With a bit of luck, a following wind and not too many more Greek monster hills, we should be in Athens tonight.
Our plan has us biking from Livadia, Greece to Athens, obviously also Greece (derrrr...). This is an anticipated distance of around 65 miles though again we don't have any
real idea of what the terrain has in store for us....
Made a very early start by rising at 06:00 followed by a poor breakfast and we hit the road just after 07:30.
Just for a change, it was hot, sunny and with clear blue skies though nice and cool at the earlier start time.
Made short work of exiting Livadia and then bashed out the first 30 miles in 1hr 40mins courtesy of super flat terrain and a reasonable tail wind.
We made a quick bakery stop in Thiva for the biggest ring doughnuts we've ever seen (more like swimming rings than CAKES) and juice.
There followed a nasty steep climb from Thiva via a confusing sequence of diversions set out to avoid a funfair and market. The HGV drivers thought they could disregard the 'road closed' signs and then got themselves in a right royal pickle trying to retrace their steps. Tee hee.
We emerged at the top of the town and then the road levelled for a few miles ending in a rather disconcerting wall of mountains.
As we approached the wall, we commenced the grueller of the day.
We climbed for around 6 miles and over 500m before the road levelled once more.
As we crested the top, the road dropped off into a fantastic and long descent.
Unfortunately, the downhill didn't last all the way to Athens and pretty soon we were engaged in climbing and descending a series of 200m - 300m rollers. Bit like monster corrugated cardboard.
These were just big enough and steep enough to knock the stuffing out of our already mangled legs. By now, temps. had soared to mid 30 Celsius and it felt bloomin hot whilst climbing.
We made another pop stop at a roadside café and enjoyed an 'Acorn Antiques' moment with the Julie Walters character; Mrs Overall being played by the nice lady behind the counter. 'Two Colas anyone?' replaced 'Two soups?'.....
With a bit of tenacity and quite a lot of energy we soon reached the town of Mandra.
Here the road split; motorway into the centre of Athens or dual cabbageway to Pireas the port of Athens.
We chose the latter and soon arrived in Elefsina for the final pop stop of the day.
We were engaged by a very helpful (though voluble) Greek lady who insisted on doing a proper sales job on what the area had to offer. She made us smile when she suggested 20 miles might be too far for us to cycle to one of her recommendations :-)
There followed a rather unpleasant 12 mile of very hot, very noisy, very busy highway into the outskirts of Pireas.
We particularly enjoyed the Greek mainland's sting in the tail which was a 3 mile climb in mid afternoon sun just to finish things off.
At the outskirts of Pireas, in very dense traffic, we followed signs for the Port and made our way to where the passenger ships berth.
These are the boats that connect Crete etc and we'll be taking one tomorrow night.
We'd preselected, and unlike us, booked a very fancy 5* hotel for the night Just to finish off you see.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any directions to it. Pireas was a bit manic so we collared a local cabbie and paid the fare to the hotel whilst we pedalled furiously behind.
We had another smiley moment when the cabbie, after eyeing us up and down, questioned our choice of hotel.
He firstly asked if we had a reservation then declared it's 5* status as if it was not appropriate for a couple of cyclists.
Fair enough, after a day in the saddle, we did look a bit shabby but we're on a bicycle tour not a budget bicycle tour....
We were made very welcome on arrival as we checked in and then followed the usual routine of room/chill/gonk.
If all goes according to plan, tomorrow evening we'll be taking the overnight ferry to Crete. On arrival the following day, we will need a very rapid cycle across the island to catch the Friday Crete/Gavdos ferry.
Hopefully we'll also make the return Gavdos ferry and repeat the rapid trans Crete ride to catch the next overnighter from Crete back to Pireas.
Assuming this all happens, job done.
Today another hot 'n' hilly day of 75 miles and a rather gratuitous 1090m of ascent. Total trip 3738 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
