The plan for today is to knock off the 60 or so miles between Lamia, Greece and Livadia, Greece. Due to the limitations of our maps, we're not sure what the terrain has in store for us.
We're hoping for a rendition of 'She'll be coming 'round the mountain...' rather than hearing the clarion call; 'Over the top lads....'.
Up and at em at 06:30 and first into breakfast at the hotel. Ready to leave at 08:00 and dived straight into the the chaos of the Lamia rush...
Tracey navigated our way around all the one-way systems and their roadwork related variations.
Disharmony II's new drive chain behaved perfectly, unfortunately her 4000 mile plus gear cassette didn't. We should be able to manage with a couple of skipping gears for the distance we have left and the offending part will be replaced when we get back to the UK.
In clear blue skies and rising temps. we twiddled our way through the first 8 miles or so on a arrow straight (and flat) secondary road due south out of the town.
All the time we were twiddling, we got that uneasy feeling as we were heading straight for a bloody great wall of mountains. 'Nah, we won't be going over that will we?'.....
Well, we will, and we blooming well did. We climbed for 8-9 miles and ~600m of ascent up a lovely twisty and deserted, alleged 'A' road. We think the 'A' category was off as the road was broken and all but unusable for most motorised transport.
At the summit, we made a quick water and bum break then pointed Disharmony II downhill for what we hoped would be a good descent.
The road initially ran alongside a valley and then dropped into a gorge. Fantastic scenery but Miles had to keep both beady eyes on the way ahead as it was very broken, covered in rockfall, very twisty and had zero protective rail over considerable drops.
All too soon the road levelled and we felt a bit cheated.
Our preferred 'A'/Secondary road then crossed the real 'A' road and we continued riding a gradual south easterly descent in lovely surroundings and in traffic isolation.
A quick fuel and bum stop was taken at the village of Amfiklia. Fuelled by juice and ice lollies, we picked up a fantastic descent for a few miles before levelling out again.
Our route continued to parallel the railway line and hug the bottoms of the surrounding mountains. Thankfully, it resisted the temptation to go for more altitude.
The road eventually wended it's way around another mountain and we dropped into Livadia, our destination for the day.
We'd picked out a suitable hotel for the evening whilst Internerd surfing and with a little (read lot) local help we found ourselves stood outside just after 14:00.
After checking into the hotel we completed our localisation by spending the next couple of hours enjoying a siesta. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Assuming tomorrow goes as planned, we should end up in a nice 5* hotel in the Pireas district of Athens.
This just leaves one more day of cycling across Crete and Gavdos to complete our Euro End 2 End journey. Sighhhhhhh......
Today a hot 'n' hilly 60 miles and 845m of ascent. Total trip 3663 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
