Euro E2E - The Route
Tuesday 9 September 2008
30 & 31 August 2008
Saturday 30 August 2008.
The return overnight ferry from Crete arrived back in Pireus, Athens late at 08:30 and the disembarkation took another 45 mins to complete.
We hustled our way out of the port and cycled the couple of miles back into Pireus centre and onto the hotel.
We'd arranged an early check in and we were soon ensconced in our room making full use of the facilities after two days and nights on the go without access to showers etc.
Quick sprint through breakfast and then spent a few hours discharging a few chores.
Later in the day, we took the Metro into central Athens to have a bit of a touristy gander at all the sights.
After a waddle around the Acropolis etc in the heat of the afternoon, we had an early dinner in the city centre then Metro'd back to Pireas to complete our preparation for a very early departure back to Blighty tomorrow morning.
Sunday 31 August 2008.
We were up and at em at 01:30 in order to get to the airport for an 05:30 CrappyJet flight to Luton.
We'd arranged 'special' transport to the airport in the shape of a 14 seater minibus hired just for us.... Seems there are no people carrier type taxis in Athens that could do the job and we couldn't squash Disharmony II into a normal sized car.
The ride to the airport was uneventful and we soon bound up to the deserted CrappyJet check-in like a couple of excited schoolkids.
How we laughed when the check-in clerk welcomed us with the fateful phrase 'You do know the flight has been cancelled don't you....?'
Errrrrrr, well, we didn't.
Apparently, the poor lambs who were charged with getting the inbound aircraft to Athens felt a bit poorly and EasyJet were unable to find alternate staff.
We transferred our booking to the next available flight that was arranged to depart at 13:30 to appease the disgruntled passengers.
To their credit, EasyJet organised very nice accommodation for us at the airport and we were able to catch a few more zeds in plush surroundings before scoffing a complimentary 'EasyBrek'.
The revised flight left more or less on time and with little drama we finally arrived into Luton at 15:45.
We'd planned to ride the 60 miles from Luton to Peterborough but, in light of the British summer (and a severe shortage of 'get up and go' on our part) this was quickly revised to plan 'B' that had us taxiing to Stevenage and then taking the National Express East Coast mainline train to sunny Peterborough.
Within an hour or so, we were once again twiddling along in the Polish Fenland enclave that is Peterborough. Bit dull, bit drab but nearly home.... Aaaaaand rest...........
Epilogue
We were away for a total of 74 days, 60 of those in the saddle. Luckily we only suffered 3 complete days of rain and largely dodged most of the other major showers and cloud bursts.
We cycled 3785 miles, climbed a total of 33060 metres and in doing so, burnt off 231013 calories (the odd 13 being VERY important).
The journey took us through the 12 countries of Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece.
During the journey, Disharmony II consumed 6 chains, 2 tyres, 2 wheel rims, 3 chainrings, 1 cassette, 2 brake blocks, 2 inner tubes and suffered a total of 6 punctures. We had no major mechanical disasters that couldn't be bodged by the roadside.
Miles & Tracey suffered two falls (one quite serious) no submissions and no refusals. We also consumed well over 100 choccy bars, 25kg of CAKE and over 400 litres of pop! However, we failed to tally the ice lollies but we're probably well into triple digits!
We managed to avoid contracting any serious diseases or infections from some of the less salubrious places we ended up staying though watch this space for further developments....
Tick count for the trip - zero.
This is the final instalment of the 2008 Goff Euro End to End odyssey. As usual, comments, leg pulling or ribald commentary welcome. Any sensible questions or points, please go ahead and raise.
No more Southerly ramblings to follow.
Miles & Tracey.
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