Peloponnese, Greece: Two Weeks in Pictures

Two weeks, four bike tourists, one peninsula. And a whole bunch of photos. So if you have some time, scroll on down and enjoy some of our favorite images and a few memories. And if you want to see our route, go to the "Routes" menu item at the top of the header, or click on this link.

Ann and Joe, our cool neighbors and travel buddies, left us this morning to continue on their own back to Athens and then home to California.   We are now better friends, after sharing the challenges of thunderstorms, uphill grinds, and dirt-bag campsites.  But also the beauty of spring wildflowers, ruins of ancient civilizations, and moussaka.  Tomorrow we cross this bridge and continue north to mainland Greece and beyond.  Stay tuned.
 

We rented an AirBnB in central Athens for three nights.  The rooftop had a view of the Acropolis, as well as the tatoo parlor across the street and Death Disco a few doors away.  The host thoughtfully left complimentary earplugs on the bedside tables, but luckily we were there on the nights the disco was closed.

We walked to the top of the prominent hill where the Acropolis was located first thing in the morning to get the best light and beat the crowds.  Here is my token image of the Parthenon.

The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, dating from 421-407 BC.  These are replicas.  The originals are in the Acropolis Museum, which we visited later in the day.

Ruins overlooking the modern city of Athens.

The structures built on the hill of the Acropolis are right on top of an irregular surface of massive limestome.

We finished our stroll on the hill just as the throngs of visitors arrived.

Red poppies were blooming everywhere.

The Acropolis Museum, at the base of the hill, preserves and artfully displays artifacts from the site. 

There is some bad stuff going on here.

The next day we walked to the National Archeological Museum of Athens, and encountered the central market. 

All this carnage could drive one to...

...vegetables!

Inside the museum were artifacts from the Neolithic era, as early as 6,000 BC.  The pottery collection was large, with many artifacts in near-perfect condition.  It is striking how form and function were combined perfectly into objects of beauty,  I was particularly taken with the vases with long spouts in the form of a bird.

Aphrodite, Eros and Pan

The museum had several artifacts found in shipwrecks, including this torso, as well as bronze sculptures. 

After two days in Athens, we took the train to Corinth to the west to avoid traffic in the suburban sprawl.  It takes a bit to get the jet-lagged legs moving and managing our two-wheeled luggage carriers.

Ann and Joe, outstanding in a field!

Our first big site outside of Athens was Mycenae, dating from the second millenneum BC.  The famous Lion Gate is the main entrance to the citadel.

Wildflowers were in abundance everywhere.  Spring is a good time in this part of Greece...mild temperatures, too.

Heinrich Schliemann, a German archeologist, excavated these ancient graves in 1876 and found a spectacular wealth of artifacts.

The small museum at the site had all kinds of ancient treasures.

Including "stirrup vases". 

The entrance to one of several beehive tombs.

The interior brick structure mimics the shape of a beehive, lending great strength to the structure.  Appropriately, wasps made their nests in the chinks between bricks and where continuously buzzing inside the dome.

Hey, I know those three!

We returned to our chained bikes and found a local dog guarding them.  Dogs are everywhere in Greece.  A yard will often have more than one clamoring to get at a passing cyclist.  And barking dogs were the sound of the night in just about every campsite.

End of the day, returning down the hill from the Mycenae site to our campground.

Four happy bike tourists, all in a row.

We passed through the seaside town of Nafplio on Good Friday.

It has has a fortress on a hill with some impossible steps, which we did not have the time to climb.

And another little fortress on an island in the harbor.

95% of Greece are Greek Orthodox, and churches with characteristic domed roofs are everywhere.  Most are very small, and some small villages will have several.  This one, however, was quite large and stunning outside and inside.

We found a Greek family campground, not yet open for the season, that let us stay the night.  Thunder and lightning and a sustained downpour forced us to shelter under the rigged canopy of of one of the units to cook dinner.

The next day the skies were still heavy with humidity as we traveled along the coast.

The road went up and down along the coast, giving us the first real hill-climbing challenges of the trip.  But scenic views are always the reward.

A great free camp in the narrow canyon outside of Leonidi.  The next day would be a 3,000+ foot climb up the canyon and over the pass to the other side of the mountains.

The day of our climb was bright and beautiful, with a spectacular view of the monastery built on the cliff.

A closer view of the monastery.

Beginning the climb.

Go Ann, go!

View of the switchbacks we have already conquered.

Last big hairpin turn!

