April 15th – 53 kms, Monastiraki April 16th – Turkey border crossing
Breakfest with our hosts Dino & Eleni : käse brot, wurst, gürcken… Are they Greek or German? Most likely both, just like Larissa is drinking her french red wine with brazilian sweet concentrated milk. Today the rain has stopped. But we won head wind instead of! At least it eases to dry 🙂 As we are cycling toward Alexandroupoli, we see many archeological ruins along an old national road : no cars and rather direct. In Alexandroupoli, we have a nice lunch in a trattoria suggested by Dino: Elysée. The owner is a good friend of Dino and welcomed us with XL cups of Uzo. We enjoyed the place to work on some administrative stuffs. During the evening, we met Charles, another French, cycling from Marseille to Istanbul. We discussed a bit and then farewelled, as he booked an hotel to rest and we decided to advance a bit. As we were looking for some water, a very gentle lady stop her car and asked us if we needed some help. With some audacy, we said we were looking for a place to rest. Jackpot! She just said « follow me » and led us to the female club of the village! Dry place, water, heating system, kitchen, toilet, privacy and funny pictures on the walls – it was perfect. Thanks Antonina! This was our last night in Greece, allowing us to leave the country with good memories.
Sunset on Greece
Last cost of Greece
Next morning, we enjoyed the place to do a bike maintenance before leaving. The road was then quite straight until the border. As we moved through the different controls, a kind Austrian driver came to have a talk with us, giving some tips on Turkey and offered us chocolates 🙂 It took us surprisingly easily 1 hour to cross this frontier, in Ipsala.
Next to come in Turkey!
Ipsala border crossing
Happy us
Recap
Distance travelled in the country: 689 kms Flat tires: 1 (Larissa, km 380) Frappé: +10 Nights with locals: 6 Bivouac: 6 Hotel: 3
What did we like? – Café frappé. Even though it is make with lyophilized coffee, the frappé is really a Greek patented drink and part of the country identity. – Fresh water for free with coffee in the restaurant. – Easy to communicate – almost everyone speak english or german. – Beautiful landscapes despite the rain. – Drivers taking care of cyclists on the roads.
Frappé!
What did we dislike? – Abnormal rainy weather for the season. We spent 2 weeks in Greece, we were easily soaked or wet during more than the half time spent. Barely dry. – Villages were quite empty. Most of people we met on the streets were people revamping the hotels/apartments for the high season. Where are you Greek folks?
What is growing? – From the parts we have been cycling, we have seen many olive groves, grapes, oignons, cotton fields, goats and sheeps (feta!). – Most of the fields where ploughed though.
Curious facts we learned: – Greek langage has 5 differents way to write « i ». And it is always pronounced the same! – Even though the economical situation of the country is getting slowly better, Greek people seem disappointed with the economical situation of their country. Many youngs we met are not trusting their government anymore and are planning their lives without counting on government’s help. Sad but true. – For some reasons (likely environmental and economical) there are several ghost cities in the country: place where roads, electricity and water supply have been installed, but not houses. We cycled close to 2 of these ghost cities.
April 8th – 91 kms, Stravos April 9th – 38 kms, Orfani April 10th – 50 kms, Nea Irkalista April 11th – 24 kms, Kavala April 12th – 54 kms, Xanthi April 13th – 42 kms, Porpi April 14th – 56 kms, Mesti
We can now say it is a shitty weather. Non stop raining. Never mind, we have the confirmation from a nice couple that we could stay for one night at their place. It is at 91 kms from the place we are and more than 1200 D+, but we decided to go there – we haven’t met that much Greek people so far and we never say no to an invitation. We finally arrived at their place quite soaked and tired, but what a welcome! Danis and Athanasia are so kind we could barely hope for better : traditional Greek diner, Uzo, Greek wine – good food, good company and good discussion. Plus the must for all biking travelers: a nice and warm shower. And a nice dry bed. What else? Laundry service! Thank you so much Danis & Athanasia for your hospitality, kindness, advices and smiles – you really recharged our battery on many dfferent levels 🙂
With Athanasia & Danis
Stravos harbor
Rainy lunch
Awaking up the morning : really shitty weather, it is getting worse. We spent easily two hours during our lunch break at a bus stop, drinking some tea and waiting for the rain to calm down – it never happened. Now on all main roads there are big puddles of water/mud. But the funnier part is on the small roads, that we use to take to avoid cars and trucks traffic (BTW, driving with lights on when it is rainy seems to be dependent on Greek people’s mood) : here it is getting really muddy as no asphalt. Larissa got the first flat tire of our journey. Obviously under the rain and on a muddy road. We found luckilly a kind of abandoned farmer house with a roof in an olive grove to fix it on a relatively dry manner. Later, we followed the instruction of our kind host Danis to reach a nice village. The shortcut he advices us was unfortunately simply not passable as completely flooded, so we had to take an other way. Too bad: our bicycles got completely stuck in the mud. Really sticky mud actually, so much that it broke Pierre’s front fender. Nightfall was coming and we were soaked covered with mud. We had to stop to remove the biggest part of this damn mud and fix the fender. Hopefully a nice lady from the neighbourhood saw us and offered a hosepipe to clean the bikes! So lucky! Pierre managed to fix the fender somehow – it is now crooked but will do the job. Night is there. Let’s move to reach the village. We crashed at a hotel, soaked, tired but at least with relatively clean bikes. And, one more time, we were lucky : the hotel was very nice, with a heatting system to dry our stuff (and ourselves). We had a shower, a good dinner and went to bed for a great relaxing night.
