Cycling Through Greece
To Thessonaliki:
When we arrived in Greece from North Macedonia it was a Sunday, so we were expecting lots of things to be closed, however we didn’t anticipate that it would actually be another national holiday, which would be celebrated the following Monday!
As there weren’t any campsites around on our first night in Greece, we stayed at a hotel - which also happened to be the local post office. This was ideal, as we had been wanting to send some things back home which we didn’t need. After packing things away such as a camera, a broken sleeping mat (which I hope to warranty), a hardback journal, some bits of clothing and a tin whistle (which Vic soon realised was not a good instrument to learn along the way) - it weighed 2.6 kg!
A few days later we arrived in our biggest city since Croatia, Thessonaliki. We booked a really nice apartment (very reasonable) for two nights to rest, recharge and most importantly, to give Zach time to go to a local bike shop to get a new spoke and his wheel turned. Getting into the apartment proved to slightly more challenging than we anticipate, with enough lock boxes for an escape room, and a very small lift - meaning we would need to remove all our panniers and head up to the sixth floor in batches.
A highlight of our stay here was the excellent falafel wraps Zach brought back on the first night on his way home from the bike shop. They were so good we had them again the second night!
To Alexandroupolis
It was another four-day block of cycling to our next city, the much smaller Alexandroupolis. For this section, we were following the old military road which was quite a big road, with a good sized hard shoulder for us to ride on. The vehicles here have been giving us lots of space on the road, it feels so much safer to be cycling here than it does back home.
This stretch of cycling also had some of the most beautiful beaches where we would wade up to our knees in at every opportunity!
At one of these beautiful campsites next to a beach, we saw two motorcyclists on Harley Davidson bike arrive, and realised that one of them was the British man we’d met back in Montenegro. His friend, who had been stuck in Croatia after needing some paperwork, had now rejoined him - and he turned out to be from Kendal (specifically, Crooklands). We also saw them at the next campsite in Alexandroupolis where we stayed for two nights.
Typically, it was the day we needed to have a big cycling day, that the storm hit us. We ended up sheltering in a tiny village for an hour or so as the worst of the rain and lightning passed over us. Thankfully, it was just a drizzle when we headed back out on the road!
We had our first puncture of the trip here, not down to our tyres (we absolutely love our Schwable Marathon tyres), but down to the inner tube being twisted when we put it back in Zach’s newly fixed wheel.
This last day off in Greece was spent as usual doing our chores, but we also had plenty of time to swim in the sea, sunbathe and I got some very mild sunburn for the first time from sitting at the beach bar!
It was half a day’s ride to Turkey from here, and we were surprised that the locals bought our drinks for us at a small cafe, we had no idea that this was going to be the start of a lot of kindness we would be shown as we continued our ride in Turkey…
