Greece
In development
The Peloponnese and Cyclades (04/26/2009-06/09/2009)
Journal: Cycling Greece
Thumbnail sketch: our first tour of Hreece marked the fulfillment of a long-held dream. Our first tour of Europe was meant to be a ride from Paris to Athens along a route I had begun researching soon after Rachael and I began cycling together: east from Paris through Burgundy, through Switzerland and south across the Alps to Northern Italy and Trieste; south along the what was then Yugoslavian coast to Kotor, followed by climb up the serpentine to Cetinje in what is now Kosovo, and then south through Macedonia and northern Greece to Athens. I was especially eager to ride the climb the road to Cetinje after reading of it in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West's account of her tour of Yugoslavia (not by bicycle) in 1937.
The planned tour was scrapped when the first of the wars leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia began when Slovenia declared its independence. We went to New Sealand instead, which of course was outstanding in a wholly different way; but itwould have really been exceptional to tour Yugoslavia before it was transformed by modernization and mass tourism. Looking at it now, I think it's really unlikely that we'd have made it all the way to Athens, but I'll bet we'd have made it to at least to Cetinje before looking for a train or bus to bail us out at the end.
But that was then. The tour in 2009 was an extraordinary experience too, and one that felt plenty exotic enough. There was very little that I could find about cycling in Greece 35 years ago, so I just pretty much made up an itinerary by staring at maps and guide books.
The journal is completely, which is unusual for the hand written. Ones - somehow I kept to it through the entire tour, so I won't try to summarize it here other than to show where we went and some the many highlights of what we saw. One other thing to note though is that this trip was our last overseas tour without folding bikes. The change came because airlines started charging excess baggage fees for bicycles in the middle of our tour, and even though they flew free with us on the way to Athens, it cost us $300 each to fly them home again. We started researching folding bike almost as soon as we returned to Portland, and bought our first Bike Fridays a few months later.
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Crete and the Aegean Islands (05/03/2012-06/04-2012)
Journal: Cycling Greece, Part 2
Thumbnail sketch: We flew from Portland to Chania, and biked through western Crete to Heraklion, where we caught a plane to Rhodes. Our suitcases were forwarded to Herakion by our host (also a cyclist ), who carried them up to the bus depot. At the other end, our host picked them up at that bus depot and brought them down to our hotel.
After a loop of the Island of Rhodes we shipped our suitcases forward again to Mytilini on the island of Lesbos, and spent the next two weeks ferry-hopping up the Aegean Islands, with the coast of Turkey just miles to the east.
This entire tour was amazing, and not something we could repeat in the same way now. I wonder though if parts of it would work as extended bases, maybe getting from one to another by bus or taxi. If there were just one place here I'd love to see again in this way it would probably be Chios.
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Chania to Ohrid, Macedonia (04/26/2018-06/22/2018)
Journal: North to the Balkans
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