Europe-Balkans by bike 2007 ! Ride for amnesty.

last post.

2007-12-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

so... that was it. this is the last post of this blog. i am in athens as you can imagine.

i don't have any photos from athens because the last day i just wanted to arrive home and i did

not stop to make any.

thank you everybody that followed me through this blog. thank you for your support.it was really

important for me..

feel free to contact me if you have questions or if you want to say hi or whatever. i will

create a new blog soon though. i will publish the link when i do.

goodbye everybody and may we all have luck,love and peace in our lives.

:) ciao.

More photos ! λαλαλα

2007-12-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

εισαι ελληνας? .. ε, ψησε και φαε! καλο αυτο.. all these photos are from evvoia island.

very-very pretty! hope it stays like that.. (if we dont burn it..) :/

is this it?

2007-12-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

soo....

i am writing from my house now.. Yes i am in athens back home. :)

it was all a very progressive procedure but still i was verry happy when i stepped through the door.. my parents,brother and a friend welcomed me home . it was very funny to see them all with the photo cameras and all this fuss.! thanks. :)

so some words about the last days. after i left volos..

the prettiest stretch of my trip in greece was that of northern evvoia. .

it was the only that was not flooded with garbage everywhere, even though it still had quite alot..

i dont understand us greeks sometimes.. it seems that we dont have any idea of what respect of other people and respect of our self is.. the garbage is just a small sample of that..

the real problem is that we dont have a clue about all that and the majority of us think that we are

super civilized,generus,good hurted and plus , that we have something special as a nation..

so we sleep in peace..

maybe we do have something. but its difficult to see anything with all the rubish that's floating on the surface...

all i am saying is that i think that we need to do a lot of hard work as a country and as individuals all of us ,me included ,if we want to make some things better here..

we need more public spaces, a parc ! less cars on the street, respect of everybody that is sharing his space with ours, less beeping ,less criticism ,more patience...

i dont know.. on one hand i am very happy to be back ,but on the other hand it makes me sad to realize the greek reality. i feel that we are a fobic and actually closed nation. biased religiously and socially ..

also something that really socked me was the following insident..

i was riding on the national road to athens. so 200 m in front of me there was a bus that had stopped and the people were outside of it. taking some air maybe..

as i was approaching the bus one of the people took a stone and threw it at me or my direction anyway!!!!! ??????

i could not help staying with my mouth open in front of the greatness of the human stupidity that was unfolding in front of me..

As i got closer this person was at the side of the street screaming at the cars passing by, swearing and making hand gestures at everybody ...... he did not look at me in the eyes...

i was really stunned by his behavior..

i realized after that,that it was a bus with football fans of the team paok... .

i someone can explain to me how throwing stones and swearing people that is just passing by,including a touring cyclist,makes sense i would be grateful...

it cost me 2 hours to get over it.. i couldnt and i still cant believe i saw this... .

anyway ,,.. that was before i enter evvoia so. the natural beautie of the island made it back to me..

so nothing super special after that, i rode to artaki next to halkida, stayed at the house of my friend tasos and had a very nice time ... after that i rode to athens aaand here i am now...

photos. and i will post some more i guess..

i would like your comments and thoughts about all that. :) thanks everybody.

almost done! :)

2007-12-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

hello-hello-hello!
i am close, very close,to the finish line!
today in xalkida. tommorow in athens...
i will give a full report and impressions
from home..

i had a very nice ride in evvoia . beautiful place.!

so.. tune in for the last posts of this blog..

ciao!

The Doc.

2007-11-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

I got my bike to the surgeon today. :)
beautiful job. Mr. Zafiroulis in Larisa,
welded my fork nicely and now i can ride again carefree!
hop. hop.

it feels like i never i left this town now that i am back.. :)

A dream..

2007-11-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

i saw this the first night i slept in thessaloniki and its not a joke.

i was riding my bicycle in a road, there was a sidewalk and a bus stop..
everything normal exept that , my tires were submerging in the road making a sound like krits -krits-krits.
the road was not a road, it was all a huge bugatsa with cheese....
a bit surrealistic no?
jem

Barcelona -Elassona mission acomplished! :)

2007-11-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

hello!!yes barcelona elassona is a reality!
i left thessaloniki yesterday morning after having a very good time in the film festival over there..
so i rode untill katerini ,then went inside between mt.olympus and mt.pieria utill i reached ellasona (ole) and then i finally aproached larisa! nice.
no problems with the weather today... the only thing is that i had at least 50 tsompanboskila (dogs that guard sheeps.) at groups of five or more ,atacking me in only 3 hours. thankfully with no casualties on both sides..
i just had to face them and make it clear that i was not scared of them.
after that one or two aBbRRRRT and some OuSTo was enough to get me on my way again,dog-free. :)
so now ,chill, tsipuro, and i ill be on my way soon. i have a lot of friends here as i was studing in this town for 3,5 years.. :)
good times.. so.. cheers and see you soon again i n a few days.

aand a video just when i entered greece...

