Mountain. STOP. Sea.
No flat coast here in North Greece
One way to get back.
So maybe having a hard day after spending a goodly amount of time resting isn't the best idea. We were pretty pooped by the end of today, despite the fact that our total distance was just a shade over 100km. These coastal mountains are killer!
We let ourselves sleep in until 08:30 or so (which still feels like 09:30 to us with the time change), then puttered around Hotel Acropolis, packing our bicycles in a leisurely manner and getting ourselves ready for another day of biking. Truly, we would not have been excited to bike yesterday morning. This morning, though, we are ready for it again. :D
As we checked out and took a couple Turkish delight candies from the dishes on the desk, Evan got some information about the route ahead. There are two ways to Preveza: the coast (mountainous and "maybe or maybe not paved") and the main route (flatter and busier). Of course we chose the coast.
It was beautiful to flow up and down the sides of dramatic hills coated in olive trees. We can see that the harvest is near: many trees have netting spread out under them to catch the ripe olives as they fall. The sea here is the same striking blue that it has been elsewhere, but now we're passing out of the Adriatic and into Ionian territory. So far, at least, it seems a helluva lot less rainy. We haven't seen rain except the night we spent in the apartment, and we didn't see any today.
I can't think of anything particularly remarkable about the ride, except that it was long, and many parts -- especially along the coast -- were very challenging. It didn't help that Evan is still at the tail end of some kind of stomach ailment that means we pause in every gas station we pass for a bathroom break.
We made it to Preveza around sunset. A friend of a friend of a friend was perhaps going to host us here, but we never succeeded in making contact, unfortunately. So we're camping tonight in an ill-used park area with a view of the port. It's really lovely, actually, and our dinner tonight (couscous cooked in oyster-mushroom-pepper broth) made it even better. Preveza seems to be a nice place; the waterfront is predictably full of classy cafés and restaurants, and we're hoping to stop at one tomorrow morning on our way out. For now, we'll finish watching "Short Bus." It's... strange. We discussed it in my Human Sexuality class in university, and... well... don't look it up at work.