Victory!

At the top was the incredibly quaint town of Kosmas.

Joe would have liked nothing more than to settle into a hotel room and eat the moussaka of his memories from when he cycled through Greece in 1979.  But we still had 55 kilometers to travel that day to stay on schedule.

But we dropped quickly to the drier west side of the mountains.

We made it to Mystras just as the sun was setting.  Our campground host took pity on us, and gave us a ride to the fancy resort and spa down the street for dinner.  Still tired the next morning, we opted for a taxi to take us to the uppermost entrance of the ruins.

Joyful and happy tourists!

The archeologicial site of Mystras is sprawled over the hillside, and includes churches, monasteries, fortresses, a palace, and aqueducts.

We worked our way down, from top to bottom.

Frescoes on the ceiling of one church.

A patchwork of stone and brickwork on one church exterior.

The structures were used by several civilizations over the centuries, and recent preservation keeps them standing.

Back on the road, we ended up have a challenging day, riding through hill towns after climbing from the valley bottom.  We tried to avoid this route by taking the new toll road down the center of the valley, but got stopped by the safety officer and escorted back a few kilometers to the nearest exit.  There were no signs saying bikes were not allowed on the toll road, and John had talked to the locals, who seemed to think it was not a problem.  Now we know.

The glorious thing was many of the towns have free-flowing fountains of spring water, icy cold.

Our campsite that night was the courtyard of a church near Megalopoli.  We were ready to set up camp in a grassy field, but a shepherd on a motorbike came by and indicated he was bringing his flock there for the night.  Speaking no English, and we no Greek, we somehow came to understand he knew of a better place, across the river with toilets and running water.  He then led us there, to the church, where we respectfully settled for the night.

A wonderful old sycamore graced the courtyard with seating for a celebration. 

Just beyond our church campsite were ancient ruins, in the shadow of the plume of a power plant.  The old and the new.

Another tough day through sleepy hill towns.

Red brick roofs of the village of Stemnitsa.

Narrow streets of Stemnitsa.

All over Greece are roadside shrines, often at dangerous curves or intersections where someone has died in an accident. 

Taking a breather as we begin our descent.  Thankfully it was a cool and overcast day, making the climbs of the morning much more tolerable.

Our best free camp yet, in a pine forest reminiscent of Oregon.

More descending...if you look closely you might see three neon-vested cyclists.

It was hot and sunny once we got to the lower elevations of the Eymanthos River on our way to Olympia.  Some cyclists have been known to skinny-dip in this river.

Another day off the bikes, walking among the ruins of Olympia.

I now have seen Doric columns, and can identify them in the wild.

Like this one.

Olympia was the site of the Ancient Olympics, which lasted for over 1,110 years.  The Olympia ruins are the site where the athletes trained and competed.  This is the stadium where footraces were held.

The museum at the site had the reassembled sculptures of the pediments of the Temple of Zeus.

The pediment sculptures were one of the most amazing things we saw at Olympia.

Cycling again through sparsely populated agricultural areas on our way to the coast...

...where pavement turned to dirt on occasion.

An early-afternoon campsite next to probably the only reservoir in the Peloponnese.  The water was too stagnant for swimming, and we camped next to an abandoned sand and gravel operation.  Not the prettiest place, but the trees provided shade to escape the heat of the afternoon.

Our final day of cycling together, skirting the massif of the local high point.

Where sheep serve as traffic speed control.

Lunch on the beach.  We will miss traveling together with you, Joe and Ann!

Read More

Bishop, CA: Shakedown Tour

One Sunday morning, a couple of weeks ago, we loaded our bikes and drove south an hour to the relative balminess and snow-free roads of Bishop. This was a fully-loaded day ride, a test of body and gear: a shakedown tour. We will soon be on a plane to Greece to begin our next bike tour, and a few things are different this time.

For one, there will be four of us. For first three weeks we will be joined by Ann and Joe, good friends and neighbors. Both are enthusiastic, adventurous, and of good humor. Bike touring is new for Ann, but Joe has a past of bike touring in Europe and the United States when he was in his twenties. And he is an intimidatingly strong cyclist, so we may need to sneak some weight into his panniers just to slow him down.

