Delphi, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 6

“Zeus is said to have released two eagles at opposite ends of the world, and commanded them to fly across the earth to meet at its centre. It was at Delphi that the two eagles finally met, and Zeus placed the stone under the glens of Mount Parnassus as a sign to humanity.”
As you can imagine after reading that, we had a quick breakfast and made our way to see the Archeological site. After all, apart from the stone, the Apollo Temple, the Athena Temple, the Amphitheater, the Stadium among others waited for us.
And what a great day it turned out to be, walking on the same ground that thousand of years ago was so important.
Until 1892, a small village lay on top of the ruins and after getting paid the inhabitants left and escavation started.
And we are happy that it did.
Letting the imagination run we heard a Greek philosopher present his theories at the Amphitheater, listened to the carriages and shouted with the audience and athletes at the stadium, but best of all, we sat and enjoyed Pytha, the Oracle foretell the future at the Temple of Apollo.
We also had the opportunity of meeting a group of Italian students that have been following Paul’s trips and as it is believed he was in the area they sat on the shade reading their bibles and telling their theories to each other and whomever wanted to listen.
We then went for lunch and sat on a terrace overlooking the valley.
For the mid afternoon went to the museum and relived the many stories they had to tell.
As the day came to a close and the temperatures decreased, I put on my motorcycle suit and helmet and rode to the small town of Itea by the sea.
Could not resist and took a dip in the warm and clear water.
For dinner we went back to our favorite restaurant, Vhakos Taverna, and enjoyed the sunset and another fantastic meal.
Delphi is very much worth a visit ...

Make Life a Ride !

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Meteora to Delphi, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 5

After spending a couple of outstanding days in Meteora, we made our way south towards Delphi.
On the way we took a detour to see Karpenisi, which is in the center of Greece surrounded by mountains. We first went to Lumia and then turned west and went through the mountains. I have been amazed how many roads there are in Greece and they are ideal for motorcycles and are in pretty good shape.
We then came back East towards Lumia again, through the lush green forest and on the horizon saw heavy rain clouds and lightening. We stopped for about one hour in Lumia to let the storm pass and made our way to Delphi.
The road was very beautiful and Delphi is situated in a gorgeous place, on a cliffside overlooking the Gulf of Corinth. It had to be, as it was chosen by the gods as the navel of the earth and home of the Oracle and where the ancient Greeks erected the Sanctuary of Apollo and Athena Pronea.
We will stay in Delphi one more day and are looking forward to visit the archeological sites.
Had one of the best meals in Greece overlooking the valley as the sun went down over the mountains.
At night we walked the town and met 3 Spanish motorcyclists and went back again to dinner with them to speak about what we love ... travel !

Make Life a Ride !

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Meteora, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 4

We knew this would be a special day. We had been warned ... but it does not matter ... whatever our expectations were, Meteora surpassed them.
The main reason is that there is no other place on earth like it, or at least that we had been to. There are not many places that are better than the imagination, Meteora is one of them.
“Humble men lived suspended for centuries between the heavens and earth, perched on the edge of sharp cliffs, glorifying God for He made the earth and heavens by His power”
“Serene, spiritual, magical, mystical, extraordinary, breathtaking, immense, inspiring, impressive. These are only some of the words people very often use in an effort to describe the Meteora phenomenon. A trip to Meteora offers the unique experience of nature’s grandeur in conjunction with history, architecture and man’s everlasting desire to connect with the Divine. From the early Christian times, the Meteora vertical cliffs were regarded as the perfect place to achieve absolute isolation, to discover peace and harmony and, thus, to support man’s eternal struggle for spiritual elevation. Meteora is a truly inspiring and sensational setting of overwhelming rock formations, but one must also be prepared to expect that this trip is much more than merely visiting an exquisite landscape. It is a pilgrimage to a holy place for all Christians around the world.”
There are 6 monasteries and we visited 3, 2 with monks and one with nuns. Access is through steps carved on the stone or/and suspended bridges. Although there are a lot of tourists you quickly forget about them and go about the business of experiencing the divine. Whatever that is for you, Meteora has an answer.
We used the motorcycle to move us from monastery to monastery and the experience of riding that road is in itself unique, so we went up and down 3 times (before lunch, after lunch and for sunset).
We finished the day with an outstanding dinner at a restaurant that was suggested by a Greek motorcycle friend.
During the day every time we said we were Portuguese we were very well greeted. The reason is that Fernando Santos (current football coach for Portugal) coached Greece from 2010 to 2014 (although he coached other Greek since 2001) and it seems he came often to Meteora and left a great impression in the local people. It shows that whatever one does is noticed and other people will be impacted positively or negatively by one’s actions, eventhough we may never meet those we impact.
We took many, many pictures but none can really show the grandeur of the place.
Enjoy !

Make Life a Ride !

