10. Greece: Koukouli to the border with Albania

Two days of good old Alpine climbs and we leave lovely Northern Greece behind.

A day of remote up and down contouring in wild and beautiful mountain land – jagged snowy peaks not what I expected at all. The Bear Poo on the road turns out to be Cow Pat. Wild flowers and stubby oaks on the South and West facing mountain flanks, pine and landslides on the East and North. We cycle up what Kosta from Ioannina called Gypsy Valley and cross two cars and two logging trucks all day. It’s really very cold out of the sun, maybe 5°C.

Lunch in a lovely village with tiled rather than stone rooves and the most enormous plane tree. The Aoos River a highlight. Then two proper climbs over 1000m, the second one catches me by surprise and just goes on and on and on (to over 1300m and level with the snow line on the opposite mountain). Multiple refuelling stops needed (the Last of the Pittas, cheese, sausage, the Last of the Figs, and the great Greek chocolate biccies) and eventually we drop down to amazing views of the flat river valley and Konitsa.

We are staying in a slightly shabby place on the high edge of town (bear anxiety still prevailing) and the heart sinks looking down at Konitsa extending right down into the plane at having to walk back up hill later tonight after food as we have truly eaten our panniers dry. As Jon bathes and does his laundry I sit on the terrace in the sunshine and the drabness melts away however. A very dapper Orthodox priest walks past tall and elegant and quite funky black trainers. Cats lie in the evening sun. An old man delivers a casserole dish to the next door neighbours. Another old man plants his lettuces in another garden next door.

The mellowness persists when we eventually head into Konitsa (the centre is in fact just down hill from us, big relief) to find a bank and food. It’s bustling with cafés, several butchers and bakers and shops. There’s a certain degree of food hesitation that goes on but we eventually land in a very non-descript restaurant that serves us the best food we’ve had all trip – baked butterbeans (a thing in Greece, they’ve on sale tinned everywhere too), a spinach and rice dish, artichoke hearts in lemon and oil and meatballs with red wine, tomato and cumin sauce that the very chatty owner is understandably very proud of.

We put the world to rights and then very slowly go back uphill.

Best things about Northern Greece (which we’ve both loved and would happily come back again):

– very courteous drivers on empty roads; high mountain scenery; incredibly friendly; little extra sweet things with coffee or at the end of a meal; the bakery products sweet and savoury; the mountain water (as good as Inverness water); the wild flowers and the trees (olive, oak, plane pine); the Adriatic – swimming in it, its coves, the blue of it; the citrus fruit – our tangelemons, the scrumped lemons, the oranges; the archeological remains and the old architecture (Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman); Ioannina; some very great conversations (Kosta, the restaurant owner in Konitsa) and some nice fellows travellers; finally, slowly starting to get a hang of quite how complicated Balkan history is and what a mark that had left on some of these villages and places.

We cycled downhill the next morning from Konitsa into an agricultural plane towards a bit of a no man’s land near the border with Albania….