2007-11-25T06:39:00.000-08:00

just when i entered..
feels like home haha

Trans-Balkanik! the train from the underworld!

2007-11-25T01:49:00.000-08:00

jojojo!

its me again ! this time coming back to you from familliar grounds! after 24 almost hours of train i reached thessaloniki!
i used the only direct connection between zagreb and north greece.. a train that goes through hrvatska ,serbia,fyrom, and stops at thessaloniki greece.

the train is an old train like the ones we had in greece a few years ago. its dirty and it has dirty people working in it. jeje

the thing is that there is not a certain regulation about transporting bikes with train so everybody tries to take advantage of it.

at first i wanted to have a bed and the guy in the train said that i should pay 10 euros more and also give him "something" more to have a drink.
so when i tried to pay him with Croatian money he said no and that he would only accept euro (!) i didnt have any euros so i said, kuna or nothing.. after that he asked for more money
because it was not his preferred currency :P
he asked for 140 kuna that is 20 euros. i said no, its too much , so the deal broke and i just left and had a normal seat.
it was ok in the normal seats anyway.

now, apart from my ticket i had to pay overweight for transporting my bike...
That, i also had to pay it aboard... so...
i payed 3 times.
one at the croatian .train conductor, one at the serbian one and one more at the f.y.r.o.m.-ian conductor. everytime someone working in the train changed ,the new one was asking for money.!
luckily i had made friends with a family from f.y.r.o.m before the last time , so when the last guy asked me for money they told him that no and i already had payed and the guy just asked for one euro..

ridiculous .. anyway

it was a good experience and if someone is just traveling with out any bikes or something weired i would suggest it to anybody.
actually i suggest that all people from greece should travel in the balkans. know your neighbor!

zagreb was very beautiful and i had a very good time with sanja, my host there.
people in croatia are very much like Greek people i think in their attitude and way of behaving .

from the train i saw very beautiful sceneries. people working with the earth, even with horses..

the train crossed the bridge that was bombed by nato in serbia when a train full of civilians was crossing it. i met interesting people in that train and actually had quite a lot of fun!

hvala (thank you) good people for everything.

i will get back with the photos and the new stories from the greek stretch of the trip!
see you soon everybody

some thoughts...

2007-11-22T01:26:00.000-08:00

hello everybody.
i am going to sum up things untill now.

so i have covered untill now 2700 km more or less. (40km+ or -)
i say more or less because the thing that measures speed and distance gave away his spirit
because of the cold. i hope it gets better now that i am spending time in houses the last days though..

in split, i stayed in the house of Sam , a very nice guy ,he , ''panic'' his girl and also their nice dog sviiiita made me feel like home for a few days and finally i had the chance to really rest.
all the tiredness from all this days of cycling is coming out now..

after that i found my self in Zagreb in the house of Sanja (another couchsurfer) for one night.
we also had a good time with all her friends and 5 dogs. :)

About the bike now,it has 2 cracks on the fork, one small and one bigger.
the good news is that the manufacturer had a very good customer support and respected their warranty on the bike so i am having a new fork sent in my house in greece in some days.
the brand is www.dawescycles.com and its nice to see a company that respects their customers. thats why i mention the brand name.

so what now. ?
after the awful weather in the coast that turned my moral into dust, i had to re-evaluate the plan. i was not anymore willing to ride there.