Muddy
Broken fender
Wet friend
1st flat tire
Still raining the morning, so we stay in our hotel to dry all our gears and rest. Rest a lot, read and relax. Once weather calms down, we cycle to Loutra, an abondonned thermal station where it seems some hippies are living there. Once arrived , there are indeed some hippies welcoming us. The place is interesting, but kinf of shabby though. But well, it was so nice, a beautiful place and for free. At the end, we enjoyed the thermal source, had a lunch and left right afterwards. Interesting place though!
Loutra
Loutra
Loutra
Loutra
Loutra
Luckily, the sun was back for a couple hours, the road was beautiful following the cost, and we found a nice spot to camp with a wonderful view on the see.
Bivouac and sunny morning – drying time
After a relaxing and wet night, few kilometers pedalled and we arrived in the nice city of Kavala. The sun is back today and it changes completely people’s mood, our mood. Everyone is happy, specially us. We are amazed to see huge amount of pollen getting out all the conifers along the road. We thought about all the poor allergic people, this might not been an easy period for them. As we visit Kavala, we found a nice coffe offering a wonderful view on the city, where we stop to work on the blog and to deal with some administrative stuffs. Kavala is a nice little city full of history, with an aqueduc, a fortress and marks the end of Macedonia region. Hitting back the road, we passed by the old harbour, and crossed very typicall taverna. It looked like such a nice place… Shall we keep on going, enjoy the good wether to make some km? Or just take our time and rest after those difficult rainy days? Under the charm of the place, we decide to have a traditional Greek dinner on the harbor, and to stay one night in the city. And it was sooooo goooooddddd!!!!
Kavala’s aqueduct
Kavala
Kavala
Pollen everywhere
Threatening sky
Next morning, our beloved friend the rain is back. Aaah we missed it so much. We stop on more time under a bus stop, waiting the weather to improve. But well we get used to it, it never gets better. We finally hit the road as we will be hosted tonight by Georgia in the city center and we are very happy about that. And what a nice meeting! Georgia is a very intelligent, nice, funny and cool person. She hosted us (and our dirty bikes), gave us a shower, a good dinner, some beers and a great company. It was a lovely evening. The only problem with this kind of meetings is that it’s always hard to say goodbye… Xanthi marks the first city of Thrace region, that we will cross until Istanbul. From what we have seen, Thrace is rather flat with some hills on the sides, many industrial zones and definitely a marble quarry area. Funny fact: Xanthi is wellknown for their famous chocolates named « Karioka ». It is a dark chocolate suffed with praline and nuts. What is interesting is that a « Carioca » is as well the name of the people from Rio de Janeiro and surroundings area in Brazil. The ethymology roots of Carioca would come from the indigenous Tupi dialect meaning something like « karai » (= white) and « oka » (= house). This word means roughly « house of the white poeple », due to the fact that Rio’s bay was one of the first place colonized by Europeans, French people among others… This meaning and the black chocolate speciality brings us to nice discussions. Like the stereotype of Brazilians, that would have a chocolate colour and the expression like : « Oh, but you don’t look like a Brazilian person! »
Xanthi
Xanthi’s market
With Georgia
One more morning under the rain. We start to love it. Hum, not really that much. After a long breakfest with Georgia and further nice discussion around Greece, we left this wonderful host. Just leaving the city, we met Gert. What a character! Gert is Dutch and could easily be named « the Pedalling Dutchman ». First, he is rather aged, travelled with his bicycle his ass off, he’s incredibly positive and generous, funny, musician as well, with the heart on his hands. We have never seen such a laden bicycle. You can find everything on Gert’s biycle: a cast iron pan, spare tires, a grill for bbq, and the must : an accordeon ! It is tue, we are never too much loaded on a bicycle, Gert’s understood this very well. Gert is doing a tour of Europpe from Nederlands until Istanbul, then travelling back to his home country. Sometimes he’s playing music to people and earn some coins. Very interesting guy. We shared a lunch, a dinner and a bivouac spot together, having very good food cooked on his iron cast pan, and friendly conversations and music. What a night!
