Stayed 3 nights in meteora which gave me 2 days to visit and walk around. I spent some time resting, reading, watching TV. I also walked a lot, enjoyed the views, meditated in the mountains, prayed a little bit too.

1700m+ to climb. Late start at 11, and not freat sleep… I already biked 2h00, almost all uphill, but it took 2h45, and it is already 14h00, I predict 4 hours of biking extra in hopefully less than 6 hours.

Got attacked by many animals too

The end was so so brutal, mountain roads of very bad quality for the last 10 km, and in full darkness. Terrifying and hard to imagine.

Finally arriving was incredible, at 21h05. I can see even at night that this place is beautiful. Excited to wake up tomorrow but first I have to eat + shower and then bed. It’s getting cold too. The last few nights have been cold in the tent.

Starting slow in the morning and chilling on the terrace, not many kilometers but hard hard hills today, no need to rush, I will do what I will do.

What a hard day ! It was terrible, the paths were trash and so many obstacles, was a lot of fun but so tough.

Decided to change road to do something else after 65km, then did 40km on gravel, so fun but arrived at night.

Woke up in the middle of the night feeling sick, I have a bad stomach ache which will last all day, on top of that, I barely sleep.

We still do a small bike ride to a camping spot, set up the tent and our stuff and we go hike to the ruins of Delphi.

The site is incredible, the views too, other than my stomach ache, the day is amazing…

We start with good rythme, and I push apollon so that we keep a good pace on the easiest stint of the day. We take few 7 min breaks but keep going until 12h00 for a 20 min, we then push again for 1 hour to be right before objective lunch.

At lunch, we take a long break. The rest of the day will be tough, still 1100m to climb, and 3h30 hours to go.

What’s weird of about travelling on a bikecycle, is that your standards are lowered for everything, this is true also for many other sorts of travelling. Eating a weird lunch (4 day old bread and dried food) next to the highway, sitting on the ground, in a sort of clean place, but for some reasons life is great, and quite enjoyable, the food is somewhat good.

Time to go again, now the hard part begins, but we put our heads down and keep going. It is really hard, but you just look down and keep going. Pedalling uphill for this long is very mentally, we are going between 8kmh and 10kmh, and the legs and lungs can’t recover so they just burn. To keep going, you have to get in a meditative state, forget that pain exist, forget time too. And we finally make it, you then feel unbreakable, and high on climbing. The climb lasted for almost 2h40, we are glad it is over.

When you are at the bottom of the hill, my first thought is that we will never make it, especially during the first 10 minutes which feel like eternity, and once you are done, you almost feel like doing it again. The brain is weird, and bad at knowing what we can achieve if we stop listening to it.

We made it to the top ! The way down was pure ecstasy, 40kmh while not pedaling, no effort, a smooth road, and so so long. We then have a “small” hill to end the day. We then look for a restaurant and proceed to eat a very fat meal.

The bike shop owner is really nice and gives us some tips for the road, he also tells us that exiting Athens the way we planned is too dangerous and not nice, he recommends us to take a small train to exit the city and avoid the busy roads and sketchy neighborhoods.

After getting off the train, and almost missing our connection, we finally get to our starting point. Today will be hilly, and warm since we starting in the middle of the day. The first is brutal, and Apollon is taking a bit time getting adjusted to the bike, but after the first break and rebalancing the weights and changing the height of the seat, Apollon is feeling better on the bike. We keep climbing for for the rest of the day, not steep but long hills.

We took a long and deserved break on the top. Before going down, 10 minutes we get stopped by Paul, a bikepacker from Poland, drinking coca cola with another newly met biker from France (Bastien). They are going in the same direction, towards Athens and decided to sleep together tonight. We fill up our water bottles, order coca cola, and spend 30 min together talking about life, and traveling… but time to go and we get back on the road.

We arrive in Thebes right when the sun starts to disappear between the horizon. We decide to get food in a restaurant before figuring out what we do tonight. We are hesitant to keep going, the night is already there, and we are not sure to find a place to sleep, we have to find a field or abandon house. We finally decide to sleep in a hotel, it is over our budget, but a safer choice, and it means we can rest before the big day tomorrow. At the restaurant, we meet Siobhan, a bikepaker from the UK, she flew to Athens and is doing a solo tour in Greece for 2 weeks. She is also going to Delphi tomorrow, which confirms that it is a possible stint.

I planned to do much more today, but it is important to stay flexible during these biketrips. The most important is safety, we have to avoid cars, manage fatigue, hunger, thirst, and stay focused on the bike. Today was a beautiful day, full of emotions and good vibes.

I am going to stay in Athens for 8 nights before going back on the road again.