Biggest problem for me now is the short days and long nights. It means, that in order to keep up
with the average daily goal distance, i have to ride all the 80-100 km that i do normally, in one go without having many chances to stop and enjoy my surroundings. . or relax a bit.
thats creates some stress. because i just ride in order to go somewhere and this is not nice.

also it means almost 14 hours of doing nothing and having to sit in the tent trying to sleep
or whatever.

concidering also that most of the time when i ride i spent the time or alone, or in small places. villages ,with old people normally. and that i cant comunicate with them well because usually they dont speak english or spanish or greek :P
and of course the unpredictable weather.the whole experience is becoming quite difficult..

so thats way i decided to fast forward from this place. and jump to the last etape of my trip which is Greece of course .

plan is go to thesaloniki, and then ride down untill larisa crossing olympos untill ellasona, then larissa , and then head to volos and then pass on maybe from glyfa to the island of evvoia ride down to marmari and then pass on to the last strech and aproach athens.
this will be at least 700 km more
so i gues ill complete all that with 3400 km more or less and not 45oo.

i hope you dont feel like i am cheating. :)
but this way i ll have the chance to ride greece more relaxed , having a bit more time.
and also the advantage to speak a familiar (at least) language. :P

thats all for now . i ll post when there is something new to say .jeje
so see you soon everybody.

Zagreb!

2007-11-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

so i took the train.!
sorry igoumenitsa voters. :)
i ll take another train in some days and go to skopje i think
or thessaloniki directly
depends on the weather and mood.
..from whichever place ,i will cycle to athens..
:)
i guess i am cutting a piece of the route,i am sorry..

photos are about to come!

so what am i gonna do after all?

2007-11-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

i dont know.
thing is that tonight i will take either the train to zagreb or the boat to ancona
and then i'll see..

jm so everybody will have to wait for my next post to see what happened.
jeje

what will the (not so fearless) cyclist do next?

continue his adventures inside the Balkans?
chicken out and head to more familiar ground (igoumenitsa?)
find a girl and have a family in split? :P

stick around for the continue of this grrrreat story !
whewww whew

fiiinary. i am in split.. what now ?

2007-11-19T00:28:00.000-08:00

sooo...

here i am in split,in a critical turn of my trip.. situation is this. the weather is beginning to be much more unpredictable. it turns from a nice day to a windy but really windy and also maybe rainy. in minutes.

the last days cycling here at the croatian coast was not much of a fun. i had a lot of wind against me,rain,wind again and some more wind. also as night is falling at 4.30 nowdays i dont have actually time for anything. i just need to pedal all day.

one more thing is that the coast may be pretty but. first its all more or less the same thing.

sea, rocks eventually some pinetrees and again rocks and sea. whats wrong with all this?

that it looks extremelly like greek coasts.. almost identical.

plus, the croatian drivers can compete the greek ones in bad driving manners. They beep at me to get out of the way, trucks passing me very close and fast and people in general considering me as an obstacle on the street.

overall it has not been the best strech of my trip. in summertime i would be able to enjoy the nice beaches and everything but now its not exactly the right time for this.

sooo considering all this . i have decided that i dont want to ride the coast anymore..

my choices are.

go with ferry to italy and then pass on to igoumenitsa. from that ride to athens,or thesaloniki firsts and then athens.

or with trains and blah,blah, go to zagreb ,then to skopja ,capital of f.y.r.o.m and from that, ride to thesaloniki and then athens. thing is that i can only see one road leaving skopja towards greece and its a highway that i am not permited to ride on . if anyone has some input about that road very wellcome to pass it on please.

so i dont exatly know what to do.. the boat looks atractive. the trains are a bit more complex about transporting the bike. but i dont really know..

so as i think of it please vote on the poll on your left! jejej

hasta luego. :)

Cooking class :)

2007-11-16T06:03:00.000-08:00

i know ,iknow... i ll just keep on cycling.. :P

highs and downs ....

2007-11-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

another post today..
i reached zadar. it was something i have never seen before in my life. the wind was so strong that i thought really,that it could lift me completely at some point.of course i could not ride most of the time. iwas just walking pushing the bike in flat ground... i got discouraged and i did auto stop to get away from the windy zone..
a nice guy took me and moved me 8 km further. that was it, no more wind... incredible.

after that i realized that i have technical problems too. it seems that i have a crack in my fork.
just below the bolt that holds the rack that holds my front right bag.. it doesnt look too dangerous but i have to find a solution for this fast as it can get worse and have a broken fork..
i think i will try toreach split in two days and work out the problem there. or maybe here,tommorow. i dont know..

apart from all this zadar has something magical.
water organ.
i cant describe it actually but i will try, the bay has a system of tubes beneath it that as the sea moves it pushes the air in the tubes and they produce sound.

it sounds like the sea meditating.it makes everything , wind ,movement,sea ,colors, views combine into one thing.it all comes together. music...
so i am happy again. :)
it will all work out nicely, there is a reason for everything and me today here watching the sun set. i found the reason to be beaten by the rain and wind for two days. in this.. :)

peace and love to everybody.

