Oct 15, 2022
Stage 34 of 36, day 41 of 43: 115.8 km, 1121m climb, 4:45 Moving, 7:00 Total, 67.1 kph max
| Country | Distance | Climbing |
| Slovenia | 352.2 | 5149 |
| Italy | 29.3 | 346 |
| Croatia | 950.9 | 11,430 |
| Bosnia & Herzegovina | 211.0 | 1444 |
| Montenegro | 29.3 | 185 |
| Albania | 688.2 | 9749 |
| Greece | 791.2 | 12,935 |
| Total | 3052.1 | 41,238 |
I slept pretty well in the hotel in Tripoli until just before 7. We packed up and went down for breakfast. It was crowded and small, so I ate in a lounge instead. I had a nice call home with Katie, then we all went next door to the funny garage where our bikes and vans were stored. Marc and Ype both independently told me about the poster on a nearby store that I just had to see.
We started riding at 9am after Wilbert told us that the weather would get better through the day so there was no rush, we should stop early and often, etc. We started riding with a local Greek rider but he only went about 10 km with us. After a kilometer in town, we were out on a nice country road under thick grey clouds. It was cool, double jerseys with shorts and full gloves. The pavement felt good and fast, as did my bike and me. It’s amazing what a double rest day will do for you. I caught up to a bunch that had left before me and we stopped pretty soon for coffee. Sigi and I didn’t have anything but everyone else pounded coffee or espresso. As we watched the others cruise by we laughed about trying to be last.
The ride in the morning was easy and fun, more down than up, and had a beautiful descent that four of us cruised together at 60 to nearly 70 kph, smooth and free. Then we had a little climb, very scenic on deserted roads.
We rode along some more and came to the shoreline – it’s the Aegean Sea here, the Argolic Gulf.
We had a little food then continued but found lunch set up about 300m further along the shore. It was a beautiful spot with people coming by to walk down to the beach to photograph the flamingos. My photos don’t do them justice so are not included here. After a great lunch, we turned inland and cruised on. There was one climb, a bit over 300m, which we broke up by stopping to pick and eat some beautiful ripe figs.
We descended then took a short detour to a pretty amazing ancient (4-500BC) theater that is in good condition. It’s called the Theater of Epidaurus. Henk drove his van to the parking lot so he could watch our bikes while we all went in. After some ice cream, I went in with everyone and we marveled at the theater. Bob proposed a race to the top and I was sure the ultra-distance super runner (he’s run up to 100 mile events) would handily beat me, but my balance and fitness somehow allowed me the win.
The theater has amazing acoustics. We could hear someone talking from the center of the stage from the top even though it was windy! We checked out the museum and a few more of the archeological sites there, then remounted for the final 20 km to camp at the beach in Epidaurus. It was mostly downhill but had some squirrely winds, mostly the bad kind. We pulled in around 4pm to our second to last campsite of the trip.
Soon enough it was time for dinner and Caroline gave us another fantastic one. With two kinds of wine and yummy dessert and a nice marmot ceremony after. We hung out talking for a while but it never lasts too late as people are tired, definitely including me. I think that one of the best features of this campsite is that it’s about 10m from the sea side meaning that instead of dogs or chickens or bells or calls to prayer, we should only hear the beautiful wave noise tonight.
Nathan's Blog 