http://www.triumphbiketours.com/
Thats where we got the tour info and a good discount on the trip. They also do tours of Italy, the UK, and other euro countries. Deb and Michael were both exceptionally nice although you have to squeeze them a bit for information on Greek history. Michael is an exceptional armchair philosopher and will talk you in circles until you concede you know absolutely nothing about nothing, lol. We had some fun conversations during the coffee breaks.
The trip was 10 days. Autumn and I went for our honeymoon at the end of August, beginning of September and we couldn't have asked for better weather. The temperature was right around 70-80 the entire time with NO rain... It was just incredibly beautiful weather.
Anyway, the photos of the stones with patchwork are from the Temple of Apollo. All over Greece at the historic monuments, they've been working on piecing back together fallen pieces of the temples and such and even working to 'fill in the blanks' with plaster to return the sites to their original glory. I envision this taking decades to complete, but their work was really interesting to check out.
The riding was mostly back roads, cliffs with no guard rail, awe-inspiring views of the sea that will just stop you in your tracks. It was just beauty after beauty. Even the more sparse and dead areas were awesome to behold. Just riding along thinking about how people actually walked across such a horridly rocky terrain for such long distances was humbling.
The guy in the shorts is the tour leader, Michael Stagonakis. He's been riding those roads soooo long and rides so consistant and predictable that he could probably ride the mountain switchbacks with one hand tied behind his back and a blindfold, lol. We kept a decent pace for half the trip, but after the first couple days, the other couple in the group wanted to slow things down a bit, and we ended up going a LOT slower. What I'd recommend if you want to do a trip like this is to get a GPS that covers Greece and do the self-guided tour (GPS so you don't have to rely on maps and risk getting lost), otherwise, you run the risk of getting stuck with someone who isn't anywhere near prepared for the kind of advanced riding you'll be doing in those mountains. Also, cars and all other traffic respect bikes, but the traffic there flows so well, they have a very different mode of driving. Basically, anything goes as long as you follow the speed limit in town and respect your fellow drivers... SO, expect to get passed very closely by people if you're not staying to the right, and other generally speedy but suprisingly efficient driving.