Croatian coastline...

2007-11-15T01:02:00.000-08:00

ok.. in croatia now.. things have passed from one edge to the other..
first day, i entered from Slovenia to Croatia with beautiful weather, and everything was sweet.
i passed from the town of rijeka that was very nice.The views and everything was just spectacular..
so i kept on cycling happy and satisfied..
the road that follows the croatian coast was the only road traversing the coast a few years ago.now there is a highway.
Its a road that is by the sea most of the time but by no means can be considered to be flat. its a constant up and down with big altitude differences. also it is scenic, but it looks a lot like views from Greece. Rocks,sea and generally a hard landscape. beautiful .but not very unusual to me..
also as a tourist planet,the coast is a bit dead now. So no a lot of real villages on the way
,most are touristic resorts.
Of course the big cities are there but there is quite a distance between them.
So second day began like that.
Soft rain ,and soft headwind that in a short time turned into hard rain and hard wind.
cruel up and downs on the road. and nowhere to have a coffee...
i had to use the ferry to go to Pag island. there after riding for a while i
reached the city of Pag. i was already completely wet. soaked i would say. so i gave up for the day.
I had cycled for 4.30 hours and had only covered 50 km (normally lately i do 90-100) ....
i rented. a room and tried to get me dry..
so all in all i think that yesterday was the hardest day from the beginning of my trip.
today there is no rain. i am having a coffee right now. the wind is still here.
sometimes its even hard to walk.
i will try to do some distance today also and hope for the weather to get better....
i have to decide what will be the way i will follow next..
the coast?
should i go back inside of the balkans?
albania?
montenegro?
serbia?
jmmm
goal now is to reach Split and there i will think of all that.
so see you soon.

oh Thank you everybody for the support. its nice to read all of your comments. .
it gives me strength to go on. :)
ciao

landscapes

2007-11-15T00:41:00.000-08:00

flowing..

2007-11-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

ok.. so.. i had a great time a great time in Ljubljana with Masa and her family. (couchsurfing did it again.) .. yesterday was the day of tasting the new wines, so everybody that has a wine productioon makes celebracion with a lot of food and of course loads ofwine! its called st martins day if i am not mistaking the name of the saint.. jem jem.. i ate a lot and drunk a lot even though i was trying not to submit to all this drinking thing but Borris made me drink more and more.
at the end i saved my self hidding behind a full glass of wine.. :)
so next morning i set of to go to zagreb but,after spending 1 hour going around Ljubljana without
managing to find the correct road to zagreb, i met two cyclists that convinced me that it was much better to actually ride at the coast of croatia.... so, having heard that quite a few times, i changed my plans and now i am heading back to the coast. .
i dont know what i am going to do after that .. the thing is that this way i will not get the chance to see beograd and zagreb... anyway the plan is fluid so it will adjust. to the reality. jem?
well thats all for now.
sometimes i have guilts cause i am having such a good time but i will get over it fast :)
so see you soon with fresh news!

Ljubljana!

2007-11-10T03:51:00.000-08:00

hello people.! i am in Ljubljana after a quite difficult ride .

i had a big nail raping my back tire ,fixed it and kept on, then a big climb in the mountain with a lot of fog, and after that ice falling from the sky witch i actually prefer from rain cause it doesn´t make me wet. After all that . i had a very good wellcome in ljubljana! in an hour of wandering around i had 3 invitation from people to sleep at their house! perfect.

so now resting again, at the house of Masa. a girl from couchsurfing. everything very nice ! i am impressed by the hospitality .. what can i say. thank you.!

so photos and tommorow ill move on with direction Zagreb!

a dove andiamo...

2007-11-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

i am already in slovenia!
nova gorica.!
i hear that a lot of bears live at the mountain aaaand i will go to a hotel because i am not willing to take the chance.
brr imagine.. lying alone in the tent and suddenly lisening heavy,byt reealy heavy fotsteps around the tent.. nonono.
another time maybe.

until then watch this very nice and educating video.
nothing to do with the project though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2En3H10eRZc

some statistics

2007-11-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

ok.. so
i am in padova right now. 30 km from venezia.
soon the italian part of the trip will be over.
so here are some statistics.
total distance untill now 1650 km
days on the road 27
days of rest 9 (quite a lot jm?)
so
daily average distance : 1650/27= 61 km and a bit more.

well i dont know how much distance is left. the idea is to cross
slovenia,croatia,serbia,f.y.r.o.m.,and then drink alot of wine in Thesaloniki .
Depending on the day of my arrival in thesaloniki i might take the train to athens or not..
i dont know..
Everything is ok untill now. body,moral and everything in a good shape. its beggining to be
quite a bit colder every day. also, day is getting smaller and smaller so that means less hours available for cycling, but i will start to beggin a bit earlier. That is 30 minutes before sunrise or so..

thanks to the Couchsurfing.com site i am now in a students house in padova with some very nice and friendly and funny people. its nice to sleep in a house now and then..
so thats all for now . see you soon.

