Cycling across the Peloponnesse, Greece

We decided to take the train out of Athens. That morning the smog had cleared so we decided to do a quick ride up up viewpoint before packing up and going to the train station. The view was clearer, but still just brown city sprawl.... What should have been a quick bike ride back, wasn't. Byrdie was navigating and was on a mission.... so we kept cycling. After a while I though why are we cycling 10 blocks when we only came a few blocks. we got lost. then a bit of a panic... train to catch. we managed to get back to the hostel and packed in a record few minutes, rushed to the train and then still had half an hour to spare some how....

We decided to visit old Korinthos, basically a ruins. We got to the base of a huge rocky hill and saw the old walls right at the top.... do we do the mission or not. We did and the views made it well worthwhile. The actual site was just closing as we arrived which took any pressure off to pay 8euro to visit! (plus further down the hill we could stop and see what was behind the wall anyway...)

We stayed at a campground in a tourist town, existing only because of some very famous ruins nearby. Again, we didn't pay to see them... would rather spend it on food...

The next days cycling was amazing. We stopped at a small town which had a fantastic bakery. scoffed some delicious bread and cream pastries on the beach and then headed inland. There was a huge climb of a hill with a switchback road and amazing views... of the awesome coloured ocean and greenery. Then a downhill into fields of olive trees and poppys. We arrived at a town, Tripolis with NO accommodation and not particularly friendly people. one hotel had no vacancies but would've cost us €110. So we cycled about 10km out of town, exhausted and set up a tent near the side of the road. Our first night freedom camping...

Next morning was FREEZING. coldest i've been so far on this trip. and downhill. downhill is even colder. i had on layers of clothes and Byrdies balaclava and could not warm up. we stopped for a hotdrink on the gas cooker. and then set off again. The days cycling ended up being amazing. we went 119km to Olympus. mostly downhill. through green deep valleys. cute villages. lovely and completely different from the day before.

At Olympus we stayed at a campground and ended up having a drink with a lovely english couple. just coffee. Byrdie is a cheap drunk and was feeling the effects of the wine we'd had...

Next day we decided to explore olympus. first stop bakery. next stop free museum. then decided to do the usual ride by the ruins... check them out from above. worth paying for? out of all the ruins in Greece I thought olympus most worth seeing. then we happened to see a sign "free due to international monument day"... so went in. lovely setting...

The next day, another days cycling. Greece is so green! we decided to take an inland route as the English couple said the beaches were pebbly and dirty... and we had enjoyed the previous days so much. no camping options. so ended up freedom camping by a river. was very serene with green mountains, olive trees, river and a truck going right past every few minutes loaded up with dirt with a digger... the guy would stop occassionally to chat. offered us a frappacino which we accepted. we had a dip in the water, read, cooked popcorn and waited for them to finally leave before setting up our tent.

The next day we had our final days cycling in Greece. We cycled up to Patra. Received the friendliest service, before jumping on a 21 hour ferry trip to Ancona, Italy