Travel Tips

Upon our arrival in Greece we first needed supplies. Shopping in a Greek supermarket, I was to discover, is quite the emotional experience. This is how it feels;

EXCITEMENT: With stomach growling like an antiquated freight train I burst in full of enthusiasm for the promised goodies that lay in store.

DISAPPOINTMENT; Im pulled up short, surprised by the lack of choice. The shelves are full yet, oddly, there doesn’t seem to be very much to eat.

HORROR; I pick up an item at random and see the price. A good loaf of bread in Macedonia had been around 25p. Here it was over three pounds. The cheapestr, nastiest sliced white bread here was around one pound twenty – for half a loaf! A jar of good jam? Around five pounds. Everything was extortionate.

ANGER; I pick up more items, see the price and on realizing we just cant afford it throw it aggressively back onto the shelves, creating a lot of work for some poor shop assistant who will have to tidy up later.

DISPAIR; I finally break down in the isle and have a little weep. Looks like pasta again tonight.

Juliet thinks my obssession with the budget hilarious. "Youre so stuck in the eighties, Chris," she says. "Prices have gone up since, you know. "

I just cant accept that. Ive worked to the same daily budget for the past twenty-two years and its always worked. Im not going to change my ways now!

On our first night in Greece we camped for free in the grounds of a hotel. We couldn’t use their showers but the service station next door allowed us to use the truckers showers around the back for free.

This is the reason weve used campsites as much as we have. Cycling in this heat we would finish the day drenched in sweat and sticky as hell. A shower is as enticing as a nice cold can of coke and absolutely irresistible. Plus, in much of Europe, its not as easy as it sounds to wild camp. There are plenty of secluded spots until you need one, then its too urbanized, too many people around, too fenced off. It can be very frustrating.

We chatted to a Greek guy keen to know what we were up to. He told us an English cyclist had been killed in Athens the previous night, as we had entered Greece from the north. I later learnt it was Ian Hibell, one of the worlds great pioneering adventure cyclists from my home county of Devon (Brixham). He had been blazing trails across the globe for forty years. A terrible tragedy. I will endevour now to read his book both out of interest and respect.

We celebrated our first night with a Greek salad. I wasn’t exactly sure how to prepare a Greek salad, but it was definitely a salad and we were in Greece, which was good enough for me.

We took a couple of days riding south, the temperature hitting a lethal 40C, until, there it was, the Mediterranean Sea. Beautiful!

We arrived in Asprovalta, a pleasant beach resort with the largest campsite Id ever seen. The night before there had been a rave festival, and now bleary eyed hippies picked their way through the devastation in search of their tents.

The crowds dispersed over the day leaving us in peace to enjoy the beach and bob lazily in the turquoise sea for a day.

Onward along the coast, now battling a blustery breeze building from the east, and we met two cycle tourers coming the opposite way. The first cycle tourers wed seen since Prague and first wed had the chance to speak to since Dover. Angel (Sp.) had cycled from Indonesia with Marianne (Oz) joining him in Kathmandu and were a mine of information and stories.

I would like to have talked with them longer – a couple of days would have been nice – but stuck at the side of a windswept and busy main highway just wasn’t the place and we said our goodbyes.

We found a very plush campsite with a private beach at Kavala and couldn’t help but spend a day there too.

Further east along the coast we wild camped on the beach which, if the litter could be ignored, was pleasant enough. Flopping into the warm sea after a hard and sweaty day in the saddle was heavenly.

We noticed an increasing number of feral dogs patrolling the smaller country roads in unnerving packs. And not little fluffy pooches either. These were big scary mongrels! On a couple of occasions the appeared out of the woods either side of the road and gave chase, snarling and barking, and I frantically pulled out the pepper spray, letting out a blasphemous war cry, and took aim. Of course, as everyone knows, Greek dogs are predominantly bilingual and can read 'Anti Hund' from twenty paces and back off at the last moment. But not before scaring the crap out of us!

Ive mounted a tent pole behind my seat, later to be replaced by a Sheppard staff I found curb-combing, as an additional weapon of defence. All I have to do now is learn to ride 'no hands'!

We took another day off at Alexanroupoli. I cant remember the excuse for that one, but it was a lovely spot by a sandy beach.

Our final lunch in Greece and we chose a church as a picnic site. We often do. Its usually the only place in the village with a bench to sit on.

There we were, munching on our specialist atheletes diet of cheap bread and chocolate spread, when the priest popped up infront of us, as if out of the ground, dressed in full black regalia. "Welcome," he said, and vanished. Behind him he left NINE liters of chilled water, orangeade and coke in a supermarket bag. We were speechless. I do believe we had witnessed a miracle. Or perhaps we were being taught the art of selfless generosity.

Finally east to the border and now within tantalizing reach of the far end of Europe.

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