6. Greece: Preveza to Manteio

In Preveza we waved goodbye to the sea on National Greek Independence Day and turned North for the trip proper to begin. The first leg was roughly following the edges of the kolpos (sea inlet), cycling through neighbouring villages – quite a bit of concrete bling going on, but also the more consistent start of vegetable gardens on our trip (spuds in, spinach growing, a few remaining leeks, lettuces on the go, artichoke plants) oh and the start of the barking dogs.

After revisiting more bits of Nicopolis we hit a nice straight Roman road with a tail wind and courteous drivers. A stop off at a great flamingo viewing spot, then on to Louros where we miss all the bakeries and shops by minutes on this bank holiday but a very friendly man in the last sun beaten café on the edge of town sells us some truly exceptional baked goods (an indescribable bobble with honey walnuts and raisins the highlight).

We then turn off the main road onto White Roads on the maps we’ve downloaded. This takes some getting used to and frequent stops as we are usually paper map people. Some steady climbing up through very rural valley towards the Gates of Hades. Very beautiful – we slowly leave the ubiquitous citrus fruit. Poorer land. Some Cold Comfort Farms. High hills either side with a bit of uncertainty whether the route we’ve chosen is the more or less hilly one. The legs feel the burn. It all feels very empty.

At one of our second lunch stops in a bridge a beat up pick up truck pulls up and a very enthusiastic man (70s) and his missus stop to chat. We don’t share any language but somehow understand that he makes shoes and would like to invite us in for coffee in what might be either just up the road or at the top of the hill to meet his son. He eats the biccies we offer. Missus doesn’t and laughs coily pointing at her podge. That doesn’t stop me.

So we get back on the bikes and 2km steep uphill later (them preceding us at snail’s pace, a sorry if very slow version of Tour de France commissaire’s car) we arrive to meet the son who is a BEEKEEPER and offers us a kilo jar of jam. We decline coffee but stock up on water and off we head for the stressful task of finding a camping spot. More on wild camping later but we find a lovely spot by the river Acheron which is I think the gateway to the ancient Greek underworld. We bathe in it after a very brambly descent of a bank and lie on our tummies and on our backs on the rocks and shuggle the water around to get clean in the 3 inches of Acheron water.

We wake up not in the underworld as we fail to get shot by the chasseurs. A pretty epic day then follows “the shortest hardest day” 49km of upsy downsy in really really beautiful mountain land on tiny roads with a fair bit of pushing. Highlights: Sotiros monastery, empty abandoned outbuildings with amazing painted ceilings, picnic on a bench with staggering views, climbing up and up and up to what we had thought was a quarry in the distance but turned out to be the col hairpin bends (Col de Quarry, 905m) and a descent to a last minute booked hotel in the very steep village of Manteio.

We have a beer overlooking the amphitheater of Dudoni and repair back exhausted to finish off our slightly fading food.