The plan for today is for us to cycle the 55 or so miles from Ptolemaida, Greece to Elassona also Greece via the E65. We've decided to use main routes if possible to try and avoid any unnecessary navigational howlers.
Decent and early breakfast at the hotel as we have planned to start each day earlier to avoid too much afternoon heat. That's the plan, we shall see...
Managed to get away before 08:30, but we'll need to improve on this.
Straight into Ptolemaida town centre to fill the wallet with Euro's then out onto the E65 to blitz some miles.
More blue skies today with a bit of haze to camouflage the bigger mountains further away and the usual mid 30's Celsius expected by this afternoon. Really, really scorcio!
We headed south east towards Kozani and the intersection with the main A2 motorway. Decent climb followed by a really good descent all the way towards Kozani.
Usual bum break and human fuel stop at roadside services at just over the hour mark.
At the junction with the A2, picked our way through the various twists and turns of the feeder roads and worked our way back onto the E65. No one said the Greeks like to do transport systems easily....
Passed a couple of restricted military sites (no photos on pain of death...) and knocked off a bit of a climb and a few nasty rollers.
Payback was a fantastic and loooong descent to Lake Aliakmona. We were now back at ~350m despite all the hard work!
We crossed the lake via their 1.3km bridge and Tracey spotted a few Pelicans doing Pelicany things by the side of the lake.
After the bridge, the road heaved upwards and so it began....
We continued to climb through the village of Servia and stopped when we reached Metaxas 12 miles and nearly 900m later. How we enjoyed the midday sun...
After all the fun of climbing, we were rewarded with a decent descent. However, Miles kept Disharmony II on a short rein and moderated the speed accordingly.
This proved very fortuitous as a few miles into the descent Tracey detected a back end wobble. Now, normally this would be met with a few ribald jokes, however, we'd suffered yet another dratted puncture in the rear tyre.
Had we been going full pelt, it's questionable whether any semblance of control could have been maintained. Phew!
Another roadside repair by Miles followed by some vigorous pumping (oooerrr) had us back in the saddle and finishing the remainder of the descent.
The road dropped into a broad and open plateau surrounded by mountains, one a bit bigger than all the rest.
At our next bum break, we enquired as to the identity of the 'big un' and 'Olympus' came the reply. All we can say is, it's a damn good job we don't have to bike over the blooming thing as it's mahoosive.
By now, we were operating under the misapprehension that we were quite close to our destination of Elassona. Not so.
We had another 15 miles of painful rolling countryside that seemed more up than down and to go on for ever. We were just a tad pooped.
After too long, the road took a downwards turn and we began the last descent of the day into Elassona.
We'd already identified the only digs in town so with a bit of local intervention, we made our way directly there.
Elassona proved to be a lovely little hill town with pavement cafes and nice little Tavernas. The people were very helpful and friendly and apart from a slightly crap meal, we really enjoyed our stay.
Our 'hotel' on the other hand, must have been the poshest yet as it had a sauna built into the bedroom. In fact it was the bedroom. We found it quite hard to sleep constantly slipping out of bed....
Today a very hot and back breaking/bum searing 70 miles and a significant 1275m of ascent. Total trip 3486 miles.
Saturday 23 August 2008
In line with our new 'early departure' policy, we were out of our superheated hotel before 08:00.
This was mainly due to the lack of breakfast facilities and we soon lost the time advantage foraging in town.
Our daily plan has us biking from Elassona, Greece to Karditsa also Greece. A distance of around 60 miles. Hopefully these will prove to be 'normal' miles and not the elongated variety we enjoyed yesterday.
Weather dully predictable; hot, sunny with clear blue skies. Half a chance (read racing certainty) of 36 degrees later. Help!
On leaving Elassona, enjoyed the Greek game of 'follow insufficient signage in most unlikely direction' and somehow found ourselves going the right way on the right road.
Following signs for the 'new national road' had us grasstracking and using unmade lanes that bore little resemblance to any sort of road new or old. (huh?)
To start our day, we had a 'bit of a climb' out of the valley, this time just a little 3 miler of gradual ascent.
This was followed by a very reasonable and pleasant 3.5 mile descent.
We continued to follow the E65 through broad, open valleys surrounded by hills. The difference today is we seem to be going around rather than over. Nice one.
At the small town of Tirnavos, we abandoned our cunning main road plan and made a bid for a lovely secondary road that cut through open country.
This route was surrounded by lovely scenery liberally dotted with vineyards Very picturesque.
After 10 miles or so, we picked up the main E92 which connected us to Farkadonas and the start of our next secondary road sourjourn.
We followed this for approx. 18 miles on mainly flat roads again surrounded by those menacing bumps.
The heat continued to build and the Greek countryside was littered with various items of discarded Goff clothing and equipment. We kept enough just to spare any blushes.
Regular lolly and pop stops were made to try and stave off some of the effects of the heat and exertion, our last being 15 miles before our final destination.
Presently, the secondary road intersected the main E65 and we turned due west (i.e. the wrong way) towards Karditsa, our destination for the night.
Karditsa was chosen due to it having several hotels and we plan to take our scheduled rest day tomorrow so will need reasonable facilities for dossing around in.
We made our way along 5 or so miles of deadly dull dual carriageway into the centre of town.
We made short work of finding the selected hotel and rocked up to check in.
Quelle horreur! There was no room at the inn (or it's 3 mates). Bugger, double bugger and an additional sh!t for good measure.
We'd knocked out our daily miles early and had a succession of really tough days over the past week and IT WAS NOT FAIR! (tsssk how childish).
Having exhausted the in town options we started to look further a field.
These ranged from an additional 55 miles of cycling to grovelling up some distant mountains in the vain hope there may be an hotel with availability.
We also checked out motorised options and neither the trains nor local taxis were big enough to take on Disharmony II.
Oh dear, we were in a pickle. We sat and cogitated at the railway station coming to the conclusion, it was going to be a night of 'Goff dossing' in the local park.
Being eternal optimists, we cycled back into town to see if the tearful female approach would bear any fruit.
Back at the first hotel, Miles sat glumly in the shade outside whilst Tracey went in to work her magic. She shortly emerged with a Cheshire cat like grin as the hotel had just received a cancellation and we were now very much in. Sighs of relief all around.
Whoever said 'fortune favours the brave' got it bang on apart from, in our case, it might have been 'luck sometimes follows the slightly stupid'.
Rest day tomorrow and Hamilton is second on the grid. Yipeee.
Today a splendid 62 miles and a meagre 389m of ascent. Total trip 3548 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
