Our amazingly exhilarating trip started in the beginning of August in 2016. Couple of months before we decided to go on a trip, just for fun, because we had not done anything like this together before. Back then we both were pretty fresh ''grown-ups'' (or as I like to call it, legal enough for safe travelling). The trip started from Riga, Latvia, because it is nearly always cheaper from there. The flights from Estonia are almost every time much more expensive, and as budget-travellers, we needed our 50 extra euros. Well, okay, actually we started our journey from Tallinn, but the bus ride from Tallinn to Riga is not interesting. At least for me, because I have done it way too many times already. I could walk around Riga blindfolded, especially the route from the bus station(autoosta in Latvian) to the airport(lidosta in Latvian). Flights went well, and as thinking right now, pretty fast, too, but probably we still whined at some point, that our feet are dying or we need to stand up and have a stretch. The flights were not long at all. Few hours each, I think. We also had a layover somewhere in Greece. I remember clearly when we were reaching our destination, the sun was just starting to rise, and the view from above was absolutely stunning. My first impression of the airport, we landed to, was not too good to be very honest. The airport in Corfu is fairly old. Not neat nor a very bright place either to be at. Exceptionally small. We landed in the morning of 7th August. At least the weather greeted us well, the sun caressed our extra pale Northern-European cheeks. Our first task was to find out how could we get to our accommodation place. My dear travel companion, Agape (ironically Greek name, huh?), is not very confident with her English, although I know, that she has improved it a lot, and yet then again I mostly have to be the one who is doing the speaking part. She could hold my hand or wipe my tears while I was talking, but she definitely could not do the talking herself. We finally managed to hop onto a bus which took us to the City Centre. I am not sure about the price of the bus ticket, I think that one-way ticket was over 1 euros and a day ticket was 5 euros. We found another bus to our destination as well, but the ride was a little bit nerve-racking. The traffic is very different there, obviously, and driving on a high speed on a narrow road, on the edge of a hill is not a problem for the driver. But it became a worry to two Northern-European super safe and careful young ladies. It seemed to be an easy task for the busdriver, and even when there was a hairpin bend ahead, then the only solution is not to rev down but to press the bus horn as hard as possible and hope for the best. If there is a car behind that bend, then they will hopefully hear it and reduce speed theirselves. I repeat, hopefully. Hopefully they will hear the signal. Our little hostel was very nice. Before we arrived there we managed to think that we got lost or that the place does not exist. It was actually easier to find than we thought. We just passed by it many times before we realized that it was actually the place we were looking for. The lady at our reception was very nice and friendly. She told and showed us all the important things and encouraged us to ask her something else if we needed anything. I remember clearly what was the first thing we did after our arrival to that sweet hostelish place. We decided to go swimming just because the sea was across the road. First swimming experiences there were fun to remember. Neither of us had never swam in a sea where the salt persentage is that high as it was there. Well, high to us. We did not realize it right in the beginning, but that happened later. Of course, we were silly enough to try to dry our eyes with our salty hands. Great ideas coming around. Imagne this: two fairly white young ladies, looking a little confused and amused at once, standing on the beach, looking around. Finally going into the water for a swim; both of them holding some weird sticks and filming everything. Above the water, in the water, wherever. Speaking weird song-a-like language, as tourists usually explain what Estonian sounds like. Suddenly I told Agape that some weird stuff keeps happening in the water. We were in up to our hips only. I felt that something touched my leg repeatedly and it hurt a little. It did not happen to her in the beginning, so I thought maybe I was slightly crazy, imagining and making stuff up. Thank god, I was not turning mad. There were little fish, well, actually not so little ones, swimming around and biting us basically. Felt like someone was pinching. A new experience, I would say. So I did not want to stay in the water for a long time unless I was swimming or walking around. Could not stay still because of the fish. On our first day we decided just to wander around. We had a walk near our hostel, tried the local famous food called ''pita'' in which I personally fell in love with. I am pretty sure, that Agape enjoyed it, too. Then we took a bus back to the City Centre. We knew that we wanted to try snorkelling, besides that we decided to visit Albania for a few days at the end our trip, because it was close enough to get there by a little ferry, and as we had heard, getting there and living there would be cheap for us. It was very funny, because we managed to come upon the weird neighbourhood near the downtown. Looked like there was nothing but some old houses, nearly no people at all. Very weird. So most of the time we were just joking around, making videos, speaking some rubbish to entertain ourselves. Let's be honest, it turned out pretty well. Agape adores palm trees, so whenever we saw some, she had to take a picture of them, and of course, with them.
We were able to buy tickets to Albania, but we did not find anything connected with snorkelling. Most of the shops, centres and other facilities were closed, because it was Sunday. That was not actually a really bad thing, we got a chance just to look around, walk quite a lot, and discover some random places. I remember that we laughed so hard, because we were just randomly commenting anything on our way. We made up a scenario that we are currently in Brazil's rainforests and those few people we saw were not actually people but monkeys. For example: monkeys riding scooters. Yes. I promise we were (and still are) sane. I think we ended our day early so we could have a good rest after a night-long trip to Corfu.
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With whom? When? Why Corfu? The whole story began when I told my friend Agape that we should go travelling together, because we hadn't done anything like this before. We had been best friends about 7(+/-1) years by that time. I was actually surprised that she agreed, because it all started with a little joke, which, obviously, grew a lot of bigger. She didn't enjoy travelling as much as I did. The only vacations, she was used to, were snow boarding in the mountains. So we two were on totally different vibes. The trip was from 6th August until 14th August in 2016. Why Corfu? Well, that part is definitely unpredictable. Corfu, again, just because the plane tickets were on a sale. We were thinking about many different countries and places as well, but we found this one being the most attractive, because the price was good, the location was interesting and neither of us hadn't been to Greece before. We also decided to visit Albania, Sarande, because it was only a ferry-ride distance away. Flight tickets and accommodation. I found our plane tickets from a search engine called Momondo.com* and I definitely recommend that page. The ticket per person cost 147 euros. Our journey started and ended in Riga, simply because it was way cheaper for us to go from there, even with the bus tickets from Tallinn to Riga included. We had a few hour long layovers in Athens. Our bus tickets to Riga cost 18.40 per face. From Riga to Tallinn we got for free by a car. :) Unfortunately, I discovered that I haven't saved detailed information about our flights. I usually do it with all of my travels, but... All I can remember is that our flight from Riga-(Athens-)Corfu departed at night and then we had to spend some time during the night in the airport. On the bright side, we arrived to Corfu just in time for the sunrise on 7th August. Our flight back arrived around 3am in the early morning. Our accommodation was booked again through the Booking.com* page. We stayed at the Connection Benitses Hotel*, and both of us were very happy about the price and quality. It cost 70 euros per person for 4 nights, which makes 17.5 euros per person per night. We stayed two nights in Sarande. The hotel in Albania was called Hotel Mollaga. We didn't have a good experience with that one, as I could say shortly. It isn't in the Booking page anymore as well, that is actually a good thing, but I will tell about that adventure later on. The price was supposed to be good- 15 euros per person,- which makes 7.5 euros per night. I will spoil the story a little - we had to find a new place to stay at, and the price was 20 euros higher. So per person and per night the price was 12.5 euros. It makes the full cost for our tickets and accommodation 242 euros (other means of transportations, for example ferry rides excluded). |
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