Not knowing what the traffic would be like we opted for an early 7am start to drive the 95km to Agrinio for our 10am appointment with the alien police for the first part of our residency process. So we started with some form filling, why they wanted the christian names of our parents, only the Greeks know, but I did unsuccessfully try to catch them out by missing out my mum and dad’s middle names! Then they wanted passport photos, proof that we’d paid the €16.5 each, proof that we had £4000 in our bank accounts, proof that we’d spent money in Greece for each of the past 2 years, proof of Greek health insurance and that we had achieved residency pre brexit, which we did and attained our beige cards when we arrived in Corfu 2 years ago and finally, a copy of the contract with Cleopatra’s for today. Nearly 2 hours later, after they’d sent us off to get a coffee in their canteen for 45mins, we were finally told that everything seemed in order and that we now had to appear at the police station in 10 days time at 11am to have our finger prints taken. (why couldn’t they have done it today?). We’d heard horror stories of brits doing the same at Preveza and Lefkas police stations, where they’d had to have interpreters present to get documents translated (even bank statements) and verified by notaries, so we feel we were lucky in that the whole meeting was conducted in English and the inconvenience of a 95km trip was well worth it.
On the way back we had a delightful stop in the town of Amfilokhia which included very cheap chicken kebabs, chips, with Greek salad. Total cost €17.50!
On the way back we had a delightful stop in the town of Amfilokhia which included very cheap chicken kebabs, chips, with Greek salad. Total cost €17.50!