Bill the prioni

2007-11-06T03:43:00.000-08:00

Vasilis !
today we are going to split. as Bill the train is going to take the boat from Venezia to patras.! i will keep on goin to the way to slovenia. :)
it was nice to have company for the last 1,5 week, but now i will have to continue alone..
jem . anyway the most intresting part of the ride is about to beggin. i cant wait.!
so thanks for the nice company billy! see you in athens.

lalalala

2007-11-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

aaand this time only photos.

jeje

tommorow we'll be in Padova. everything cool :)

Moving on..

2007-11-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

ok..
So we are in Cremona Right now.. we have been moving quite fast the last days..
we decided to change the route we had in mind an visit the lake of Garda. west of Venezia..
the last days we are in open fields,flat surfaces. they are ok, a bit faster if there is no headwind
but are also boring a bit, a lot of humidity in the tent everynight ,we have to let our sleeping bags dry out in the sun later on each day.. in general though everything is going smooth, in 3 or 4 days we are going to be in Padova and then venezia. ! after that Trieste. and then the balkans..
so see you soon everybody. this time no photos . sorry :)

and some videos

2007-10-30T02:50:00.000-07:00

i will post one more another day :)

Aaah bella Italia!!

2007-10-30T02:14:00.000-07:00

Soo,

I am in Italy now... jemjem

thank you everybody for the wishes.. its nice to read nice things.. :)
Friend Vasilis has joined and will come together until Venice or Trieste.. its nice to be with

company on the road. we had to work out a litle bit our rythm and such and everything is cool.

So after i left Nice and the friends i made there (on the foto above) (very nice guys by the way) (always welcome in greece or wherever i am) (thanks guys) (ok better stop now with all these parenthesis). Where was i ? aha, after we left Nice me and vassilis passed from monte carlo and monaco , nothing super impressive and entered Italia. the smell of coffee left no

doubt that yes this was italy..

We climbed a high hill 1000 m alt. and then naturally we just came down. then followed the seaside road untill Genoa. they were two fast days,pedalling on low altitude.. the goat and us had a litle chat but that was on the mountain.. jmm well thats quite it untill now. Today its raining and we are going to leave genoa heading to Po river. we're going to follow the river until venice or so.

The two Waterproofs (thats us) are going to unleash the unstopable power of their pedals to the street of genoa and Up the mountain!! jajajaj .okok i got caried away.

so see you soon everybody and thanks a lot for the support .!!

hugs and kisses!

Eeep. Here we are again! Nice!

2007-10-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Well. some days now that i am away.. Internet is not always easy to find and also the first priority is to actually pedal. :) anyway here i am again!

All these days, were the days that i spent in the mountains in cot d azur.
* i passed from some magnificent places with breathtaking views . i climbed to 1200 meters, had contacts with wild boars, i saw a dolmen, slept in below zero temperatures. Drank water from sources in the mountain that actually tasted like real water.
it was like being in the forest of the village of asterix. too bad i am not obelix i would have eaten the boars instead of rice.. :)
Also had some very pleasant coincidences. :)

in general they were the best days until now..

In the way i met a very nice guy from Israel that invited me at his house in Nice.. and that's were i am now... I had to wait here a few days to meet with my friend Vasilis who's gonna join me for the part of Italy..

Friday ,that is tomorrow, we'll be back on the road with some hard passes coming , we have to climb the alps until we reach the Po river and head to vennezzia. anyway we're not gonna go higher than 1500m i guess. i bought a new and very warm sleeping bag so i should have no problem.. here are the photos!

to infinity and beyooond!

2007-10-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

aaaaaaaaaaand i m on the road again.!

lots of things.. i had a small talk with the donkey and the horse. an atack of millions of mosquitos thirsty for blood. snails trying to take over my tent in the morning plus a continious headwind for the 70 kilometers i did today aaand now i am in cavaillon. i rented a hotel room because i am exausted... so everything ok,moral is high.

if someone has any contacts in Nice, very wellcome to pass them on . :)

in 4 or 5 days i'll be there. hasta pronto!!!

montpellier.

