17th June 2012

A wonderful nights sleep in our mozzie free, air-conditioned room, and we woke to the ‘phutt putt’ of the small fishing boats returning from their nights fishing with what later transpired to be our supper.

Our lazy day at San Nicolas hotel was heaven. There was only room for about 8 couples and everyone very quiet either reading, or in mine and Steve’s case ‘snoring‘. We feel you can never have enough sleep and relaxation in between our long bike rides.


We sauntered back to our room at about 4.30 and sat on the veranda with a nice cold beer enjoying the usual busy view and contemplating dinner, before finding ourselves at ‘our’ restaurant again with big fish and salad, chunky bread and more cold white wine.. It's getting to be a very pleasurable habit!

                              18th June 2012

Debs: We have a minor problem, perhaps because of the current problems here no-one accepts any sort of credit or debit card, it’s all cash only.. So an early start was made for the trip to Lefkada town (the capital of this little island) which is only a 25 minutes ride.

We set off at 8.30am all togged up in our mesh bike gear (purchased specially for this trip) with shorts on underneath as the thermometer already reading 23c but by 9.30 it had climbed to 32c and we were melting! We fortunately found the Bank pretty quickly, but by the time we got back to our room we were ready to drop.





 So far the trip has gone pretty smoothly with hotels, routes and timings all pretty spot on, however today we realised there’s been a ‘hiccup’ in our calculations. Tomorrow we leave for Delphi which I was sure it was a 2.5 hour trip, but when we checked up with Dolly sat-nav she informed us it's actually 5.5 hours. Whoops!



The remainder of the day was sun,sand and snoozing, plus of course regular portions of fish and wine as evening drew in, but it's going be such a scorcher and a very long run, so looks like an even earlier start tomorrow…

                              19th June 2012

Steve: What a way to start the day.. I woke at 5.15am  and after gently waking Debs with a cuppa we loaded the panniers and by 6.30 we quietly took our leave from the gorgeous Poros Bay - We had a great time there and will definitely return one day soon..

Thanks to our boo-boo on the timing we had found ourselves with a 5.5 hour trip to Delphi, and with the temperature in the mid to high 30’s I thought it would be a trip from hell. From our journey down I knew that it would take us about an hour to get off the Island of Lefkada across the bailey bridge onto the mainland, and that the first part was also very twisty roads with poor surfacing so there was little to be achieved by trying to push on through this section.

So it was just before 7.30 that we hit the mainland but the ride up through the Island had been wonderful, the air was cool and fresh, carrying the scent of wild herbs blending with the unmistakable tang of the sea.. Beautiful,  I could have ridden like that all day, except that it was now 32C and climbing.


Our route took us mainly off-motorway and alongside the Corinth Canal, which may sound a little unglamorous - it’s anything but...

The road is well surfaced (for Greek roads) and runs for miles sweeping from one bend to the next where, without the very obvious Police and camera presence. consistently low and changing speed limits you could wind through here in the high 90’s. As it was my sat-nav was wailing almost constantly with camera warnings, and I saw 3 speed traps.. Not fair, I wanted to play!

The food and coffee was good too..

We ensured that there were plenty of breaks for water and snacks, as dehydration in these conditions would be all too easy, and found a really nice coffee shop alongside the canal with beautiful view..

OK I give up, just have a look at the photo..





Eventually we arrived at the craziness that is Delphi, it reminded me of Skegness in high summer -  loads of souvenir shops, snack bars, dreadful parking and too many coaches, but we found our hotel and after booking in we went to find a cold beer!




One great feature about the place is that it’s so high up in the mountains that everywhere has a superb vista, and our bar was no exception, you just can’t encompass the immense view in one go.

Seriously chilled we sauntered down to the site to visit the museum, I’m not really into such things but this was impressive with artefacts over 3000 years old that had been recovered and placed on display - wonderful.






It was still extremely hot and although very enjoyable the ride had taken its toll so we arranged to do the site trip in the morning, and went into the town for some food and wine.
Unfortunately the wine was a little too pleasant for Debs, and by the time we got back to our room she warned me that the curtains just wouldn‘t keep still!

                                   20th June 2012       

Steve:  Another ‘let’s get up early and pack day’ except this didn’t happen, we kinda wandered into breakfast and then onto the archaeological site where we  slogged around the sanctuaries of Apollo and Athena at Mount Parnassus, the centre of the world in Greek mythology and home of the Omphalos - the seat of the prophetess Sybil (there was a prophetess Sybil in the film ’The Matrix’, just for movie buffs).


I have to say that the archaeological site was very impressive and magisterial.. Still damn hot though!

