Day 15: Mesolongi - Lefkada

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Distance - 137 km
Total Distance - 1136 km
Altitude Gain - 938

The sun rises over the bay in Mesolongi

The first 30 kms this morning were very flat - rare event in Greece! - so I was able to make very good progress. Just as the road was starting to get hilly again, I heard a SNAP and the brakes started rubbing against the wheels. I knew what this meant, and it wasn't good: a broken spoke. Now, I don't know why, perhaps it's luck, but a broken spoke is something that always seemed to happen to other people and not me. In 25 years of cycling I'd never had one - until just a few weeks before leaving. Maybe the shop hadn't done a good job, or maybe the Greek roads had finally taken their toll, but here I was with a broken spoke in the worst place possible (back wheel drive side). The tools to repair this were the ones that the Doc in Thessaloniki had given me. However, I also needed a large spanner and he told me that I must find one. I forgot, of course, until now.
I limped on as best as I could until I reached a farm. I decided to look for help there. What an awful place it was! When I arrived, there was blood everywhere and four men were busying themselves cleaning freshly removed cow skins. The smell was horrible. I asked for a spanner, and one of the guys got me one, and then I busied myself to repair the broken spoke as quickly as possible so I could get out of this farm-from-Hell and get on my way. But it was a long process and it took over an hour to do the job. And I also had to politely ignore the useless advice I half understood. These men sure knew a lot about cow skins and goats, but they knew nothing of bikes. But I eventually finished, and then I had to put up with the men looking over my bike with great interest: "Is that a light? Is it a dynamo? What happens when you press this button?" HONK! "Hey! Come and look at this everyone! He's got a horn on his bike!" After a few minutes of discovery, I was finally able to leave the farm and I was back on the road.
The road that follows the coast is really very scenic. At places it clings to the side of the cliff and as the little road winds its way along, climbs and descends, you have the impression of flying above the sea. But what struck me most about this road was the colour of the rocks - an orangy or yellowy, white that seemed other-worldly. On a calm day, or on a day that wind isn't against you, this road is simply gorgeous; but to cycle on this road in a head-wind would be long and tough. I was lucky - it was a good day and I could enjoy this extraordinary road.

The coast road from Astakos to Palairos is a beautiful cycle ride

At 6pm I arrived in Leskada. I found the marina and was reunited with my family. My children had lots to tell me! It seems they had several adventures of their own on the boat.
So, that was the end of my trip. I'd pedalled a total of 1136 kilometres and climbed 11581 metres in the middle of summer in one of the hottest countries in Europe on a fully loaded bike. And throughout this trip my bike behaved impeccably with only five punctures and one broken spoke to complain about. It was one of the best tours I've ever done with none of the problems that I'd had in Italy, in some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe but on some of the worst quality roads. The people were as amazing as the country itself and all were respectful to me on the roads. I didn't meet any aggressive dogs as some people have reported, but there were a lot of strays  that didn't mind me at all. And the strange thing is I hardly saw another cyclist in a country, which offers such fine cycling (so long as you don't mind hills and lots of them). So long as you're fit enough, there's no reason not to come to Greece on a bike. It surely must be one of the best cycling destinations in Europe.

Note: my cycling, in fact, didn't finish there. I cycled round Lefkada, which was a beautiful island, although a little too touristic for my tastes. We then sailed to Ithaca, and I did some cycling there. This was a great place: there weren't the masses of tourists I was expecting, the roads were mostly very quiet and the scenery was beautiful.

I found Ithaka to be a serene place, unspoiled by tourism

From Ithaca we sailed to Kethalonia, where I didn't do much cycling. I did visit the Lake Melissani which was pleasant, but far too expensive for a 15 minute tour (€7 per adult and €4 per child is not justifiable).

The Lake Melissani visit felt like a rip-off. There's not much more to see than in this photo (the photo is from Wikipedia)

The water of Lake Melissani is very clean and pure. I was surprised how well this photo turned out! Shame I didn't have my 'real' camera.

From Kethalonia I took the ferry from Sami to Patra. I intended to take the train from here to Athens, but I was shocked and amazed to learn that there are no longer any trains - only busses to Kiato; then from Kiato there is a train to Athens airport. So, I had to cycle to Kiato and take a train from there. This meant that I got to experience the road opposite the one I hated so much on the mainland. However, this road was much better, although it wasn't very pleasant from Patra to Aigio, but the surface was very poor indeed - almost dangerous in places.

