Once Easter comes, there never seems to be the time to leave the island due to work committments, so this was possibly the last chance for a little trip elsewhere, where the road doesn't start or finish in Vathy or Kioni. The worst thing about any trip off Ithaca, is the early rising to catch the 7am ferry from Vathy. The 2nd worse thing is the hour long trip from Vathy to Sami in Cephalonia. The morning ferry takes the long route. By the time you dock in Sami, you're ready to disembark yourself. The great thing about the morning ferry is being able to watch the sun rise over the Ionian. The golden morning light does much to negate all the other things that aren't so pleasant ie: rough water, cold and sleep deprivation.

From Ithaca there are several ways to get to Parnassos, the mountain that radiates Apollo, with Delphi and Araxova grasping at its slopes. We took the ferry to Patras and drove with an overnight in Athens and a quick stop at Marathia lake, then up the Lamia freeway (National Road Number 1) until the Thiva (Thebes) turn off. We took the first Thiva exit, although we should have taken the second. It's a more scenic route than the first.

There's not much for Thiva to brag about other than its mythological history that Hercules was born there. We drove through as fast as we could to get to the other side of the town boundary and made our way to Livadeia. The fields were yellow with wild flowers blossoming on the thistle bushes and the occasional red poppy eluding the smothering.

Unless the longest road you can travel is no longer than 30 km, you can't really appreciate a road that doesn't seem to end. Heading out on an open road after months of Ithaca is a thrill. Left - Parnassos in the distance is still capped in snow. One photo on the internet enthused us to make a stop at Livadeia, even though reports by locals who had passed through, had not been complimentary about the town