Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Get Ahead Of Myself

September 13, 2008 by Mike

Athens

Route: Preveza - not very besidetheseaside - Athens

With the bike booked in for a service in Athens, and my bestest buddy and his wife in town, I need to leave the seaside and shoot across to the Greek capital.

I wouldn't normally write off-topic here, but the 500km or so were made immeasurably more enjoyable by

a) this being Greece, the route took me through some amazing scenery. There's a gorge near Lake Lisimachia, complete with requisite monastery nestling impossibly in the cliff face, that takes the breath away. Whisper it when I'm around, but the roads away from the coast are -- again -- fantabulous.

b) I crossed the bridge over the Gulf of Corinth near Patra (me! Taking a shortcut over a bridge!) only to spot a British bike with Metal Mule panniers at a toll booth on the main Athens highway.

DSC01381

Smiling Jonathan is a veteran of the Anchorage-Ushaia route -- crossing the Americas from top to bottom is one of The Great Biking Adventures. I'd love to do it one day, but for now I'm very content to be doing something nobody else has ever done.

Jonathan is far more used than I am to riding with other bikes, and his bike is considerably more powerful than mine, so I was glad I could keep up with him. I made him promise to shoot off if I was slowing him down, but in the end we rode clear in to the centre of Athens together.

He had just arrived in Patras by ferry from Italy, so these were his first minutes riding in Greece. I hadn't been on a main highway until now. So we discovered together -- to our surprise -- that the hard shoulder is treated as the slow lane here. It's the kind of thing you discover pretty bloomin' quickly, too, when a gum-chewing Mercedes driver parks himself upside yr rear wheel at 60mph on a twisty road with poor tarmac and no opportunities for 'legal' overtaking. He's 'politely' asking you to move onto the hard shoulder so he can zoom past.

So the hard shoulder is home not only to assorted roadkill (almost as much as Italy) but also belching farm vehicles, articulated lorries, old dears doing half the speed limit and straining to be able to see over the dashboard of their antique Fiats.. and, occasionally, two bike British bikes. Jonathan was very good about being consigned to the embarrassingly slow lane on my behalf. Though we did manage to overtake the old dears.

Jonathan was meeting friends in Athens for an organised tour of the Peloponnese. He is a gentleman of the highest order and I very much look forward to buying him a pint or three when we're both back in the UK and, for one night at least, off the bikes.

Athens is immense, and dirty, and crowded, and full of all sorts of life. Love it.

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