Category Archives: Greece

It was a late start to the day, leaving Nasta’s place at around 10am. The winds however were blowing in my favour. A stiff tailwind and a light bike propelled me more than 100km, to an under construction overpass near Edessa. I continued to sense the change in the seasons, cycling past orchards in full bloom.

It was just before the under construction overpass that I had my most frightening experience with dogs. I spied what I thought was a small side road, running parallel to the main road. Being the ‘side road lover’ that I am, I headed for it via a dirt road running through an orchard.

Just as I came up to a rise in the road, a dog started barking. A second later, the barks of four other dogs. The pack came over the rise towards me, inching closer, barking threateningly. I yelled back at them, but they continued to come towards me. I was too petrified to turn the bike around and run, and soon the dogs were right at my feet.

One snapped at my leg, ripping my trousers. I stood up, dropping the bike and grabbing the neck of the dog that snapped at me. I snatched my water bottle from the bike, and was about to try squirting the dogs with water, when a farmer came running up over the rise, hearing my frantic shouts. One short snap at the dogs, and the farmer had the dogs backing away.

I stood there shaking, blabbering that I wanted to get to the road. The farmer was not impressed, and waved me to go. As I was leaving I noticed that the ‘road’ I was intent on getting to was in fact the railway. I felt like an idiot. It appears that I was on his land, so I guess I was asking for it.

Once under the overpass, I had my first opportunity to try out my Coffee Can stove. With the roads so smooth and so easy these days, I need something to think about during the day. The Coffee Can Stove was it.

The Mark 1 version went OK. I managed to cook some pasta and soup in 1 and a half hours. It needs some serious improvements in the air intake and outlet areas. The stove runs on any kind of solid fuel. If I can get the stove to work well, then I could save up to 1kg over the MSR Whisperlight liquid fuel stove I have.

The bottom photo is with me blowing into the air intake at the bottom of the stove. Expect some improvements to follow.

This time I’m serious. I am leaving Thessaloniki tomorrow. The last few days have been a time of reflecting and pondering for me, forming and scheming some schemes of what lies ahead. Not only roads, but also possibilities and potential for the remainder of my journey to England.

For the time being however, I am headed towards Slovenia tomorrow, with about 1,200km to cover. I hope to have this section done in good time to meet my fellow recumbent rider, Peter, at the beginning of April (see previous post for details).

I have also sent home some more gear – 2kg of extra insulation that I won’t miss now that I am heading into civilised climates. Once you start reading about the ultralight backpacking philosophy, things start to make you think twice about what you really need and don’t need. This makes my total luggage weight including bags plus some basic food 14kg. A far cry from the 30kg monster load that I was carrying for the last three months through winter.

So until my next post, adios.

Sorry to keep things hanging for a few days…

So in the end I didn’t end up having to sleep out on a cold, wet park bench. Once again things worked out better than I could have imagined.

Ailsa, a friend from motherland England, emailed me a while back to remind me about couchsurfing.org. This is a community website that allows people willing to have travellers stay in their houses, to meet travellers wishing to have a place to stay.

I signed up on the 27th of February (Day 219, the day when I was sheltering from the rain in Thessaloniki in an internet cafe), and managed to get a spot on a couch the very same day. My wonderful host, Nasta, replied to my email 10 minutes before I was about to leave to look for a park bench to sleep on.

It’s great how things work out.

The rest is history, and I have had a wonderful time here at Nasta and Vasilli’s place. They are both students, and are very active in the Couch Surfing scene. I didn’t realise it at first, but apparently there are over 100 Couch Surfing hosts here in Thessaloniki alone.

I have spent the last few days hardly even leaving the house, reading a great adventure novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. called The Big Sky (Bantam Books, 1975). A story of living wild out in the open against the elements.

However, all good things must come to an end, and I am planning to leave Thessaloniki tomorrow to head towards Macedonia and Albania. Whenever I mention to Greek people that I am planning on going to Albania, my words are met with raised eyebrows, and sometimes “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Apparently all Albanians are thieving criminals.

Looks like fun times ahead.

Speaking of fun times ahead, I have been in contact with Peter (website), a fellow recumbent rider from Slovenia who is very active in promoting recumbents in Slovenia, and we have arranged to cycle together during my time in Slovenia. He has a great route sketched out.

“This will be a trip of lakes, brooks and history and Kras – a very interesting landscape with vanishing lakes and brooks and many, many caves. A very well known red wine and dried pork meet – they have special weather conditions here that allow drying meat in the wind – only in this section of Slovenia.” – Peter, from one of his emails.

I should be in Slovenia in less than a month, so do keep tuned!

Before you do anything else, visit this blog:

The World According to Malcolm

Too bad there are no roads where Malcolm has been for the last 7 weeks. I would go there.

Actually, just as well there are no roads. If there were, it wouldn’t be such a spectacular place.