We also have new bikes. John spent the winter building them, and they are mighty fine. Besides lighter frames and lower gearing, they have a couple features we think are important based on our past touring experiences. John found these Ritchey Breakaway Ascent frames, which have integrated couplers that allow us to collapse the frames and pack them into smaller bike boxes. It is always a hassle to try and find boxes to pack and check them in as extra baggage on the plane, especially in a foreign city at the end of a tour. At least now we can utilize smaller boxes, which tend to be more available. The second feature are disk brakes, to save wear and tear on the hands and rims on long, steep descents. Ann has adopted my old bike for this tour, and with some stem and gear adjustments, it seems to suit her well. A bike becomes like a family member on a tour, something you keep healthy and safe and rely on. Even after almost 20,0000 miles, there is still some life left in my old ride, and I hope Ann bonds with it and loves travel on two wheels as much as we do.

Also different on this tour is that we have lost this blog’s biggest fan. My mother passed away at the end of November 2016. She was always so excited about the places we traveled. Without fail I would get an enthusiastic email after I posted a story. Those blog posts were really letters to her. I miss her, and think of her every day. But enough people have asked about the blog, so I will continue writing and sharing pictures. Thanks for your interest.

We arrive in Athens the last day of March, and need to be in Berlin by end of July for our flight home. John has planned a route through Greece and eight other countries (more or less – the itinerary is always a bit fluid). We are looking forward to the new landscapes, foods, languages, and challenges that make for interesting experiences worthy of sharing. I hope you will follow along.

Read More

The (other) Sierra Nevada, Spain: Journey's End

A couple of days ago we crossed the Sierra Nevada.  The one in California.  Yes, alas, we are home again.  It some ways it is nice -- to prepare a meal in an oven, to eat at a table with chairs, access to Trumpmania 24/7.  Just a couple of weeks ago we were on another continent, crossing the other Sierra Nevada.  The one in Spain.

We were about four days ahead of schedule to get back to Málaga, where began this journey a couple of months ago.  The snow-capped peaks of Spain's Sierra Nevada are quite visible from Granada.  John pored over his maps, and found a route over the range that looked achievable. Just one 2000 meter pass (6562').  What what we found was a remote, challenging and unexpected landscape. 

The view from Granada of the Sierra Nevada...the mountains are calling.

Not only does Spain have a Sierra Nevada, it also has a Highway 395!

We followed a river canyon out of Granada, pleasantly level for the first 10 kilometers.  The geology changed from slate to limestone and the channel became narrow and steep.

Our gradual climb became steep and winding.  We were soon looking down on the sleepy village where we had just been an hour before.

We did not expect the landscape in the foothills north of the range to be so dry with the colorful geology so exposed.

End of the first day of our approach to the pass.  Our goal is clear.

On day two we were climbing all morning.  Looking down on the plain to the north is the small town with a fortress we passed through earlier.  What looks like a body of water beyond the town is actually a huge solar energy installation, and beyond that (not clearly visible), a wind farm.

The last few bends in the road on the way to the pass, our second day of 3000'+ of climbing.

Happy to be at the pass!  Now let's eat lunch!

No doubt, it was a glorious descent on the other side!

What we found on the other side were little villages clinging to the hillsides, connected only by a narrow and winding road.  Water was no problem.  Where it was not pouring down the hillside from a spring, it was captured and made available by a fountain in the center square of nearly every village.

Day three followed the southern flank of the Sierra Nevada through a series of valleys collectively known as Las Alpujarras.  What looked on our map like a curvy road that followed an even contour turned out to be a rollercoaster in and out of river valleys.  Often, as we dropped down to river level we could look across the canyon and see the road climbing on the other side.  The last river canyon to cross was the grand-daddy of them all, the Barranco de Poqueira gorge, with the three white villages of Pampaneira, Bubion, and Capileira clinging to the sides above it.

By the time we reached Órgiva we had dropped a couple of thousand feet in elevation.  The hills were lower and there were flat areas for orchards and pasture.  Evening entertainment from our campground was the goat herd passing by, eating everything in their path.  Just the sound of bells and munching.

Day four brought us to the major highway leading from Granada to the southern coast of Spain.  We would have had to find a way through this corridor had we opted for the direct instead of the mountain route.

We managed to stay off the major road the last few kilometers before reaching the coast on a route that followed the Rio Guadalfeo, through the unexpected and spectacular gorge between the Lújar and Chapparal mountains.  At one point we heard rockfall, looked over, and saw the disappearing forms of a couple of cabra de montaña on an impossible vertical slope.

The Mediterranean Sea, in our view once again.

The final stretch, with Málaga in the distance.  Just one last picture of John from the rear.

Read More