The Antirrio-Rio bridge from the other side

The last three days I spent in a campsite in Rafina. The journey back to France was easy: I cycled 15 kms from Rafina to Pallini, from where I took a metro to the airport (bikes are allowed on the Athens metro, at least when it's not busy). On arrival at Paris airport, I had the biggest issue of my trip. Despite sticking to the EasyJet packing policy, the handlers had completely trashed my back wheel. That meant having to find a way to get to the other side of Paris with a bike I couldn't wheel and four panniers. After a long time, I managed to find a taxi driver who agreed to take me and my bike to a bike shop where I was able to buy a new wheel and hence cycle to the Gare du Nord. I loved this! Paris is great fun on a bike!

All in all then, I cycled 1465 kilometres on this trip and climbed a total of around 13000 metres.

Day 14: Ag Nikolaos -Mesolongi

View Day 14: Ag Nikolaos -Mesolongi in a larger map

Distance - 91 km
Total Distance - 1000 km
Altitude Gain - 746

I left the 'hotel' relatively late - around 8am. The place had absolutely nothing for breakfast so I had to break into one of my emergency nutty nougat bars (which annoyed me greatly - they must have at least had some bread left over from last night?) I had to cycle for 20kms before I found a cafe that serves breakfasty type food (I say breakfasty because cheese pies and sausage rolls don't really make a good breakfast in my opinion). I was about to get up and go when I saw a group of cycling tourers. After nearly 1000 kms cycling in Greece, these four people were the only other cycling tourers I'd met. I was starting to think I was the only one. They were Italians, and this was their second year in Greece. Last year they did a tour of the Peloponnese, this year they are touring the mainland and will do a lot of my route but in the other direction. They will not, however, cross Olympus. It was nice to see them - I started to feel a little less like a creature from a far distant alien world, and more like an inhabitant of Earth.
The E65 was still windy this morning, although it had calmed overnight. Also, there was a lot less climbing than there had been the evening before. In fact, over the remaining 40kms on the road, I climbed around 350 metres, which is half what I did over roughly the same distance yesterday. These two factors meant I was able to keep up an average speed of 15km/h instead of around 8 yesterday evening! It's still very slow, though, which shows just how hard that road was. I should have exchanged blog addresses with those Italians: it would have been interesting to find out what they thought of the road. They might have loved it, actually. They were going the opposite direction, so the wind would have pushed them; there was a lot less traffic than yesterday; and I think it's fair to say that the views are more spectacular when you're going towards Itea than towards Patra.

The road seemed to go on forever - and the shrines marking past fatal accidents was hardly reassuring

Looking towards the Rio-Antirrio bridge. Beautiful, but very expensive (€13 to cross in a car)

 At the bridge between the mainland and the Peloponnese there was a long queue of cars, some police officers and the sound of protest. I can't imagine who was protesting or why, but as they were blocking the bridge I think it's logical to assume it had something to do with the bridge. I took a photo, which they noticed and which made them make defiant gestures just for the record. The photo didn't come out well though - I took it sat in the saddle and the camera on my phone is sooo slow.

Probably a protest about working conditions. The Greek public sector is on its knees at the moment.

I wasn't on the road (which becomes the E55 after the bridge) for very long before I realised that it had suddenly become a lot busier and that there were now a loads of trucks. Indeed, this was the busiest road I've cycled on in this tour and I was glad, about 35 kms later, to leave it safe and sound. I would definitely advise against taking this road on a bike. But it did have a couple of redeeming features: there was a short but pleasant climb just after I got onto it which had some lovely views. Even the trucks thundering past me couldn't take away my enjoyment of this climb. Also, there were lots of places where I could get water and refuel. But apart from that, best leave this route to the cars and trucks.

The E55 offers some beautiful views

The road is very busy and fast. A rare moment of calm

A salt mine

Once arrived in Mesolongi, I flowed the signs to a hotel and that was the end of today. I did think of putting in twenty or thirty more kilometres, but I don't know what the accommodation situation is like in the small villages further along the road. My route tomorrow will be the coast road through Lessini, Mitikas and finally onto Lefkada. So long as there isn't too much headwind, I should be with my family tomorrow evening.

One final comment: I noticed when I looked at my cycle computer that I have now done almost precisely 1000 kms. Almost, but not quite: I need to travel just 26 metres further!