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Ah yes, just as well that I got to sleep in a warm cafe last night. It rained frogs and lizzards last night. The rain is only forecast for today, so all going well, tomorrow will be clear skies for the road to Macedonia.

The plan for today is to use up the 10 hours of internet that I bought as a member of The Web, an internet and gaming place all through out Greece. Only catch is that there are no The Web places between Thessaloniki and the Macedonian border. If I don’t use up the time today and/or tomorrow, then too bad…

Thessaloniki has ruins right in the middle of the city. Spacey.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 114.35km
Average speed / 平均速度: 16.6km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 6h 52m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 165.80km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +540m
Descent / 下り: -530m

In Komotini I became a member of The Web, an internet and gaming place with stores all over Greece. I bought 10 hours of internet time, which saves me about 0.90 Euro per hour over the normal price. The plan was to get to Thessaloniki today, cycle out to the outskirts, find a spot to sleep, and then spend the day in the internet cafe tomorrow updating stuff, and generally chilling out for a day. Things worked out even better than I had expected.

The ride to Thessaloníki was straight forward. I met a rather vocal Albanian builder on the way who made a Frape for me.

Once in Thessaloniki I headed south along the coast of Thessaloniki bay to Kalamaria for about 2 hours, hoping to find a church or a pagoda to sleep in. Things weren’t looking good, with most of the pagodas vandalized and exposed. Churches were few and far between also. It was 5:30pm when I pulled up in a small cove, leaned the bike against a small boat, and walked to the water for a breather. Slightly put out and not sure what to do, I stood there for a few moments.

A few meters away was a group of 50 or 60 year old men sitting on chairs around an oil drum converted into a brazier. It looked warm, so I wandered over trying to look cold. One of the guys motioned to me to sit down, and I sat, not sure what to say. They didn’t seem to speak English, so there was an awkward silence for a while as I tried to explain where I was from and what I was doing there.

I recalled my success with communicating in Russian further east in Greece, so I asked if anyone spoke Russian. The old guy closest to me suddenly lit up with a big grin and announced that yes, he speaks Russian! There is great value in knowing a few languages.

We went over the details of my trip again, and this time there were many more nods and understanding looks. I was promptly given three cans of sardines, some bread, a can of beer, and a bottle of water. ‘You must be hungry’ they said. I was. It was past 6pm.

I cooked up some soup on the embers of the brazier, and ate the bread and sardines, washed down with the beer. Not bad, this Armistice Beer.

One by one the guys left the brazier for home. As the Russian speaking guy left, he said that I should sleep under the shelter next to where all the chairs were. It looked alright to me, so I agreed.

A couple of the guys headed over to a cafe-like building nearby. I followed, hoping that they had a toilet I could use before hitting the hay.

They did have a toilet, and after all was done, I was about to head back to the shelter when the guys in the cafe called me in. They had a spread of fried fish, fried potatoes, salad, olives…all very good stuff. I had a second dinner with them.

It turns out that this is the Kalamaria Pigeon Club headquaters. They have photos of pigeons on the walls, and a cabinet full of trophies. On the TV was a nature program about prairie dogs. The five guys in the HQ were glued to the TV. Lature lovers through and through.

It wasn’t long before I was ordered to sleep in the adjacent cafe. It was warm and much more sheltered than the open shelter near the brazier. If all Europeans are as hospitable as this, then I think Europe will be OK after all.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 51.38km
Average speed / 平均速度: 15.3km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 3h 21m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 51.38km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +610m
Descent / 下り: -730m

This morning I had some more speedometer issues, ending up with me having to reset the computer unit. Hence the mucked up total distance to date reading in the stats above. It is all sorted however, and the $5 speedo I bought in the Uzbekistan bicycle bazaar is still going strong.

I was once again lured by the brown tourist sign today, but it wasn’t quite as far. Just a 250 meter climb up a road just about as steep as the Black Sea coast of Turkey roads to a church.

It was Greek Orthodox in all its glory. 2 hours of standing up in a crowded church, listening to the priest dude do his chanting thing and the nuns doing their singing thing. I guess it wouldn’t be so much of a chore if you knew what the hang was being said, but I committed myself to staying till the very end, and despite the long time on my feet, I made it.

It was interesting to make some observations. Everyone in their Sunday best (and me with dirty shaggy clothes), lots of incense (no complaints there – masked the smell of my ‘haven’t-showered-in-a-week’ body), men on the right side of the church, women and children on the left. Lots of brass hanging things and plenty of candles. Halfway through the service, a nun wielding an aluminium pole started to sway the chandeliers. I hoped to God that the service wasn’t going to last as long as the chandeliers were swinging. They swung for ages.

Towards the end of the service, there was a flurry of activity, and people started to remove the pictures of saints from the walls. I was about to shout ‘thief‘ when the congregation parted, and the priest followed by the nuns filed out of the church, followed in turn by the congregation. The procession headed out for a lap around the church.

