"Everybody is normal until you get to know them"
OK, we seem to have whizzed across Turkey and Greece rather faster than we had originally planned. We’d looked at finding a nice Neilson beach resort to chill out in for a week, but the dates were hard to coordinate and in the end, at Patras, we simply bought a Bari ticket and carried on. So here we are in…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris ride with flamingoes, lunch in a holiday camp, ride across a mighty hot plain then up a mighty hillclimb to reach a resort hotel with no swimming pool.This felt like hard day at 87 kilometres and 781 metres of climb, approx 80 k of flat and all the climb packed into the last 7k. From…
Read moreI thought you would like this notice, which was posted at intervals alongside a very nice cycle lane somewhere south of Giovinazzo. Showing various famous Italian cyclists, it contains suggestions such as cyclists: I will run red lights with caution; pedestrians: I will jaywalk with caution; and generally: don’t be a jerk. Splendid stuff. Says all you need to know…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris maintain their long held dislike of Bari, cross Dog Turd Traverse but later cheer up with spaghetti in a pretty town square. We look out of our (expensively-windowed) cabin to see rain falling and lightning flashing. We cannot hear the thunder. It is still raining as we get off the ferry. Bari in general has…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris find the next port and ferry, leaving Greece for Italy.Our last day in Greece starts fabulously well with cyclists’ breakfast of egg, local cream yoghurt, host’s mother’s marmalade, a croque Monsieur, toasts, orange juice, coffee by the pool. Seems a shame to leave. But we do find our way back to the old coast road….
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris have a fab day with a generous baker, visit a Christening and see the railway that bankrupted Greece.Maybe we should have looked harder for the small delights in Corinth but Via Michelin probably has it right. There is a good view up the road to the mountains as we leave to find the coast road…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris benefit from Saturday traffic negotiating Piraeus and the commuter ferries. The Lesbos to Piraeus ferry was punctual both leaving and arriving. So at 8.30 we were chased off. We found the Poros ferry after a good tour of Piraeus port with advice from both innocent and guilty bystanders (you’ve arrived at gate 2 but it…
Read moreSo I mentioned Spotto and its variants. Part of the pleasure of this game is creating new versions on the fly – “Boato” has been going for a while and requires the boat to be in a very unlikely position/condition, for example in the middle of a roundabout. In Lesvos we were talking to some repeat visitors who explained that…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris ride over the hills to Mytilini, buy ferry tickets and check into a hotel for a few hours before the ferry leavesLeaving early meant getting in Quaker Granola for breakfast in our room as no cafe is open before 9.00am. According to the nutritional info on the packet we had 3.5 portions each, that’s cycling…
Read more1. Coffee OMG we are back in the Land of the Latte. Brits drive the Italians mad by calling it a Latte, obviously it is a Caffe Latte otherwise you will only get a funny look and a glass of hot milk, but ever since maybe Hungary we haven’t had a decent cup of coffee. In Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey…
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