Claire’s totally bagged after a long day of fighting headwinds and is already in bed (snoring peacefully away) by 8:30 PM. I just came back from a walk past a string of clubs on the beach with pounding Euro-dance rock and ‘statuesque’ women hanging about in skin tight pants, skimpy tops and 4” pumps…and now I’m feeling every one of my 60 years, so to bed for me too!
I’m feeling torn by a decision taken a few days ago. When we arrived in Athens from Crete we decided to get the first train out of town. It is a notoriously congested, large, chaotic city not conducive to cycling but it is also home to one of the most significant sites of antiquity, the Acropolis. We got off the train just outside the city limits and cycled to a campground just beyond Corinth, crossing it’s namesake canal on a slippery, old bridge that submerges (ever heard of such a thing?)when ships need to pass. That same afternoon we cycled up to the site of ancient Corinth and wandered the ruins and stunning museum with life-sized statues of Julius, Augustus, Nero, etc., all from the site, amongst a truly outstanding collection of other pieces. It all tends to boggle the mind. I’m not even remotely knowledgeable of Minoan, Mycenaean, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman history, or even the recent history of the Mediterranean so there is far too much to absorb. Moreover, the construction details are, for someone like myself, fascinating, as is the rise & fall of the civilizations, the eventual burial of these cities over time, the archeological history/process in itself, and so on. So, was I a fool to skip Athens? (Note: Claire has been there before as she has been to so many other ‘bucket-list’ places.) Yeah, I probably was but I’m beginning to understand bike touring is not about visiting specific places but about the experiences one has along your chosen route.
(cont’d a number of days later, on the island of Corfu, camping where we had hoped to find a legit campsite but they are few and far between in Greece, so we are happily, Claire would say forced, to set up camp behind some dunes near the famous beach of Issos. We have enough water, a mini-market a km away provided cold beer and retsina and I am trying to get some writing done in the tent – a hopeless task with aching back and twitching leg muscles, but so be it).
The two days of riding it took to cross the Peloponnese (along the Gulf of Corinth) were starkly different. The first, a pleasant ride on quiet roads in perfect weather and the next, on the same road, in strong headwinds with long stretches of road construction in heavy traffic. The second day was a bit of a nightmare, quite draining and, as we’ve come to learn, all very hard to predict. It is the nature of the game. Information specific to the needs/wants of bike tourers is hard to come by and the information we do get must be taken with a large grain of salt. Though fully aware of the lack of map reading experience of people in the developing world we’ve been surprised at a similar lack amongst many of the locals (in the land of Aristotle, Plato and Homer!). It is funny watching their finger wander haphazardly around the map looking for reference points.
Prior to our departure a number of people expressed concerns about our safety. To be honest I think leaving ones car at a recreational parking lot near Squamish is more of a concern than what we’ve had to contend with. Though I tend to be overly blase, naive might be a better word, about security issues, we are both feeling very comfortable……mind you, there was that one stretch of lonely road through a swamp that Google had led us down, and just after passing an inexplicable garbage heap strewn on the side of the road, that we rode past a Gypsy encampment (it was their garbage dump). A bunch of bad-ass looking men hanging around and kids yelling at us confirmed that stopping in for tea wasn’t a good idea. We pedaled quickly by, our stereotypes firmly in place. To have known more about Gypsy/Roma culture and their place in Mediterranean society would have been helpful.
The narrow mouth of the west end of the Gulf of Corinth is spanned by a beautiful, new, 2.8 km long bridge (see photo). On my evening walk, referred to above, I had scoped out the bridge for an early AM, surreptitious, bike crossing of the permanently (?) closed sidewalk. I was assured by a local that it was doable and the gates were open so we decided to go for it. Much to our disappointment after lugging all our gear up the 4-storey access stairs, we found the security gate now closed. However, taking the ferry (free for walk-ons and heavily used by transport trucks avoiding bridge tolls) was a wonderful display of functional chaos and made up for what would have been a very cool ride.
The last few days has been biking up the Ionian Coast of Greece then a quick two-day traverse of the island of Corfu bound for the mysterious (to us at least) Albania. The first day was a long 90 km ride on dwindling strength. We pulled in at the first campsite, a deserted affair, along a long beach where they graciously let us camp for free. The long 3 km walk into the sleepy little town for dinner seemed like overkill (after a long day in the saddle) but the service and locale made up for the extra energy required. We sat, all alone in this lovely, but modest seaside restaurant just a few metres from the pier where picturesque fish boats were moored. After much sign language I had explained our dinner requirements to an old lady, the sole staff and cook. While we sipped retsina and ate olives, a fish boat pulled in immediately in front of us. The old, weather-beaten skipper jumped ashore and walked past our table showing me some of his shrimp catch in the passing. Much to our surprise, 10 minutes later, back out he comes to serve us dinner. She was a fine cook and he, the husband, a most congenial waiter.
The last few days we’ve kept bumping into Torsten, a tall, lanky German, 56 year old nurse and a very experienced traveller and bike tourer. He’s riding a custom touring bike that he crossed Africa on and it’s been interesting learning about the gear that has worked for him. We’ve had two great nights hanging out at our campgrounds discussing biking, travel adventures, world politics and the like. We’re both looking forward to Albania but I think, regrettably, it’s the last we’ll see of him.
Corfu town was another very old, very interesting place where we could have hung out longer (though I won’t miss the bed in the 0-star hotel we stayed at) but a meeting with Poema and her family in Albania that we didn’t want to miss, kept us moving on. More on that next time.
Lovely Corfu town. A wash and a drink at a, who-knows-how-old ,fountain!
OVER THE HILL AND BEYOND 