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Thessaloniki to Meteora, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 3

After two nights in Thessaloniki we made our way East and then South towards Meteora.
Before leaving Thessaloniki we needed to buy some oil so we looked for a BMW Service shop and found Peter. Spoke some motorcycle shop talk and then started our trip that took us first to Vergina where we had lunch in the oldest tavern in town. Great spread and very well treated by the owner which has left his previous job and came back to the restaurant business as Greece 🇬🇷 is getting more and more visitors. Loved the offer “anything you do not like you do not pay” as we hear that less and less these days and it is of course the ultimate trust in your product. We paid everything we ate as it was very good.
To get to Vergina, we rode through lots of peach farms. We felt like stopping and eating some but they were still a bit green. The area used to have a lot of peach, sunflower and corn farms but they have now pretty much focused on peach.
Vergina is known for the Royal Tombs of Aigai. The tombs were a pretty recent discovery (1970) and were untouched since 300BC. It is a World Heritage site.
The next stop was Metsovo. The town is in the middle of the mountains and it is a gem to visit. To arrive there we rode on the Egnatia Odos.
This road is 670km long in its entirety and was one of the largest and most ambitious civil engineering projects in Europe at the time (finished in 2009). The motorway runs across Northern Greece from its starting-point at Igoumenitsa to the Turkish border. The road is a key route in developing the trans-European road network and forms an integral part of European route E90.
We really enjoyed this highway. Majestic views, lots of tunnels to burrow through the mountain. But since a highway is not the ideal playing field for a motorcycle we left it and took National Road 20 that twists its way through the mountains to Metsovo where we stopped to see Greek families and friends just mingle together. We were even lucky to find a group of 7 elderly gentleman seated on a bench in their favorite spot overlooking the plaza commenting and reminiscing times gone by.
Highly recommend the detour to Metsovo.
About one hour away through another twisty road Meteora was waiting and we made our way there.
The rocks coming out of the earth sight is impressive and you see it over 20kms away as you come down the mountain and as you get close the rock formations get bigger and bigger and pretty much dominate what you see.
These formations were used by monks in the 14th century as they sought somewhere to hide in the face of an increasing number of Turkish attacks on Greece. At this time, access to the top was via removable ladders or windlass. Nowadays, getting up is a lot “simpler” due to steps being carved into the rock during the 1920s.
We are looking forward to visit the monasteries.
We finished the day with a very nice dinner and the owner who is also a GSA rider came and spoke to us about motorcycles in Greece.

Make Life a Ride !

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Thessaloniki, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 2

Today, the motorcycle is parked and we visit the city. We have done many travels and in each one we adopt a different style for the trip, depending on which country we are visiting. As Greece 🇬🇷 has so many places with lots of things to visit and see, usually better done by foot, we will adopt a two (or more) night stop strategy in same place and travel maximum of 300 kms. This takes more time but we believe it is the best for this trip.
It also gives us an opportunity to do our washing with plenty of time to dry 😉.
And that is what we spent our morning doing, as well as catch up on emails and a number of other tasks that had taken second priority in the last two weeks as we made our way here.
Had lunch in a very typical Greek restaurant and had mezes (like tapas). It is fascinating to watch Greeks interact with each other. They are unique and I had never encountered a culture like this and I am enjoying their intricacies and learning how to recognize them. Restaurants are full and there are many people on the streets just walking, many with their large families. I expect that unemployment is high. Waiters are helpful but they do things on their own time. Most people speak English (much more than any other country we have visited on this trip). Prices are quite high and the Euro has had an inflation impact in everything. During the day we did the hop-on hop-off tour (which takes 80 minutes if you do not stop) and stopped in various locations to take pictures and visit some churches and well known sights.
The architecture of the city is very nice with an old part of the town with narrow streets on top of the hill and a newer section with wide avenues, close to the sea. Everywhere you go there are a multitude of cafes and restaurants where locals sit and talk.
I was totally surprised by the amount of graffiti in the city. Reading about it, it started as street-art, some of it is supposed to be political and even humorous (although we could not understand any of it). But a lot looked disgraceful and in my opinion it is excessive and has a bad impact in the city.
If you can look over this though, we liked our day in the city, the second largest in Greece after Athens.
The city is great for street photography and we took hundreds of pictures that we will cherish and come back to them to revisit Thessaloniki.
We ended up our day, sitting in an Italian restaurant and having a pizza while we watched the Thessalonians walk by the seaside and thinking about Paul, as he wrote the two letters to the Christians in this city.
How much time has past and things have changed.
The fitting end of a full day was given to us by nature as we watched the blood moon, on a cloudless night, over the White Tower which has been adopted as the symbol of the city.

Make Life a Ride !

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Sofia, BG 🇧🇬 to Thessaloniki, GR 🇬🇷 - Day 1

Greece Tour Day #1 in Thessaloniki, Greece 🇬🇷.
Today we started our Greece 🇬🇷 tour when we crossed the Bulgaria 🇧🇬 border into Greece.
Started the day with a walk through Sofia, Bulgaria 🇧🇬, then went to pack and had lunch before leaving the city.
We enjoyed our visit to Sofia which is very different from the rest of Bulgaria 🇧🇬. We were very well received and found Bulgarians much more friendly and ready to help than we expected.
The roads south are in much better conditions than the ones north of Sofia and there was much more traffic on the road. Strong police presence and a number of cars around us were stopped for speeding.
Got some showers but all in all we were able to side skirt the rain.
Just before entering Greece, we met Dilbert, an Englishman that was riding a 1969 Triumph Bonneville from London. After listening to all the issues he has had with his bike, I am glad we are in the GSA.
We were surprised by a toll booth just as we entered Greece and they only accepted cash. It was the first toll road I have ever been on that was in horrible condition. At stages they brought the speed right down to 50km/h because the road was full of holes.
The ride was very beautiful as we approached Thessaloniki, with the mountains in the distance covered with dark clouds.
It was great to arrive to a city that borders the sea (the Aegean Sea). Life is so different in these cities as people spend time walking by the seaside. Lots of boats around and heave-based café lifestyle.
We have a good Airbnb apartment right in the center of town and had a good dinner based on fish.
Looking forward to spending one day exploring our first Greek city tomorrow.

Make Life a Ride !

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