Greetings from Greece

Trip Start Apr 08, 2006
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Trip End Oct 07, 2006


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Monday, July 3, 2006

Mark The bike is still going! Unfortunately my mind is convinced that the bike won¡¦t make it back to Australia now¡K somewhat justified in that it only took three days to break down in Switzerland!!! Anyhow¡K for the moment it is going well as long as I can keep on ignoring (a) the clunking of valves at idling¡K I¡¦m sure they¡¦re getting louder every day f¼ (b) the oil leak around the left hand cylinder¡K I¡¦m sure it¡¦s getting worse every day f¼ - the right cylinder isn¡¦t leaking at all fº and (c) the oil leak out of my oil plug which has now been fixed by a very nice Greek mechanic with a tube of O-Seal (unfortunately I can¡¦t open the oil plug anymore to put oil in the bike to fix (a) and(b))
But to put it all in perspective we have now covered almost 5000km, 1/5th of the way home!

Greece has been fantastic. The people very friendly and the days hot +35 degrees and clear. The highlights of Greece are stones in paddocks that are the remains of cities from apparently 100¡¦s of years ago. You know them all, Olympia, the Akropolis, and Delfi. We even went to see Prehistoric Tombs¡K a short side trip of 10km by bike, 1 km by foot (past a tortoise), to behold a fenced of paddock full of stones and grass. At least there was no entrance fee. Meteora was probably the highlight. Ancient Monasteries (which have all been rebuilt now) on top of pinnacles of rock¡K awesome vistas whichever way you look¡K Athens would have been a close second¡K some pretty amazing rocks in some pretty amazing paddocks. (Of course Dad won¡¦t agree because of our fabulous campsite by the major 24 hour freeway into and out of Athens!... 3 nights of no sleep for him!...)

Driving in Greece has been as mind boggling as in Italy. Plenty of oncoming cars overtaking in your lane and it¡¦s pretty much the way things are done here. A normal two lane road is three lanes, where that little white line in the middle is the overtaking lane¡K regardless of what is coming towards you. Needless to say we keep as far right as possible!!! Of course finding our way around Greece has been an ever constant struggle, especially in the cities¡K with signs in Greek and sometimes in English. (At least they don¡¦t put the names of 10 places on one sign as in Italy so that by the time you get to the 10th place (your destination) you¡¦re already past the turn!). Still, people are very helpful¡K after our lunch stop yesterday for some Pita Gyros (yummy greasy kebabs in Pita Bread) our friendly Pita Gyros Greek Man hopped on his scooter and escorted us out of town! All the time talking Greek to us¡K does make the day a good one!
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