A dangerous game in the southern Adriatic

Ship and tug docked in the port of Patras, Peloponnese, Greece Ship and tug docked in the port of Patras, Peloponnese, Greece May 07th, 2015

I cannot say I have the fondest memories of the Greek ferry port of Patras from my hitchhiking days around Europe in the early 1990s, but I do remember arriving in the Italian port of Brindisi, having slept a couple of nights on the deck of a foul-smelling ferry (mostly an intense aroma of diesel) and realising that my lot had got little better. The southern Adriatic was a rum part of the world in 1992, and judging by this excellent long read from American publication Slate, things have worsened over the intervening 25 years. Today, of course, the interrailers and hitchhikers have migrated to low-cost air travel and been replaced at Patras by refugees and migrants in what appears to an endless river of human misery. If nothing else, it’s certainly arresting journalism.