After a short outside reading of the Good Book, everyone piled back into the church, saints were replaced on their hooks on the walls, and communion ensued. In Georgia, I was not allowed to take part in communion because I am a protestant, so I didn’t risk it here.

All in all a rather interesting experience. Not one that I personally would like to repeat every Sunday morning, but I guess it rocks some people’s boats.

I left the church alone, slightly put out that I hadn’t been invited back for lunch to someone’s house, but I enjoyed the sun in a pagoda down the road, cooking up some pasta and pasta sauce for lunch. It was such a lovely day that I even hung my sleeping bags out to air.

I made relatively good time for the afternoon ride, enjoying some more coastal views. As I was riding slowly along looking for a spot to sleep, a car pulled up with a family out for a Sunday drive. They asked the same questions as usual, and I gave the usual polite reply. They headed off suitably impressed with my endeavours, and sped off.

I was just about to head up a side road to get to some under construction buildings, when the same car came back.

“We like what you are doing, so please take this” the father said out of the window while his wife handed me a plastic bag full of sandwiches and some orange juice. These Greeks are a hospitable bunch after all.

I headed up the steep road to the buildings, and set up. A room with a massive view out over the Ege Sea.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 125.86km
Average speed / 平均速度: 16.8km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 7h 27m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 4157.2km (plus 4200km)
Ascent / 上り: +995m
Descent / 下り: -780m

It was a cold start this morning. My thermometer registered 0 degrees celcius, and a frigid gusty wind was blowing from the northeast. Lucky for me however, Thessaloníki is in the southwest. Joy.

I really should have just milked the tailwind all day, and not take any detours. But I couldn’t help it. The brown tourist sign said ‘Thermal Roman Baths 2km’. It was a tailwind in that direction anyway.

I cycled for 5km, and still no sign of any baths. After 10km, another sign said ‘Ancient Abdera 10km’. This was also in the tailwind direction, but certainly not in the direct direction of Thessaloníki. My map is a massive Europe-wide map that only shows the main roads. I figured that there must be a connecting road from Abdera to where I needed to go. To Abdera it is.

The remains were not spectacular, but moving all the same, considering they are 2,500 years old. Incredible.

After having a wander around the remains, I knocked on the door of the Coastguard HQ at the Abdera port to ask directions to the main road. The news was not good. They showed me a detailed map, showing that I had to go back about 20km to the main road. A large river separated me and where I wanted to go, and the only bridge was upstream at the main road.

For 20kms I battled the gusty sidewind up to the main road. Once on the main road however I flew along the flat smooth road to Kavala, often in my lowest gear.

I do not travel with a guide book. To have one would be handy, but they are expensive and heavy. Plus, the element of surprise is something I enjoy. Kavala certainly took me by surprise.

This massive aqueduct just appeared out of nowhere, separating one half of the town from the other. I felt very small cycling through the arches.

The coast here in Kavala is very Greek. The sea is like translucent liquid peppermint candy. Houses clinging for dear life to the sides of the hills, all clambering for a better view of the sea.

A beautiful white church took my breath away, contrasting against the blue sky, nestled between breezy olive groves.

The day ended with a 300m climb up a pass. I am currently set up in a pagoda in a picnic area amongst pine trees. Still very cold, 8pm and 0 degrees celcius.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 37.79km
Average speed / 平均速度: 16.2km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 2h 19m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 4029.9km (plus 4200km)
Ascent / 上り: +40m
Descent / 下り: -85m

Ah, so this is what is meant my flat riding! I feel as though I have no cycled on such flat and smooth roads as today. Smooooooth asphalt. Welcome to the developed world, I guess.

Another strange thing here in Greece is the amount of room that drivers give me. And what’s more, they actually slow down and wait to pass! I feel like royalty.
The first half of the day was spent at an internet cafe in Komotini, and the first highlight once on the road was Lake Vistonidas.

Not a particularly beautiful lake itself, but a monastery perched in the middle of a small lagoon made up for the stark surroundings.

There was a guy from Cyprus who was spending a week staying at the monastery to get away from his busy work life. He gave the usual astonished reaction when I told him I was from New Zealand.

“Oh, New Zealand is a far away place!” he said, and gave me some Cyprus-style Turkish delight. Not as chewy as the Turkish delight you get in Turkey – very tasty.

I have found that in Greece there are many more English speakers. Also, if they don’t speak English, they either speak Turkish or Russian (both of which I can now make very basic conversation in). Very handy, because I will not be in Greece long enough to pick up the language!

Afterwards, I somehow found myself in Port Lagos, on the coast. I had intended to head inland, however it seems as though I took a wrong turn somewhere. No big dramas, just a small detour. Plus, Port Lagos is a nice enough place. Massive herons clapping their bills and chattering to each other atop tall pine trees…

I am sleeping tonight under the generous eaves of a deserted summer cafe on the beach just beyond the pine trees you see in the above photo.