Back to the hotel to change and head off for Athens where we’d booked a little hotel in the suburbs. Now this is a 2.5 hour ride that actually took nearly 4 hours. Just  the mood that day I guess, we chilled man..

See you tomorrow..

                               21st June 2012

Debs:  When we looked at this hotel we noticed that it said ‘ The hotel is easily accessible to the centre of Athens through the motorway or by train, which is 14 km away from the hotel.’  
What they failed to mention is the 2 mile walk to the railway station along a busy main road, often without pavements, add that to a 36C hot sunny day and that there is also no direct bus link to the railway station and you have a flavour of how the day started.

Let's start at the beginning - the journey across was fairly easy until we got into the Athens suburbs and the temperature began to rise alarmingly. Dolly behaved herself and we soon found ourselves parked in the Hotel driveway, so far so good until we found that the owners Father was in charge of the desk and his lack of English was only matched by his patience levels. His hands went up and eventually we found our own room, air-con and porno TV appeared standard.. but after a shower and unpacking we set off on the 2 mile walk to the station.

Hot and weary we jumped on the train to Piraius not knowing at which station to get off for Athens city centre, but had half decided that we’d carry on to the end of the line and watch the boats and have a drink there. After about 20 mins we got off with the idea of getting a coffee and then rejoin the train afterwards, however when we came out of the station we found ourselves right in the city centre!

Wandering around and generally looking in the shops we were besieged by the shopkeepers anxious to make a sale, but first on our list was a cold beer and small fish! After a great meal (and perhaps another beer) we set off to climb the Parthenon and view the Acropolis - sounds good huh? Then followed about an hour of winding through the maze of narrow streets and alleyways before we finally arrived at the entrance to the Parthenon, but with the exposed site and under a fierce sun we agreed it was just too hot to carry on, so we walked gently back down to the station and the 2 mile drag to the hotel… 

You know what?  We enjoyed our day out, it may not have happened as we planned but never the less we had a good time. Off tomorrow to Thessalonica..

                               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)

                               23rd June 2012

Debs:  The idea was to be up and on the road by 7am and although Yanis, the proprietor, kept offering us breakfast we assured him that we had to get an early start. When we made our appearance at 8.30 he couldn’t stop laughing.. Yes we had overslept but our main problem was that we had been running on the wrong time all week. As you may remember we had commented on an earlier blog that the boat from Italy across to Greece had arrived an hour early, the truth was that there is a 1 hr time difference between the two countries - they weren‘t early on the day, because we should have altered our watches we were an hour late all week! However we finally got away at 9.30(without breakfast) and headed for Bulgaria via Thessalonika and the top end of Greece, this area is mainly industrial and sadly a bit harsh on the eyes after such a relaxing week.

We approached the Greek border crossing with trepidation, not sure what to expect, so it came as a bit of a surprise when the first check point guard winked at us both and waved us on through. Then when we got to the Bulgarian check point they also waved us on. I said “Don’t you want to see our passports?” The chap just laughed and said “No, you are on a nice bike”. We then stopped at the cabin selling the ‘vignette’ for the motorways, he just asked us where we were going and also just waved us on. Hope it always goes this easy!

Bulgaria was a bit of a disappointment, pretty grubby and run down, and everything seems so grey and industrial. 

Not quite 'Angel of the North' but definitely eye-catching!

We had a fairly uneventful ride until we reached Sofia, where I noticed a huge black cloud hanging above us and the lightening flashed as we rode into the city.

There was one particular thing that Steve loved about Bulgaria, the traffic light systems have a 'count down' display above the lights showing how much longer the red or green light will last for, so you can get into gear ready for the off.. wonderful!

Having stopped for petrol, Dolly (sat-nav) tried very hard to direct us back on the main drag by sending us into the middle of a rundown, high-rise tenement estate with a pot-holed dirt road… We made a quick about turn and Dolly became redundant for the next 5 minutes as I took over, but to give her credit she came to her senses and took us to the Easy Hotel (as in Easyjet) which was also in a rather run down area, but had the strong attraction of an underground car park for the bike, we are talking Sofia here folks.

Steve:   An early night was planned for an early start, but when we checked Dolly against the Via Michelin route they really didn’t agree - Michelin quoted 4.5 hours and Dolly 8.5 hours! Further investigation revealed that Tomtom state they don’t have full coverage of Bulgaria, Serbia or Montenegro, only the main roads, and so would only be good for getting out of the city and about the next 24 miles, but Debs stepped up to the task and went into full Girl Guide mode, writing out her various reference points for the day ahead - Hence off to sleep at 11pm.

Hmmm, tomorrow’s going to be here way too soon..