26 April — Albania – Greece, 240 miles
An awesome day – so much twisty roads, one that I did a U-turn just so I could do it again. Then getting a bit “off-route”, including a bit “off-road”… but all awesome roads, as long as I knew I’d get there in the end.
~45 miles of just getting to the Albania-Greece border… where the poster proclaimed “Equal Penalties for All Corruption” – as I watched several obviously wealthy friends of the police skipped the queue.
~20 miles of Greek motorway – empty, as they’re all heading the opposite direction, into Albania, for the Greek Easter Weekend
~125 miles (plus ~20 miles for “off-route” (ie: getting lost)) of awesome, amazing twisty greek roads
~20 miles of empty Greek motorway
~30 miles of some final twisty roads approaching the village we stay in
Approaching the place we’re staying the night – I wasn’t really expecting it… turn a corner, and I see the Meteora rock formations, which we’re staying right under – in Kalambaka. Rather impressive.
Such good roads – didn’t really stop to take many photos, but Northern Greece really is rather a nice spot – very different to the typical image of Greece.
EDIT: Whenever anybody makes a comment about “in that hotel two nights ago”… everybody else has to think about what that hotel was, where it was, etc. Our trip-memories have become the 24-hour news-cycle.
Mine – even worse. As I was writing the above, the only thing I could remember about the day was the last – the getting lost in the afternoon.
Earlier…
Dog-watch: made friends with 2 dogs at the border; later, on a ride off-route, and off-road – ended up at some hermit’s house on top of a hill, with guard-dogs… one of which bit into my lower jeans, and tried (very nearly successfully) to drag my off the bike… I then patted one of the puppies, obviously in training to be a guard-dog, as the owner came out and was probably even more upset about my petting of his guard-dog-in-training, than he was about my intrusion into his solitude; and even later – came across a herd of goats crossing the road – probably about 2 hundred strong… I waited them out, and at the end, were the “goat-dogs” – herding the tail of the herd… one of which was rather curious about me, and friendly.
Also – probably other stuff happened.
