Day 3: Out of Athens
Today starts the real bike tour. The plan was to make it at least 100km. This proved to be a challenge.
I got up at 8, giving myself 1.5 hours to eat and get ready. Minto came by at 9:30 to see me off. After another half hour I was finally ready. After squeezing into the elevator and ride down, Minto and I said our farewells and I was n my way.
I'd not been looking forward to the trip out of Athens after my experience coming into Athens. It turned out not to be too bad, though. Perhaps because it was Saturday morning.
I used Google maps navigation to find my way out. At first I was using the walking directions. This didn't work out too well, as it'll send you down one-way streets. After a couple times of that I switched to car routing but avoiding highways. This worked better.
Now a funny thing about Google Maps navigation happens when you use the English voice in Greece. At every turn, instead of telling you to "turn left at Athinas Street", it'll say "turn left at alpha theta eta nu alpha sigma." Greek has some long words, causing it to take a while to complete. Nokia Here maps actually gets this right.
I'd decided to for the ferry that would take me to the island of Salmina. It took about an hour to get to the ferry station. Luckily, I arrived just as the ferry was about to depart. after another 30 minutes, I'd acrossed the island was boarding another ferry back to the mainland. The last 5-10 minutes of the ride through Salmina were very nice, taking me through a park. At this point I'd traveled about 30 km.
This next segment of the trip proved rather challenging, at least for my first day. It was a coastal road that went up and down a lot and in some places allowed very little space beside cars. I've found for the most part that the cars were pretty well behaved and gave me space.
After 18km I spotted a nice beach and decided to have lunch there. It was there that I touched the Greek Mediterranean for the first time. I stayed there about an hour before heading off again. I was thinking it was going to
The next 50 kmI made really good time, a bit over 20km/h. It felt like much of the distance was down hill. Because the route felt easier I was able to take in the scenery a little more. Greece is amazingly beautiful. I love the hills along the coast line and blue of the water. Reminds my a bit of Hawaii in those respects. Unfortunately, the water is a bit on the cool side at the moment.
The next 10 km I spent looking for a a place to put my tent. This proved rather difficult as the area was residential with very little park or wooded areas. I'd actually given up and was cycling to the nearest cheap hotel when I spotted a grove of oranges that looked like it would provide good cover. I found a nice spot blocked from the street by an old wall and put up my tent for the night. It turned out to be a very nice, and needed, night's sleep.
In the end I did get in my 100km, actually about 105. I'm not sure how sustainable that is but I'll keep trying for that mark.