Day 172: Alexandroupoli to Porto Lagos

Back roads and serenity  

It was a lovely ride today. We started off thinking the only road was the highway and ignored the red sign with a bicycle on it - maybe it means “bicycles allowed” I thought. A couple of road traffic contractors set me right on that. They pointed us to the old highway, which turned out to be a fabulous, nearly deserted road that wound its way along the same route, but far enough from the highway to ensure perfect peace.  

The traffic management guys who were pretty clear we shouldn’t be on this road  

The serenity of the old highway  

We carried on with this road for several hours, and it’s main drawback was we didn’t see any villages or shops. Finally we had to make a diversion and thankfully found a village shop with a great cheese, tomato, cucumber combo for our lunch. 

Then we were heading across country, away from the highway and into deepest rural Greece. It became a bit of a lottery whether the roads were paved or not and a few diversions were called for to keep the progress smooth.  

Deepest rural Greece

A “Sarina’s eye view”

Then we came up against a bigger obstacle, a ford. It was quite fast flowing, but only six inches deep at most. There was no alternative route so we had to press on. Tiger was willing to give it a shot and managed to pedal across. The Blue Strawberry was a little more conservative and we walked across. We all had wet feet anyway. 

Not our preferred river crossing style

We made it though. Some on foot. 

Our destination was Porto Lagos, a spit of land between a marine lake and the Aegean, which is a wildlife sanctuary and is absolutely teeming with birds. 

I can barely hear myself think for the birdsong this evening. I bet they get up early too!

Heaven for wild fowl