Gert playing a morning song
Gert’s bicycle!
With Gert
Last night of the week, raining almost non stop. Our tent get flooded one more time. Breakfest with Gert and then hitting the road toward Alexandroupoli. Now we have no more rain but heavy head wind. We are moving as slugs, it is discouraging. It’s difficult, but we’re getting stonger, more organised and our asses do not hurt anymore. As we are following our GPS to avoid main roads, we are stopped by a road completely overflooded by the recent heavy rains. No way to cross this, we have to go back. Pierre’s fender is suffering one more time and showing some weaknesses, not sure how long it will last. After an invigorating coffee welcomed by such a gentle lady offering us some delicious home made food and water, we continue pedalling until one of Gert’s spoke broke on the rear wheel – this poor wheel might be overloaded with the accordeon and extra stuffs 😉 Poor Gert! But staying positive, he has spare spokes and will fix this quickly. We say good bye to each other though as we have to move further – we are getting late on our schedule. As we thought we will reach Alexandroupoli today, we stop in Mestli village to ask for some water. We are actually welcomed by Constantin – Dino, who invited us to his place for a dinner and a dry place to sleep : his garage! Very kind, Dino and Eleni are both retired Greek people having spent +30 years of their lives in Germany. So we disscussed tonight in German! We never thought our German knowledge would help us during this journey, but it actually does quite a lot. Thank you Dino and Eleni for your hospitality and kindness!
April 1st – 15 kms, Thessaloniki April 2nd – Resting and visiting Thessaloniki April 3rd – 50 kms, Neo Gounia April 4th – 62 kms, Osios Arsenios April 5th – 54 kms, Torone April 6th – 35 kms, Sarti April 7th – 46 kms, Livrochio
After a very short night, Geoffroy dropped us to Baden Baden airport. Last good-bye. Here we are. We arrived in Thessaloniki airport like zombies. While we were assembling our bicycles back, a curious cop came, firt asking us our passports. Then, he added « Nothing to see with police paperwork, but what are you doing?? » So we explained our plan. Always funny to see people’s reaction : he was quite suprised and said « Sometimes some people are biking here, but never like you! ». Before leaving with a smile, he gave us some good advices to reach Thessaloniki’s city center. We arrived 15 kms later to our host’s place, Su, from Warmshower network. Su is Turkish and working as a journalist. She is a very nice and cool person. She let us sleep for 3 hours before sharing a dinner with her and a Greek friend, Christin, who gave us a short greek lesson.
In the airport…
Comfy place to assemble our bicycles
Second day, we just enjoyed café frappé, visited Thessaloniki, and started to realize what is our plan for the next 9 months. We had a good traditional restaurant, Igglis, with Uzo and Greek cheese. Miam!
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Street art
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
After a relaxing day, we felt refreshed and relaxed enough to hit the road. We started our journey with a 50 kms day, testing our material, feeling the bicycles, and trying to communicate with Greek people. By the way, we are surprised to see how empty are the villages we go through. All houses are closed, we hear nothing, we see nobody. Not sure if this is an effect of the economical crise, or just a rest before the high touristic season. Or both? We found a nice spot to camp in the countryside close to Neo Gounia with a view on hills. Temperature is still coldish : 5°C during the evening!
Common scene in Greece
Nice gravel road
Next morning, our asses start to hurt. Let’s hope it is just a matter of getting used to being sat on a bicycle saddle all day long. We decide to head on the « middle leg » of the Halkidiki Peninsula : Sithonia. The greek villages we cross are still rather empty. Sometimes we have to wake up a sleepy dog having a nap in the middle of the road. They usually wake up all of a suden, then chase us like crazy while barking as hell – always funny. During the evening we struggle somehow to find a place to sleep. We first ask to a gas station if by any chance they could accept us on the bottom of their garden. No way, and fact they do not speak one single word of english doesn’t help. Then we found out a monastery is nearby, Osios Arsenios. Let’s try the monks! Arriving on this very quite place, we are welcomed with a hot tea and some cookies. The monk who welcomed us ask us to wait, he will discuss the possibility for us to stay closeby – as soon as we are a couple with one women & one man, it is obviously clear that we could not stay inside the monastery (only for men). We are allowed to sleep just at the entry outside the monastery, and invited to come back the next morning. Beautiful view on the bay!
The Monastery
The Monastery
After a fresh night, the breakfest is offered by the monks: home-made Greek cookies, olives, bread, fruits and Greek coffee. We left the monastery happy with some eggs, a book of the Saint who founded the monastery (very kind, even though we do not necessarly need to have extra load in our paniers!) and lucky Saint pictures (!). Let’s hit the road blessed!
