The last memo left us on the way from Capetown, South Africa to Athens, Greece. The flight took some 11 hours, and again was flown by Gulf Falcon Airlines, and our friend, the sheik. As we landed in the Athens in then morning, it was raining. It took a long time to get the bikes off the airplane, so people were hanging around the arrivals terminal, plotting. Denise, the person who organized our trip to Kruger Wildlife Park in South Africa, was taking names to charter some buses to tour Athens, and then transport us with our bikes to the first campground. Naturally, the Odyssey schedule had not allowed any time to see Athens -- why would you want to? Eventually 90 people signed up for the Denise tour. It was interesting; we went to the Acropolis and walked around, and then down to the Olympic stadium from 1896, and took a lap around the track. When we pulled in at camp that evening, even Tim Kneeland acknowledged that the tour was a good idea, and he should have allowed the extra day. Another creative option taken by some folks, was to charter a boat and take it from Athens to the first stop.
Our riding route in Greece was across the Peleponnesus peninsula. It is undeniably scenic. On the first day, we hugged the shoreline, which was white rocky hills, and bright azure seas. But being mid-March, it was pretty cold, which is why tourists don't normally go to Greece at this time of year.
On the third day, we had to climb over the first of two mountain ranges. At the start of the climb, you could look way up, and see one of those monasteries that are built into the cliff face. After quite a long time of climbing, we realized that we were just above the monastery, and we were only half way up. Eventually, we reached the top, and had lunch in a little town that seemed completely deserted except for the one restaurant that was open. Then there was a long descent down to Sparta. The campground was quite unpleasant, and Gesa and I opted to find ourselves a hotel room.
Just outside of Sparta, there is a place called Mystras. It was the capital of the Byzantine empire for a short time in the 12-th and 13-th centuries, and is an impressive relic of that time. Of course the ride was bypassing it, but we decided to tour a bit. There were quite a few other riders there, and the motto of the day was: "there's plenty of time". We did not leave Mystras until about noon, and went to investigate catching a bus across the next mountain range, but unfortunately there was nothing suitable and we had to go ahead and ride. A short way up the climb, the sweeper sag van went by, and we flagged it down, and asked to be taken up to the summit, just to catch up. As it turned out, we were very far behind, even Elbert, our 80 year old rider was a long way ahead of us. We were dropped off at a restaurant at the summit, where it had just started to snow. We were in no hurry to leave, and not surprisingly, neither were the other dozen riders sitting in the restaurant. Eventually the trucks that carry the suitcases came along, and we were all sagged from that point. We found out that one rider had fallen, and broken his hip, the second such injury of the trip.
When we finally arrived late at camp, it was pouring down rain. Nobody wanted to camp. Even though it was way before tourist season, the local guest apartments were persuaded to open up for us. Mostly there was no heat, and no sheets, but there were no complaints.
Eventually we arrived in Patra, for the ferry ride across the Adriatic Sea to Bari, Italy. This was the first of many boat rides in Europe, from high speed cruise liners, to slow one, from jet powered catamarans, to 60 mph hovercraft, and a little 8 person putt-putt. The boat rides have always been a highlight.
In the 5 days in Greece, almost all the riders were on route, because Greece is a bit isolated from western Europe, and there were few transport options. As soon as the ship docked in Italy, folks scattered like coke from a shaken can. People rented cars, leased cars, bought cars, took trains, and took cooking lessons. For our part, Gesa and I had not planned to bicycle much of Italy, because we had already been to alot of the places that the ride was going through. We had planned to make our way to Naples by train, but in the end rented a car. After a pleasant evening in Bari, with a fantastic seafood dinner, we loaded the bikes into the back of a red Fiat Brava, and drove across southern Italy, first to Pompeii to see the ruins, then to Sorrento and the Amalfi coast. I enjoyed driving in Italy, where once off the superhighways, there are 3 inches to spare on both sides of the car, between oncoming cars, and the ancient stone walls. I knew, but had forgotten, that one needs to fold in the outside rearview mirrors when parking. I woke up the next morning to find ours sheared off. The next day we returned the car to Naples, and took a ferry to Capri.
After 3 and a half months of cycling with the group, Capri was a most welcome break. It is not a big island, but we spent a whole week there walking around. We didn't completely escape the Odyssey, we saw some other yellowheads one of the days. Eventually we had to leave, and we caught the ferry back to Naples, and the train to Rome.
We had to guess about Odyssey's location in Rome, but we did find our way to the campsite without too much trouble. We got there just at dinner time. The campground restaurant had a very nice display of antipasto and wine, but no, this was not for us, it was for the paying customers. The meal we were served could only generously be called adequate. This was the case all three days. Tim Kneeland must have stiffed the campground, or irritated them some way. We did get to tour Rome for a few days. The city is an impressive jumble of buildings dating from 300 BC to the present, all built together, or sometimes on top of each other.
