Day 1: Goodbye Berlin, Hello Athens!

At 5:15 AM I woke up on 2.5 hours of sleep and quickly got my close on, grabbed the packed bags and boxed bike that had kept me up late and headed for the bus stop. Good thing the bus stop is right in front of my door, because I wasn't going to be able to carry this stuff far. A few stops on the bus and I changed to the U-bahn to Alexanderplatz. Once on the platform, I grabbed a bite to eat and a Club Mate (probably my last for a while) and waited for the express train to Schoernefeld.

While waiting on the platform, Berlin gave me a last goodbye in the form of a guy lighting up a cigerrette beside me. These are the times I long for California and say "Fuck you, Berlin!". He wasn't so keen on stopping or moving away, so I moved my stuff a little further down.

The train came, I started chatting with a Spanierd who helped me with my bag till I grabbed a cart. Checking in was fast and easy. I had to help the lady run my bike through the scanner as it only fit by holding it at an angle. After going through security, there was a short wait, then I boarded the plane.

The flight was uneventful. I mostly recall breaking though the clouds and thinking that that was the real start to my trip. The clouds were thick this morning. Berlin has been having really strange, changing weather the last couple days. It was snowing when I left.

Once in Athens, I had to wait a while before my bike was brought out. There were hardly any marks on the box, disproving any fears I had about it getting damaged.

I carried my stuff through customs and found a corner to unpack, repack and assemble the bike. The assembly and packing took longer than I'd suspected; about 2 hours. I asked airport staff what I should do with the bike box as I didn't want to just leave it there. She told me to just leave it there. So I did.

So now the first leg of my bike trip was ready to start; about 30km from airport to AirBnB flat. I can imagine a worse start but not by much. I spent about 30 minutes going in circles trying to find an appropriate route to exit the airport area with my bike. After doing several loops, I found the route that provided the shortest way to a proper road for biking. It turned out, however, that that section of the route had an extremely strong headwind. So, that's how the trip starts: on major highway, strong headwind, and it was mostly up hill.

That only lasted for about a km. It did make me start questioning this whole trip, however. If that was going to be my rate of progress, I was going to miss my minimum goal of Salzburg by a long shot.

Luckily, after that short but tough section, I got on some more reasonable streets and started making good progress and my morale improved correspondingly. There was one particular hill that was a challenge, but I'm assuming there will be many more of those to come.

After about an hour, I started to get into the city. Once you really get into the city the streets start to resemble those of Istanbul with regards to steepness and lack of shoulder or even sidewalk. There's no spare space beside cars, pedestrians spill into the street for lack of a better place to walk, and motor bikes weave in and out of traffic.

After about 2 hours I did reach my destination. I recieved a very friendly greating from my hosts, Vivian and Minto. It turns out that I was their first AirBnB guest. They really made the place very welcoming. There was bread, freshly prepared olives and fruits on the table. The fridge was stocked with orange juice, cold water, boiled eggs, and sandwich toppings. The small studio flat itself is also very nice, located on the top floor with a terrace overlooking the houses and one of the Athen's famous hills. Turned out to ber perfect for my needs.

In all I covered about 30km and didn't feel I stressed myself too much. Although it didn't feel like I was making much progress at the time, now that I can look back on the couse, I'm feeling like the 100km/day mark is easily doable on the more open roads with a full day to travel.

My conclusion about riding a bike in Athens is don't do it. Needless to say that there are no bike paths. When you get into the city there is hardly room for pedestrians to walk, meaning that they also spill out into the street. Riding on the sidewalk, when there is one, is also not an option as they will often be blocked by parked motor bikes.

I would say that a street in Athens doesn't so much belong to the cars as it does to everyone and everything, making it, in essence, a very congested obstacle course.

For each leg of the trip I'll be linking to the data collected. Here's the first of that Route data.