back in 1997 had a trip to greece with a uncle of mine,we sailed on superfast anconna -patras loved the trip when in greece we spent a few days in harrys near pireus i think good laugh and not bad food just wondered if it was still going , the fish bar was another place lots of drivers used in patras is that stiil open . Havn’t seen my uncle for years now Bob is his name bold head shaved from cheltenham
Theres a couple of lads who post on here, Kindle530 and biggles, who used to run down there alot, i remember reading of harrys bar in a few of their postings.
Im sure they will help you out, though you may have to wait a while for a reply from biggles cos I understand he`s doing 8 weeks away at a time for a Norwegian firm, down to Turkey and all points east!!!
Cheers, bullitt.
I’m not sure about Harry’s but I believe that the fish bar in patras is no longer the same place.
The trouble with the superfast boats out of patras is that they used to sail around 15-1600 so if you got held up and arrrived in the dock much after 1400 you missed the boat and had to wait for the following days sailing.
This gave you plenty of time to go and spend a fortune in the fish bar and also have a good lie-in the next day to sleep it off.
Aahh happy days…
Cheers
neilf
I don’t remember Harrys bar but that means nothing By the time I had done the regular stops at Keratsini (Peters) and the bar at St Nicks Square, the drachma had long gone
I was taken to a “Fish Restaurant” with a german driver called Hans from Meyvissen and when you ordered the fish, the patron went off and caught it
I do remember going to Georges TIR bar with Gentleman George from ACH and Astran and noticing the signs on the door!
VISA, Mastercard. UTA DKV
there was also a fancy bar like a Deli which was used for sobering up as the prices were not cheap
I think that is where the tales of Maurice Gray and the whisky bottle top originate
Harry’s bar is/was right next to the Aspropyrgos junction off the main motorway into athens if coming from corinthos.
I can’t remember the exact directions but basically you came down the slip for Aspropyrgos and at the bottom I think instead of left for Aspropyrgos you turned right and then it was a turn on the left i think.
One for the frigo drivers is the dock at kiato. During grape season in august then all the fridges ended up there waiting to load and you could be there for a few days with nothing to do but sit on the beach during the day and drink at the bar over the road at night.
I can’t remember the name of the woman who ran the bar (might have been maggie) but her husdand was usually away at sea and she had a cleavage that got deeper as the evening wore on.
Cheers
Neilf
neilf:
I’m not sure about Harry’s but I believe that the fish bar in patras is no longer the same plaice.
Cheers
neilf
RS005D1136:
back in 1997 had a trip to greece with a uncle of mine,we sailed on superfast anconna -patras loved the trip when in greece we spent a few days in harrys near pireus i think good laugh and not bad food just wondered if it was still going , the fish bar was another place lots of drivers used in patras is that stiil open . Havn’t seen my uncle for years now Bob is his name bold head shaved from cheltenham
For Harrys, you would come off at the Aspropyrgos split(roughly 15k"s before Athens), go down to the roundabout, turn right, follow that road for a few hundred yards, at a x roads, you turn left, (there was a restaurant on the junction) the road (and i use the term road loosely!) leads you back onto the slip road to go back towards Athens, half way down that road (around 400yds) is the turning into Harrys Truckstop. No tarmac, it was just like your typical British cafe! Photos on the wall of happier and busier days, the good thing is everyone knows where it is, if it was your first trip you were given directions there, then you would ask Harry… where is this and how do i get there? He used to be a taxi driver a lot of years ago, and he would draw you a map and off you would go His problem was as he got popular, he started putting his prices up, and a lot of people avoided him.
I used to go to another truckstop myself, before Harrys, bit of a sod to get to, but the food was a lot better and the showers were cleaner. Couldnt give anyone directions there, but i could drive you there, nice bloke who owned it, he"d even give you a knock in the morning if you were off early and you told him what time you wanted to go. Had a few good weekends there, it was and probably still is, popular with the Danish drivers. And the prices were lower than Harrys, and the food was better.
The fish bar is now a fast food place. kinda like a McDonalds but a Greek version.
Funny lot them bubbles, some were really friendly, some totally ignored you.
I once had a groupage run, 4 drops, around a 20 mile radius of Athens (if you had 1 drop actually in Athens was a nightmare, if you didnt ask Harry, you would pull up on the outskirts of Athens behind a taxi driver and show him your address, youd pay him half of what he wanted to take you there, and pay him the other half when you got there), i pulled up outside a factory and went into the weighbridge office to ask the woman if she knew where the place i wanted was. She was around 80 years old and didnt speak English, and i couldnt speak Greek, so i held my C.M.R up to here and pointed to the address and shrugged my shoulders, she started babbling away in Greek, i pointed at my chest and said “English, no Greek”, she stopped talking and said “English?”, i nodded my head and said yes, she replied “Fk Tony Blair, fk George bush” then started to point and shout at me So i took that as a sign that she didnt like the English
Was strange though, you"d be going down the road following for example a 141 Scania, and he would be following a 164 580! They still run the old 141 142"s etc out there. They absolutley love Scania V8"S. But nearly every lorry out there is an import from Europe thats on its last legs.(thats what people refer to as a seller, they drive em down with a knackered trailer with a load in, get to Greece or wherever, and sell the truck, the trailer and the load, and fly home) I actually saw my old FH12 that i drove when i was working for a firm from Sweden, it"d done over a million and a half km"s when i had it, the bubble that had it in Greece probably thought it was the dogs you know whats
Sorry, i dont know your uncle, my first ever trip to Greece was in 1996, didnt go again until i got the regular job i had in 2002, worked out at roughly 2 trips per month.
P.S Bullit, Biggles works for a Danish firm, not that it makes any difference to this post
thanks for that kindle530 yes i remember harrys being a dust bowl a the time there were some abbandoned trucks parked up a old transcontinental comes too mind but none of them toached theres a prison next door is’nt there remember seeing the gaurds patroling safe parking with them around
When I had my escapade down in Athens 2 years ago, I looked for Harrys Bar… it was signposted off the main road but I couldn’t find it after that.
I would love to get back on that run… 2 blissful weeks of admiring scenery and 2 days spent sailing on big ferries in company with drunken manic germans
I havent been down to Greece since 1986/7, and due to the Olympics, it
s changed for the better, I drove down from Bulgaria, New motorways are very good, I had to go to the Peace & Friendship Stadium, next to the football stadium in Pireaus, unfortunatly i only had enough time to get to a hotel, check in, walk 100yrds to nearest bar/restruant, shove a pizza down my neck, accompanied by 4 beers, back to hotel, 4 hrs sleep, down to the gig, watch show (for free) then drive for the next 24 hrs into Istanbul…
I would have liked to gone to St Nicks Sq, Glafhda, just for old times… oh and a couple of beers… but the use of the Euro makes life a bit easier…
Does anyone remember the Dutchmans Bar, outside the Customs compound where the world went by at warp speed at the 5 way junction outside…
It had the back end of a blue tilt, including the light & bumper bar sticking through about 6 inches ? my last memory of that was with my brother, we had double manned to get there for an important delivery, & sat in Customs for 2 days… it was when there was an earthquake just up the road killing loads of “bubbles” and it was so hot i sat outside with a water pump draining a hole of its water, pouring it over me keeping me , didn`t catch any diseases as i was “Alcoholicly Immune”… the good old days…
st nicks sq glafada thats the beach isn’nt it yeh i stayed there for the night bad head in morning