2007-10-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

i am still in montpellier, taking care of some things. first i wanted to relax my knee,second, get rid some weight of the bike. i also had to fix a small problem on the bike, nothing serious.i went to french bike mechanic, Vegos style,he started hitting the bike with a hammer. ouch! anyway after that i fixed it myself.. Also changed a bit the saddle and the steering position. trying to find out the most comfortable setup.. i also had fun :)

my knee pain is getting much better and i am set to hit the road again tomorrow.
weather predictions say light rain. .no problem.

one more thing is that i decided to relax the schedule on daily distance. i am gonna take it reaaly easy from now on until i feel comfortable to push it again.
its important for me to actually do this, and in a hurry i am not enjoying anything...

I am staying at the house of Maria. a very nice girl.she accepted me even though beiing in the midle of an important report for her master..
i have met some of her friends.. such a nice people! greetings to giorgos and his helicopter!

so, all is nice.. vive tourisme!

a big kiss and hugs to all!! i ll update soon!

oh well...

2007-10-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday. i woke up and i am working on my thoughts.
everything is ok the only thing that troubles me is a pain i have on my left knee.
i know its from overuse. i guess i have to cut back the tempo on the next days
and maybe, make some small adjustments on my bike position.. I'll see..

about the last days: well, after Perpignan i continued, until i reached a nice seashore with a loong
Beach and pine tree forest behind. very nice! i slept under the trees with no moisture and good temperature. all this ride was nice and flat with most of it on cycle paths passing from Little villages. A very nice bio-shop owner gave me a free chocolate and some nice bio-anti-pain-ointments.. very cute!

Next day i passed from Narbonne and reached Bezzier. I slept in a field of grapes and woke up with the tent being completely wet from the moisture.
In the morning at first, i found a snail climbing on my bike.It was ready for the ultimate speed experience of his life but,sadly i left it behind :p Then, when i entered a small shop, i came out to find a black bird seating on my bike with his one foot placed over my banana. a real banana. is this a sign? maybe a message that i shouldn't leave bananas on the bike? hmm..

i left Bezzier and rode until Montpelier passing from a village called meze,in which i stopped to eat a meze :P i met two Little brothers that were very curious about everything ,they offered me water, fruits and a bit of salami, .. how nice.. A big kiss for them :)

And now ,Montpelier relaxing . more news soon to come!

2007-10-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! today was my 4Th real day on the road.
i have covered until now 360 km.
today i arrived at Montpellier! iam going to stay here one or two
days to relax. my body is in the proccess of addapting to this situation
and i have to give it the time it needs. a lot o things happened untill now!
Tommorrow i am going to post a report :P of the last days and upload
photos! :)

1st day's photos

2007-10-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

The first day on the bike began with rain . i had: police stopping me for entering the highway, one flat tire, i took the wrong road and i did 30 km come and go, just for the fun of it. all that with rain falling almost constantly. i have to admit that it was a testing experience. being a first day. i finished with a total of 98 km and slept with the rain and wind blowing on the tent.
brrr

anyway.

Today has began beautifully. Sun (i dried up) nice roads, nice Little villages and now perpignan.
more to come soon!!

I am Coommming....

2007-10-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

I have began. I am Writing from a Cyber-cafe in Perpignan in france , very close to the borders.

this is the second day on the bike.

the first day a friend named Christos drove me a little bit outside of Barcelona with a car.

i just got out close to figueres and slept next to the highway(hidden of course)
Am i cheating? Weeeno it was just 100 km. A kick start.anyway i have cycled so many times the surroundings of Barcelona that i didn't mind...

waiting for the stickers...

2007-10-09T01:13:00.000-07:00

Weell i am still in Barcelona ,waiting for the courier to bring me the stickers of amnesty international , .. i depart the moment i ll get them. Amnesty international?

Well yes i am doing this to have fun but not only that.
Its also a campaign, to raise awareness about the rights of the immigrants in Greece and all over Europe,which are being brutally violated every day by the European authorities.
Our silence is their accomplice...

I am going to be more than happy if my tour can help in any way...
Respect the rights of refuges and migrants is the moto.you can read more in the amnesty international web page.

.. Nothing more for now. in a few hours iam going to be on the road.. i hope to reach Greece before new years eve to celebrate with my family and friends.. we´ll see

Adios Barcelona.

2007-10-05T11:45:00.000-07:00