As the tour left to do a 100 mile ride to Urbino, Gesa and I got on a train and headed back to the coast, and took an overnight ferry to Sardegna. We rented a white Fiat Panda, a very no-frills car, and spent a week driving around the perimeter of the island. We were there before the real tourist season, but Sardegna is a very beautiful and interesting place. At the end of the week, we caught an overnight ferry to Genoa, back on the Italian mainland, to intercept the tour again. We found out when we returned, that there had been two more bad injuries to riders involved in collisions with cars. But almost all the injured people have returned to the trip to continue on.
There was a major snafu with everybody's luggage on the day we met up, but the result was that we were bussed to Nice, in France, and spent two days there. As it turned out, while we were there, they held the Nice half-marathon and 10k race, so many of us from Odyssey signed up and ran.
It had been 3 weeks since Gesa and I had actually cycled, and we could not go back to it completely, so we rented a silver Renault Clio. After the Panda, the Clio felt like a luxury car. For the rest of France, we would split the day, Gesa would ride her bike in the morning, I would drive and then we would swap, and I would bike the rest of the way. Riding across southern France this way was quite pleasant.
Finally we reached Carcassonne, in southwest France. The last day's ride was 192 km, but it was a scenic nice day, and everybody was in great spirits. But then Tim Kneeland had a rider meeting, and as always everybody's good mood was spoiled. And then it started raining. The next day's ride was over the foothills of the Pyrenee mountains. Luckily we still had the car, because we drove along the route, and as the elevation went up, the temperature went down, and the rain turned to snow; the third snowy day of the year.
Alas, we had to return the car before we left France. So instead of cycling into Andorra and over the Pyrenee mountains, we drove back to Perpignan, turned the car in, and took a train towards Barcelona, Spain. There were several delays on the train, and we decided to get off before the train arrived in Barcelona at midnight. We selected the town of Girona, which turned out to be a delightful place, and we stayed an extra day.
After a couple of days in Barcelona, a very lively city with fascinating architecture, the group was shuttled to Gibraltar. Originally this was scheduled to be an airplane trip, but turned into a very uncomfortable 15 hour bus ride.
Without our nice car, we had to ride our bikes out from Gibraltar. The route took us back north, along the Costa del Sol. This area was once scenic, but is now mostly concrete hotels and vacation apartments, and shops where the clerks speak English and German. Then after 2 days along the coast, we turned inland and rode over the second highest mountain range in Spain, the Sierra Nevada to Granada.
This region of Spain, Andalusia, was in the midst of the week of the Festival of the Cross. This is a religious festival, but is mostly an antidote to the seriousness of Lent and Easter, and seems to consist mostly of drinking and dancing all night long. We spent the afternoon walking around in this swirl of activity, and also walked on the grounds of the Alhambra, the beautiful Moorish palace. Unfortunately, without reservations we could not get in to the fanciest parts.
The next day was a long ride to Cordoba. It was raining as we were packing up our tent, so we took our bikes and headed to the intercity bus station, which was conveniently one block away. After we bought tickets, and were waiting for the 10 AM bus, more and more yellowheads joined us in the waiting room. In the end, there were 45 of us.and the bus company provided a second bus. When the buses arrived, we loaded 29 bikes into the cargo compartment of one bus, and 16 in the other. The drivers just stood back and watched in awe. By this stage of the trip we are all experts at fitting the bikes into small places.
Cordoba is another Moorish city with a beautiful mosque, which was later appropriated by the Catholic church. This time, we had a layover day to enjoy the area. Then from there it was another long ride to Seville. This time we rode it, but in midafternoon, as we had stopped for a snack, ominous rain clouds were forming ahead of us. Demonstrating yet again, which one of us has more sense, Gesa found a bus that would take her and her bike to Seville, while I rode on. Ten minutes later, the sky broke open, and the only place I could find to huddle under was a road sign. After it let up, I continued on to the end of day, completely soaked. The campground looked quite unattractive, so it was another hotel night.
After spending another layover day in Seville, we let the riders cycle away while we stayed in the suburb of Seville, and tried to ship Gesa's bike to London. We wanted to do this because she was not planning to be along for the North American leg and then the French leg which were upcoming. After much effort, we gave up on the idea of mailing the bike from Seville, and hit on the idea of taking a bus to Portugal. So we boarded the first available bus, with one boxed bike and one unboxed one, and it took us to the resort town of Lagos, on the Algarve coast. This was another very nice find, and we enjoyed two days there. And best of all, the Portuguese mail would accept a bike in a box, so off it went.
Unsurprisingly, we saw another yellowhead, who was also off route, and he had a car. So he drove us back to Evora, Portugal to meet the group, and then ride (in my case at least) the last day in to Lisbon. Evora is a well preserved medieval town, whose most famous feature is a chapel built out of thousands of human bones.
In Lisbon, we then caught a plane to Washington, DC. Everyone whom we had not seen since Italy returned for the flight. We spent one night at the hostel in Washington, and then caught the earliest flight to Detroit, to hang out for a couple of weeks on our own, before returning again, and I'll save the rest of the story for another time.
3. Ottawa to Berlin