I didn't yet know how to do photos here when I wrote about our Triumph tour of Greece...then had to scan the photo album to pick off the highlights. Here's what I came up with (if I can make it work).
Every day was sunny and warm-hot and everyone except us had pretty heavy protective gear....we opted for soaking up the sun and taking a bit of a chance.
This was our front view throughout much of the trip...it was OK to hang back a bit, and OK to pass everyone but Michael, the lead rider.
Couldn't scan the map as one piece...this would be the western route taken shown by the marker line with circles at our stopovers. This shows pretty much late on day 1 to the middle of day 6....next map shows beginning and end.
Here's the eastern part...we left on the lower route, returned on the upper via the large island, Evia.
These 'storks' were pretty cool...the nests reminded us of our local ospreys here in WA.
These next two give you an idea of what a lot of the riding was like...great fun, but I had a few problems with vertigo looking over the drop-offs while riding...seemed too drastic a change for my mind to wrap around in mere seconds.
We love eating and food is one of the adventures of foreign travel. A couple samples here....
Yeah, that was me looking high, but not....so now you need to know what wonders Paula can work and how much better a person will look after a week of riding.
Just a bit more food....a common sight at the ports.
These shrines are to people who lived nearby...we're not sure if the people died at the point of the shrine, or are merely to honor them near where they lived. They always contain religious icons, personal memorabilia, and often a burning oil lamp.
My favorite stop for chocolate milk.
We made pretty good time on the freeway out of Athens to get it behind us, but were soon on small roads...say about an hour or a bit more out of the city. Another bit of time brought us to the Lucas Monastery. Greece has more monasteries per capita than any other country....something over 300, tho some, perhaps many, have a pretty low population and, according to our guide book, one NE peninsula is off limits to women because of all the monasteries.
Very many little towns had a city square that was a nice park set up for socializing and most had huge plane trees, giving them great ambiance.
Later our first afternoon we came to Delphi (del-fee). These pics are a good representation of ruins and I won't be adding a lot more of this type of pic as it can get a bit repetitive, but these are impressive. It is still the Greek way to build things intended to last. Comes from having lots of rock and not so many trees, I guess.
And a statue from Delphi but found at a museum.
Paula loved the churches.
We dined in many quaint places....this might have been the 'est'....one of our few rest stops that weren't 'somewhere'...very nice people and great fruit.
A few castle photos, this one being Nafpaktos Castle....again, we stopped at many castles and I won't subject you to them all...but they were magnificent for the size, amount of work required to build them, and a realization of what it took to survive as a community in a hostile world where planning for defense was a way of life.
Lovely...first...our lead rider was temporarily lost (albeit on lovely back-roads leading to a great little town), so we stopped at the center of town and drank and washed in the cold, fresh stream water that was flowing through the town and channelled into spigots where we stopped. Then, after drinking our fill, we motored up to a local taverna for frappes to find this gentleman doing his laundry in the local water supply at the top of the hill. Greece does have great water, by the way.
Vikos Gorge claims the Guinness record for deepest gorge...but I think it's only in relation to the width/depth ratio.
This little guy stopped our entourage for an unscheduled rest stop/photo op.
In Ioannina, we stayed within the castle walls, which is seldom an opportunity, and took this ferry out to the island to see a couple unimpressive tavernas and monasteries...still fun tho.
Staying 2 nights in Kastoria provided for a loop ride to the Albanian border and a short boat ride to see this island monastery.
Easily the most impressive man-made works of the entire trip, the monasteries of Meteora were worth the time to visit (we saw 4, two the afternoon of our arrival, and two the next morning)....and are worth the next few pics.
We saw this guy (the one on the right pointing out details while one of our group posed) in Meteora. This is a homemade bike and trailer combo powered by a VW diesel.
Typical narrow village street.
Our ferry to Evia.
Beehives were everywhere...and there are sections where a face shield is a necessity as you will 'meet' quite a few.
Not too touristy, but some of our favorite vehicles...Greek pick-up trucks, an old Citroen, and a Smart.
One of the beauties of riding in Greece is the lane splitting which allows all bikes to the front at every light.
Irish Tom near the Nepheli Hotel. Tom has a story, so don't judge him unless you've heard it. A very nice, peaceful character.
The remaining pics are specific to the Peloponnese portion of the trip which was done 'lone ranger' (one bike, two people) and was, for us, a bit better than the group ride simply because of our greater degree of freedom.
A rough idea of where we went....clockwise again.
Sweet thing, and our Bonnie. Souvlaki...grilled chicken on a stick.
World famous Canal of Corinth, and where we exited the freeway after leaving Athens.
A sinking bridge on a different canal nearby.
Our first night's hotel...a rather flat straight ride among olive and orange groves to get here...but a wonderfully hospitable place and the best dinner and breakfast of the entire trip.
This gentleman ran a restaurant in Connecticut most of his life and retired in this small and beautiful S. Greek mountain town with stunning views. He heard us talking and bought us an excellent local dessert.
The largest and best preserved theater we saw, tho we saw many under reconstruction. At Epidavros.
View down onto the town from Palamidi Castle.
Monemvasia...an old fortress town. The old fortified town is located on the outer part of the rock and there is further fortification at the top. Too much to see in the two days here, partly because there was a 150k loop ride to the eastern coast that turned out to be too good to miss, tho we almost decided to spend the day resting. Wonderful experience.
Our hotel room in Monemvasia.
Just a bit of Monemvasia old town...much is being restored.
A taste of Diros Cave...which, like many Greek places, has two names.
It rained mid-morning on the 6th day with a long ways to go and much to see. We holed up in a local bar and tried to make conversation w/ the locals. Our smidgen of Russian was of more use than our English. A combination of sometimes sketchy directions and less-than-helpful (or non-existent) Greek signage had us in doubt several times...as in this photo where the road went into these ruins. We did not, however, end up making any mistakes, but did arrive right at dark at our second two day hotel of the Peloponnese, Ancient Olympia!!
Just another castle...we visited all on the itinerary. This one is Methoni and this bridge sets it apart from some of the others...that and the fact that it's on flat land rather than perched on an escarpment.
Donkeys and goats were some of our favorite sights. We were trapped for about 1/2 hour on the S. coast by this herd of goats that numbered near 1000 by our best guess.
And finally, tho this was not quite the end of the trip, these gentlemen are bouzouki players...the first is a California resident back to visit his family and warming up to play in the taverna where we were having dinner. The second is a local player.
As you might guess, we have so many more photos that would be somewhat redundant without a full narrative. The deepest thoughts I had throughout the trip revolved around the tremendous amounts of labor (slave in many cases?) that went into building such huge places out of stone....and seeing miles of stone fences and terraces built (I assume) by poor farmers...all by hand. Just incredible what was accomplished.
Thanks for your visit.
Chris and Paula
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