit Greece one day. 

We’ve always tried to live in the most environmentally conscious way, and as the climate crisis has become ever more present, we decided as a family that we wouldn’t fly for leisure purposes. This meant that if we were to see Greece, it would be a land trip. For a few years I’d had at the back of my mind that we could take advantage of both of our children finishing term early in 2025 as Lara would be completing A levels and Aria, GCSEs.

In 2024, as the trip started to seem a reality, my husband Lenny and I started to worry. Greece was literally on fire, with the July heat well above average. Lenny and Lara actively don’t like heat, and though Aria wears the same layers of clothing through Welsh winters and summers, extremes of temperature do unsettle her. I have always enjoyed the heat but I hadn’t spent time anywhere with a temperature above 30 degrees in the past twenty years. We looked at alternatives and each of us identified what we most wanted from a one-off holiday like this. After circling round and round we finally decided that Greece really did tick all of the boxes. Decision made!  

And then the planning began. I researched what The Man in Seat 61 would do and mapped out multiple options for routes and timescales. We had taken European holidays by rail before, so knew that there would be a level of stress in finding and booking our trains, but I can’t lie; planning this trip caused me a level of anxiety that I’d not experienced before. My tendency to get stressed by the possibility of delays was worse because of the number of moving parts, and was probably compounded by the perimenopause, so in the lead-up to this holiday it became an acute source of anxiety.

Despite my stress, by April, Cardiff to Crete was booked. We would be travelling for a total of three-and-a-half days, from Llandaf in Cardiff to Paris, Bologne, Bari, Athens, then Crete. On the way home we would be stopping in Piraeus (Athens), Milan, and Paris before arriving home, after 18 days away.

We bought four 7-day interrail passes, which would be plenty to get us there and back, including some flexibility if there were delays.  All of the trains were fast intercity trains so we had to pay a reservation fee for them all. The passes, seat reservations, ferries and accommodation cost around £4,500 for the four of us. But this was the trip of a lifetime, and we had been saving for some time. (The entire holiday, including food and all activities and daytrips cost us about £6,000.)

On the day of departure, I was surprisingly calm and positive. It was actually Lenny, my usually-calm husband, who had taken on the role of the worrier. This wasn’t helped by standing in a queue for nearly two hours hours at St Pancras and an hour delay to our Eurostar departure. But there was nothing to worry about. Even though we arrived into Paris later than planned, it was still only 6pm, and we were all excited to be on our way. 

Neither of our children had ever visited Paris before, and in one evening we soaked up the Parisian atmosphere, gazing out at the Sacre Coeur from the garret window of our hostel room before walking through the city, catching the sights the children had heard of and wanted to see, reaching the Eiffel Tower as the sun set.

The next day we watched the scenery changing from plains to mountains as we travelled the length of France and trundled through the Alps, changing trains in Milan before alighting in Bologne which was new to all of us. The draining heat of the sun had lessened slightly, meaning that we could explore in the evening hours and get a feel for this beautiful city. The next morning we travelled down the east coast of Italy and were totally blown away by the azure ocean and hilltop towns along the Italian coast.  We had several hours in the old walled city of Bari where our ferry to Greece would depart from, so we enjoyed Italian ice cream in a very hot sun while we waited.

The ferry to the Greek port of Patras took us across the Mediterranean overnight, and we woke to see the coastline of Greece, marvelling as we gently sailed between islands that we knew from literature and myth. From the coach and train between Patras and Athens we were able to see the mountainous landscape of Greece to full advantage and, after three-and-a-half days we arrived, having experienced the changing landscape and cuisine of the countries we had travelled through.

Athens was all we had hoped it would be. We spent the mornings exploring the famous tourist sights including Poseidon’s temple and the Parthenon before relaxing in our Airbnb during the afternoon heat, then heading out for Athenian evenings.  

After three nights in the capital we headed to the port of Piraeus to catch our ferry to Crete. Boarding the ferry was an extraordinary experience with the huge crowd of foot passengers surging up the ramp. By the time I’d stowed my rucksack and had my ticket inspected we were already on our way! The fast ferry deposited us six hours later in the dusk of Rethymno where we were greeted by the brightly lit harbour and costal town. A taxi ride completed our journey to our home for the next week – a villa in northwest Crete.

We had our island holiday, with history, beach, mountain, culture, and pool days.  Perfect and relaxing, and after having been so involved in the journey every step of the way, we felt we’d really earned it.  

I had worried that once we were on our way home we’d have had enough and just want to get there. To some extent the start of the journey did feel like this to Lara, but the kids were able to take time out with their devices in the Airbnb while Lenny and I headed out for an afternoon walk once we arrived back in Piraeus, and from then on it felt like we were back on our adventure.

After reversing our outbound travel across mainland Greece and sailing overnight to Bari, we then headed further up Italy and had a night in Milan. Not arriving until after 8pm meant that we didn’t get to see much of the city, but a speedy metro trip into the centre provided us with a memorable meal looking up at the floodlit Duomo while being bitten repeatedly by mosquitos!

The following day of travel brought us back to Paris where the weather was starting to cool and we were taken by surprise, wishing we’d worn jumpers while sitting on the cobbles eating our final holiday dinner. And then by 4pm the next day we were back in our house in Cardiff. 

Having seen how possible this adventurous travel is, we’ll definitely be using trains to discover more of Europe. Next time, in order to avoid having to take such a long time off work, we’ll probably pick somewhere slightly closer so that we can get there and back within a week.  

Our Greek Odyssey took us on 13 trains, four boats, one coach, and four metro systems, crossing through six countries. There were remarkably few delays, and ten of those trains actually arrived on time. I returned home feeling that we’d had an incredible adventure, not just a holiday. We will never forget it.