The day after, little rain during the night and morning. It is actually the beginning of a looong wet & rainy period. We wake up with the tent partially flooded, always nice. While we were pedalling under the rain, a weird construction catches our attention on the map: it is Kriaritsi Ghost City. A building project of an entire village initiated 10 years ago, but which never ended for some reason. Asphalts roads, bridges, water pipelines, electricity, everything is there but no houses! It looks like a huge asphalt labyrinth. We thought this was an effetc of economical crises. Later, we were invited by Angelo for a frappé and some cookies. He explained us this project ended as it wasn’t in accordance with some laws, mostly environmental ones – nothing to see with the crise. We decided to rest in a village at a guest house to get dry.
Sarti
Ghost city
Last day of the week : more rain. We spend the morning at the hotel. Small step, we stop at a coffee to see the rain falling. The grandma owner cooked us some bread pudding, exaclty what we needed to continue pedalling under the rain. Thank you little Greek grandma! Later in the afternoon, the rain finally stopped. We were luky enough to get a nice sunset and even a beautifull spot to camp. It was next to an abandonned castle, in a hill, in a wonderful beach… Dream camping!
In this section we will try to answer the most common questions that are raised whenever someone see us with our bicycles and stuffs, sweating like pigs.
This one should be updated frequently, depending on the inputs we will get along the road and comments accordingly.
Why do you do this? Perhaps the most frequent one. We do not have a clear answer. Why not? There is probably as many good reasons to do such journey if possible on a lifetime, so as many to do not. It is our choice, can be somehow egoistic as we will be far away from our families, friends and colleagues during 9 months, but we believe our world has probably more interesting things to show than the routine we used to live during our regular life styles. We could also add: because of endorphins! Pedaling heavily weighted 8 hours per day, we just feel like doped Tour de France’s cyclists.
Are you not too old/young for this? Sure, we are not the youngest doing such things. Due to lives counstraints, it was not possibe for us to organize such trip before, even though it was stuck in our minds already quite some time ago. We finally had an opportunity to realize this project, and we decided so. This being said, we do believe we should do this now that our legs and bodies are still working (more or less) properly and not during retirement. Actually, it is never the good timing. First you have to finish your studies, then you don’t have money, they you start a career, then you have children, then debts, blablabla, then you are retired and have to take care about grand-children, then you are dead. Right?
Is it safe to travel in such countries? What should we say here? We are living in France, Strasbourg city center, where a recent attack killed several people – we could have been easily one of the victims. There is bad people everywhere. And there is as well good people everywhere. We will go through countries that have a bad reputation in the common minds and we will have for sure to be vigilant. But we do not believe it is specially dangerous – we are not burning heads taking foolhardy risks. For further details on countries safety along the Silk Road, please check the below Caravanistan website, which is simply the reference website for us: https://caravanistan.com/safety/
Why this blog’s name? Easy one: have a look at us laden down as donkeys and you will probably ask yourself who are these guys and get curious about us. Also we love to learn new things and staying curious. This is one of the reason we have decided to travel through the selected countries: we do not know nothing about these! What is growing there? Are they listening to Jean Ferrat as well? What do they eat? Which kind of underwear they have? What is their culture?
How will you communicate with people you will meet? We are able to speak Portuguese, French, Spanish, English, some German and some Italian. Which is completely useless in the countries we will visit. So we will use our good old mouths, hands & smiles. And it will be as well the opportunity for us to learn few words in new langages. No risk no fun.
Why on a bicycle? Travelling with a bicycle is slow enough to enjoy the different places we go through, and fast enough to visit several places. Also, we feel more close to the people we meet. The bicycle easily generates conversation and exchanges with locals. Lastly, because of endorphins!
The departure was rather though: we finished our respective jobs on Friday March 29th, departure was planned on Monday April 1st.
This means we had only one week-end to pack our stuffs for the journey, finishing bikes maintenance, cleaning our appartment, welcoming our tenants and saying good bye to friends and relatives. With all these things accumulating, we where quite exhausted.
At 18:30 sharp, our good friend Geoffroy came to pick us up with a truck. We put the bicycles and their huge parcels inside, together with all our paniers. We thought after this pick-up, we would be able to unwind and to enjoy a last relaxing short night: wake-up was planned at 3:30.
However, when we arrived at his place, taking the chance to final check the weight of our lugages, a first friend of us arrived. Then a second. Then a third… Then 10 of them! What a surprise! Geoffroy actually prepared us a surprise home-made pizza party with our friends, to wish us a nice and safe journey. It was so nice to see all our friends there and being able to say goodbay properly. Thanks for this !
curiouscycling 