22nd June 2102

Steve:  Greece is a weird place, period (as my American friends would say), or should I be more precise and say their driving habits.. Motorway driving is a special treat, the hard shoulder is frequently used as lane 1 but in a desultory fashion, with all types of vehicles weaving between that and the correct lane 1 or straddling the solid white line for miles, with lanes 2 & 3 are treated in the same manner.
Speed limits are flagrantly ignored and generally doubled in the lower range, double white lines count for nothing as do ‘no overtaking’ signs. Believe me, I’ve been overtaken by everything from a 32 tonner to a Smart car in 50 limits, thinking about it just about everything has gone past me except a hearse!
Moped riders (sans helmets, always) have a trick of riding one-handed whilst chatting on their mobile phones, carrying boxes 3’x3’, or in one case a 6’ ladder.. Car drivers and mobiles - what do you think - Of course! It makes for an interesting ride.

Winge over -

Today was nothing less than a motorway slog for 98% of the 5 hour trip, with a few towns thrown in for good measure at 50kph. However, there was a section of about 25 miles along the base of a mountain range with the temperature at a pleasant 26C - very agreeable riding thank you. Suddenly we came out of the protection of the mountain and within half a mile a 38C wall of heat slammed into us. “F*ck me, it’s hot!”  I heard Debs exclaim over the comms, accompanied with a demand for a cold Coke very soon.. The temperatures that day just went up, and as we neared our destination it was reaching 42C (phew!) and we were both looking forward to getting out of our bike kit and into swimmies.

 We were heading for a small coastal town of Makrygialos to stay at a seafront hotel that  had some good reviews on Booking.com and was pretty inexpensive, so that combination won it for us. However we arrived to find that they had sold our room to a German wedding guest as the rest of the group had virtually taken over the hotel..
Was I impressed? No, I had a serious sense of humour failure on the spot, not helped by the fact that I noticed that the on-bike air temp gauge was now flashing at 50C as I had stopped, so I was really hot and p*ssed off all in one go!
The rotund and now perspiring hotel owner haltingly explained that he would find another room and not to get upset, way too late by some minutes I’m afraid.. but he called several other hotels and found one a couple of minutes away, so off we went.
Our new hotel owner, who we nicknamed 'Madam' also seemed unimpressed by his actions and gave us her best room, adding that she would charge us the same as we would have paid with the first. He didn’t seem to happy about this, leading us to believe he’d just copped for the extra. 
The rooms were excellent by holiday hotel standards, although the paintwork inside a little colourful, so we agreed that we may need to wear our sunglasses indoors as well.  It was also the first room we had stayed in with not only a bath, but a huge corner one, shame that the hot water ran out with the bottom barely covered.,

The pattern is by now familiar -  a beer please, together with our now favourite lunch of a plate of small fish and salad, and thus replete we went off for a swim. This was our first beach of proper sand and it was so hot, the water was also very warm (surprise eh?) and very shallow so I started picking up shells off the bottom  and found almost every one had a hermit crab living inside - cue boring explanation from my mis-spent youth on the Isle of Wight into the intricate habits of these wonderful creatures.. Poor Debs.


Debs:   I loved it, watching all the little crabs trying to complain at me peering in at them. The little bay is surrounded by mussel beds and the rocks are also covered with them. I love fresh mussels, such a shame they don’t like me..

Back from the beach and we realise there is a lot of sand that we don’t wish to take with us so it’s time to do a big wash, still no water in the hot tap but it all got rinsed through. We also notice there is nowhere to hang anything, but ‘Necessity being the Mother of invention’ we made do but Madam would have a fit if she saw where we’ve hung our stuff to dry!


Chores now done and a beer was calling        (actually it was shouting very loudly), so a gentle walk along the shore admiring the fishing boats was the necessary exercise before resigning ourselves to more fresh fish and alcohol. Life is so hard sometimes..




Another early morning tomorrow ‘cos we’re off to Bulgaria (Country # 6)