Since last Friday, there is now a link from the port of Brindisi to Igoumenitsa, thanks to the Kydon Palace, a modern, comfortable vessel, from the Minoan Lines fleet, a Grimaldi Group company.
The Kydon Palace is 214 metres long and 26 metres wide. She has a cruising speed of no less than 29 knots and a particularly large garage. She can accommodate over 1,700 passengers with its 634 seats and 231 comfortable, cosy cabins (including luxury cabins and cabins for the disabled). They are all suitable for pets with the purchase of a pet kit. She also has a restaurant, bar, shops, swimming pool and pool-snacks, making the crossing even more enjoyable. In her garages, the ferry can also transport 765 cars, or, alternatively, up to 115 trucks and 100 cars.
The Kydon Palace is to replace the Cruise Smeralda ferry. She will join the Igoumenitsa on the service with a number of daily departures offered by the Grimaldi Group between the Apulian port and Greece. More precisely, every day she will depart from Brindisi at 10.00 pm for Igoumenitsa, where she is due to arrive at 6.00 am the following morning. From the Greek port, instead, departures are scheduled for 2 pm arriving at 8 pm in the Apulian port of call.
Not only that. Starting from June, to coincide with the 37th edition of the Brindisi-Corfu Sailing Regatta, the Kydon Palace will offer departures every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from Brindisi to the island of Corfu, with a return trip from the island on the following days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), re-establishing a link service many passengers had been hoping for. A special Corfu service is also due to be set up, just for the Orthodox Easter (14-15-16 April) period.
The passenger traffic segment between the port of Brindisi and Greece is worth over 300,000 visitors a year.
Translation by Giles Foster
