Moussaka Mash

Greece was an unknown of the trip. I’d based the majority of the Balkans leg upon the Trans-Dinarica route, but there wasn’t a Greek equivalent. The rough idea was there: ferry in to Athens, ride the coast west to Patras, climb into the mountains toward Meteora, exit north into Albania. The coast was easy - follow the established Euro Velo route. The mountains… were a bit more ambiguous. I definitely wanted to ride some gravel though, so we’re just going to have to figure that out along the way.

We rolled off the overnight ferry early and headed for the Athens city center. Somewhere along the way Maia fell behind. We doubled back to find that she had cut her leg on some scrap metal — a big gash across her lower calf. It looked bad enough that we rushed her straight to an emergency room to get it stitched up. One hell of a commemorative souvenir!

Athens was our first prolonged city stop. We locked our bikes inside the hostel, and toured the city by foot: a pattern later repeated for all city stops. The center of tourism revolved around the mountain-topped Greek ruins of acropolis, overlooking the city of Athens. It was a massive tourist trap, which I normally prefer to avoid, but the cheese is sometimes worth the nibble. It was great, and we caught the Mediterranean sunset from the steps leading to the pantheon.

I’m also happy to report that Athens has more than the critical mass of Asians required to support a bubble tea store!

Maia said goodbye the next day. A wedding back in the UK was waiting on her, and so our crew became a duo.

From Athens, Rennie and I beelined for Patras. That was the plan anyway. I'd drawn up a northerly route out that looked fine on a map and but instead it put us on the shoulder of a major highway. I probably should have caught on to my mistake earlier, but the ever present shoulder on the road that made me think it might widen up further down. A few kms later we realized we'd boxed ourselves in — highway on both sides, and the only local road out restricted to military traffic. Great. We got out of it the only way we could: begging a bus driver to haul us and our bikes back toward Athens. From there we left the city a second time, via the Perama ferry, routing through Salamina island instead. We took our sweet time to soak in the ocean, and soon forgot about the traffic.

What followed was several days of good, hard sun and wild camping along the coast — the water somewhere between turquoise and aquamarine, especially when viewed from atop of the many cliffs. The riding was mainly on quiet seaside roads. The Eurovelo route was reliable along this section, and we cruised westwards.

As we rolled through a quiet seaside town, an empty set of tables and chairs caught our eye. They sat at the end of a stone pier, just by the water. Photoshoot time!

From there, we zipped past Patras and turned north inland for our first real mountain stage of the trip. Pacing got important fast. Rennie's bags were heavy, and her small frame didn't help once the grade kicked up, so I took the heaviest of her gear onto my bike. Right as we hit our first stretch of downhill gravel, I caught the smell of tire sealant. I punctured my front sidewall, and now needed a new tire. The plug held, but we opted to replace it immediately since the rest of the riding was remote enough that we wouldn't see a shop for a while. The replacement worked well, and we pushed on.

We rolled in to the ski town of Karpenisi for a day of rest. I definitely didn’t know you could even ski in Greece! Though judging by the state of the shops and global warming, I think its days might be numbered. Past mount Velouchi began some remote days of rolling traverse through the landscape. We found most villages to be mostly deserted, which created a huge headache for logistics. Resupply points and restaurants we'd planned around kept turning out closed, or just refused to serve us. Planning around a route that wouldn’t cooperate got old REALLY fast.

The empty-village motif kept showing up the whole way through the mountains — dense forest, ghost towns, a sense that things used to be better here.
Many of these villages depended upon agriculture to be profitable, but the tourism industry has outcompeted them for labor.

It seemed to be a far cry from an isolated incident. In another town, a local explained the story of Kastoria to us. It used to run on the fur trade, until fur coats went out of style in the early 2000s. The jobs went with them as well. What's left now is a quiet town and a few faded billboards of skinny models in thick black coats. I vaguely remembered the Greek financial crisis, and it definitely did not help any of these places recover.

I’m not having fun anymore

“Are you still having fun?”
“Nope”.
“Same.”

Somewhere along Lake Plastira, after the fourth closed food stop of the day, we had enough. Did I also mention it was the middle of the heatwave? It was a daytime 34 degrees Celsius! We decided we actually wanted to enjoy our trip and pointed our bikes out of the mountains through Mouzaki, and toward Meteora instead. Best decision of the stretch.

The change of scenery did wonders for morale, and Meteora more than delivered — monasteries built right onto pillars of rock. We stayed at a hostel there for two nights. While we wandered around, we made some really amazing friends there and spent most of a day wandering between and inside each of them.

It was quite a remarkable place, and felt like something out of a fantasy novel. Disappointingly these monks were not of the warrior kind. I also learned that it was the naming inspiration behind Linkin Park’s Meteroa album!
From Meteora it was a few days rolling through the hills of Northern Greece. It was beautiful, but rather uneventful. Just like that, Greece was done!

Logistics

I will update this format fully once I get to a computer and can build a widget

Must eats

• Moussaka
• Gyros(especially pork kontosouvlaki)
• Spinach/cheese pies from the local bakery

Bike Infrastructure

• Drivers are courteous, but not used to bike traffic. Expect a few close calls.
• close to non existent in Athens. Do not attempt to bike out of the city unless you like to gamble with your life
• Euro velo routes are reliable, but very hot in the summer.
• Mountains are a toss up. Easy to move through, cooler in temperature, but not a lot of variety. Gravel roads can be washed out due to earthquake events (we had to reroute due to one)

Camping

• super easy to find free spots to stealth camp. Official sites available, but spread out.
• Holy moly there were a lot of dogs.