After leaving Zambia, the sunny weather prevailed in Greece so we opted to do a self-guided cycling trip in one of the least touristed areas on the mainland. Surprisingly it took us until now to try this style of travel and we loved it.  With the tour company’s set of routes in hand and 3-star accommodation reserved, it was up to us to cycle from town to town while our luggage was forwarded.  (Oct 9-23/24)

Visiting Athens was a whirlwind because our schedule in Zambia ended very close to the start of the cycling trip. With the 2 days we had, we managed to visit the highlight, the 'high city' of Acropolis, the Parthenon and The Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus theatre dates from 161 BCE and still hosts shows today. While setting up for a performance music was playing which set the stage for how a concert would sound - bold and deep.

The Parthenon (meaning 'virgin's apartment') was built to honour the goddess Athena Parthenos, fittingly situation at the highest point in Greece. Athena represented the power and prestige of ancient Greece.

The 7-day bike trip began with an overnight in Sparti (previously known as Sparta) and ended at Monemvassia.  It started as just us but we and the 2 other couples with the same self-guided tour quickly gelled so well that we ended up eating meals and at times cycling together.  We agreed it was a good change from the couples travelling we had all been doing up to this point.

Day 1: The longest day of our week - 69km - got off to a rough start. Both of our bikes were too large, and it took until 2pm for replacements to be delivered. It didn’t take us long to learn that 69km wasn’t the same as back home. Some of what is written will sound like complaining but through it all we had a great time!

The riding map app we used, Ride with GPS, meant my iPhone had to sit in a stretchy holder and if I hit a pothole, rough road, cobblestones or anything else not smooth, the phone wobbled and banged against the handlebars. I was concerned it was going to snap – which it finally did on day 5 - so I had to frequently slow down for the bumps.

With voice commands, and quaint directions that often relied on homes and businesses not painting their gates or walls we zigzagged our way through olive groves, orangeries (a new word :), and small villages. Only for rare and brief times did we have to pedal at the side of the country’s National Road or other main thoroughfares.

As our shadows grew long the groves lit up and we knew time was running out. The sides of the country roads didn’t have lights. My bike’s rear light consisted of dangling wires and neither of us thought to bring a safety vest or sash as we were so focused on what we needed for the safaris. We rolled into Gythio just as it got dark.

Each hotel/pension we stayed at was very different and the one here was our favourite. Having coffee on our hotel patio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we watched a small cruise ship drop 3 bus loads of passengers onto the dock. When that ran its course, there was always people watching. (Gythio, Greece, Oct 13-15/24).

No menu was complete without calamari (bigger than at home:). You’d see fishermen hand deliver their catch to family run restaurants.

Day 2: Leaving Gythio we did a figure 8 going up into the hills, down to the sea, up into the hills, down to the sea… and back to Gythio for a 39km round tour.

We’re easy Sunday afternoon, paved rail-to-trail path cyclists. The hills, even with EV bikes (sadly) took longer to pedal. Bikes in Europe don’t have a throttle – as our bike rental guy pointed out in Krakow “well that would be a motorcycle”.

Because it was end of season the beaches were quiet. We all pulled over and everyone but me cooled off with a dip.

Lunch in a little family restaurant where the 20-something son proudly told us the vegetables were from his own garden and Mom got credit for the cooking. We spent a lot of time talking to the only other customer, a man from Vienna who’s been coming every winter for 48 years. He said the part of Greece - the Peloponnese - that we’re cycling is devoid of big resorts and the pace, industry and culture have remained the same for at least half a century. It actually got to be a joke that there was so little tourism we needed to have snacks packed because there was no guarantee of a lunch restaurant in the tiny communities along the cycling route, especially since it was near the start of low season.

RVs and vans were parked in several spaces along the water and then there was the occasional RV park like this one where they parked under olive trees or grape vine arbors.

Day 3: Once again, the kilometers number fooled us. Usually we’d head out at about 9:30am and by the time we stopped for photos, climbed the hills, searched (at times in vain) for a coffee and restaurant, we’d roll into our next town by 3-4pm.

We were completely enamoured by the groves of olive trees, stopping over and over to photograph them. Later, the group had a challenge to guess how many olive trees there are in Greece. I was mocked for my outrageously high 55 million guess, but Google say there’s 130-150 million trees! By the end of our trip, it felt like we’d seen a good chunk of them.

After cycling up and down in the hills it was always a thrill to roll down to the sea.

We took a break while the others switch backed their way to meet us.

In a small village a cafe owner was pleased to have customers and 4 of us were Canadians. While we sipped our coffees, he played us Bryan Adams singing with Pavarotti followed by more opera music. Afterwards it was a show and tell of how his olives were processed for olive oil. (L to R: Sue, Ron, Holly, Dave & Rick).

Afterward, the gang swam in the warm aqua water while I played photographer.

A few kilometers down the road a group of Gypsies let us watch them work - pouring the bundles, batches at a time, through a small hopper to do a rough separation of the leaves and stems from the fruit. These family groups are hired to move from crop to crop for the annual harvesting season. Elsewhere mechanized methods and tools are more common.

The home stretch took us on a long shortcut, a change from the paved country roads.

Day 5: Today the high winds started and would stay with us until near the end of our time in Greece. The surprise gusts made riding feel dangerous given that there wasn’t a bike lane between us and the cars.

It was a mad race to the ferry over to Elaphonisos when Rick, Dave and I realized too much of our 8km to the ferry would be over sand.

After a short ferry ride, we pulled into adorable Elaphonisos.

Postcard material, but looks were deceiving… the wind was blowing so hard, the 3 of us were sandblasted. But that didn't stop Rick from taking a dip.

Seafood of course – we ate well on the coast.

Heading back to the ferry after a sweet day.

Although the winds were strong, I was only knocked over once. I managed to jump off through the step-through in time to catch the bike. As Rick was coming towards me to help I called “but first take a pic” LOL

Realizing it was our last day cycling together, it was all about getting pics of each other and couples shots.

The last push for the day before we could settle into some seaside riding.

Our hotel overlooked a large rock with a castle district hidden at the backside. Tonight, the 6 of us had our last dinner together and toasted the fun and good company.

Across a short causeway and up the hill to the backside of the rock we moved to the castle district/fortress of Monamvassia. It was made up of 2 parts: the newer Lower Town (above) and the old Upper Town. With lots of eateries, hotels built into the rock and cobblestone paths everywhere, the place was a tourist magnet. We decided to stay for 3 days to explore and catch up on pictures, the website and council stuff.

A lady sitting nearby saw us taking pictures and offered to take ours in this pretty little section of lower town.

A walk up to upper town took us to the ruins of the original fortress city dating back to the 6th century, and great views of the lower town.

The few areas still available to build on in lower town can use stones from a bygone era and must adhere to historic building methods and structures.