After an incredible month in Turkey, we had one last country we wanted to visit on the bikes: Greece! We had ridden through all of Greece’s northern neighbors over the past three months, but we were not able to cross the border until now due to our 90-day Schengen Visa limitation which states US citizens can only spend 90 days out of every 180 days in the Schengen countries. With our 180 days over, the crystal blue waters of Greece were calling to us.
We left the port city of Çanakkale and headed for the border of Greece. We had read some recent nightmare reviews of this particular border post, but thankfully it was another uneventful crossing and it only took about an hour to get through the lines.
Shortly after crossing the border, we had our first taste of Greek hospitality as a man on a scooter signaled for us to pull over on the highway simply so he could say hello and give us some advice on the best riding roads in Greece. This was the first of many pleasant encounters with locals as we found Greeks to be exceedingly friendly and welcoming.
We continued along the gorgeous coastal road and arrived in Kavala just as the sun was setting.
When most people visit Greece, they travel to the iconic southern islands with their cliff-side villages full of white-washed buildings and stunning architecture. While we would have loved to take a ferry to some of these islands, we unfortunately only had six days in Greece before we had to ride back to Bulgaria in preparation for our flight to the next leg of our adventure (more to come on that later). Thus, we decided to explore some of the lesser-visited regions of mainland Greece.
The following morning we continued along the winding coastal road, cutting inland frequently to travel up into the twisty mountain roads. Aside from visiting the less touristy mainland region of Greece, another perk of our plans was that we were there at the very end of October and the roads were practically empty. This made for some insanely fun and memorable riding. I lost count of the number of times we both said “we are definitely coming back to Greece,” but I think it is safe to say it will be one of the first places we return in the future.
After a full day of riding, we ended in Nikiti, a town on the Sithonia peninsula, which is one of the three finger-like peninsulas of Halkidiki, Greece. After checking into our hotel, we walked down to the water to grab dinner and drinks. Little did we know we were in for a show. It turned out that most of the restaurants were closing for the season and we happened upon the last night celebrations of one particular restaurant. The celebrations were complete with a belly dancer, fire twirling, and drunken waiters who were clearly happy to be finishing the season. We had some good laughs and enjoyed the sunset on the water as we watched the excitement unfold.
The next day we took the bikes on the gorgeous ring road around the peninsula. Once again, it felt like we were riding through ghost towns as we had the streets to ourselves.
As the afternoon heat set in, we decided to cool off in the waters of Fava Beach. We had an entire cove all to ourselves as we floated in the picturesque emerald and turquoise waters. We both agree that this was by far our favorite beach of the entire trip.
After a relaxing few hours, we begrudgingly pulled ourselves from our beach chairs and went in search of some lunch. This proved more difficult than expected as all of the restaurants appeared to be closed for the season. Luckily, we happened upon a friendly restaurant owner who agreed to make us some souvlaki sandwiches in her closed kitchen. With our stomachs full, we headed back out on the road and made a 100-kilometer loop in the mountains north of Sithonia. We were too busy enjoying the ride to take any photos, but we made it back to Nikiti just in time to watch another gorgeous sunset over the water.
While we could have easily spent the rest of our time exploring the beaches of Halkidiki, we had another objective in mind - one that would help prepare us for our upcoming travel plans which involved 11 days of trekking in Nepal. Given that we had been pretty sedentary on the bikes recently, we decided we would try and hike to the top of Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in Greece, to get back into hiking shape.
The next morning we left Nikiti and headed west to Litochoro, a small mountain town near the base of Mount Olympus. On our way there we passed through Thessaloniki and found an awesome shop that was able to source Brian a second-hand side mirror to replace the one that broke during his slide in Turkey and a stock front sprocket nut to replace the makeshift one that was fabricated in Selçuk.
While riding through town, a local in a car at a stoplight started chatting with us and offered to buy us a drink (yet another example of just how friendly Greeks are), but sadly we did not have time. With the European end of Daylight Savings Time a few days prior, we were racing the sunset. We continued the rest of the way to Litochoro and dropped our bags off at our homestay before embarking on a two-hour loop ride around Mount Olympus. This ride was hands down our favorite riding road in Greece. We admired the stunning views of Mount Olympus National Park as we sped along the perfectly twisty and empty mountain roads.
The following morning we awoke before the sun to get ready for the hike. Most people who climb Mount Olympus do so over two days, stopping for a night at one of the mountain refuges partway up to the summit. We, however, did not have enough time to do the hike over two days and the refuge was already closed for the season. Thus, we had a big day ahead of us.
To make the hike slightly more manageable in one day, we rode the motorcycles to the Prionia trailhead, skipping a section that traverses through a gorge from Litochoro. As we trudged up the misty trail in the early morning light, we had no idea how far we would actually make it.
The scenery slowly transitioned from an autumn forest to expansive rocky alpine terrain as we made our way up the arduous slope.
We arrived at Skala, the second-highest peak on Mount Olympus, around noon. We spent some time taking in the astonishing surrounding mountain views and chatting with a fellow hiker. We were feeling rather accomplished since getting to Skala was our initial objective for the day, however, after seeing the jagged true summit of Mystikas peak from Skala, we couldn’t help but continue on.
Getting to the summit of Mystikas required navigating through a class 3 near-vertical rock scramble for about an hour. We decided to leave one of our backpacks and most of our weight behind on the top of Skala in order to be as nimble as possible. It was a fun and challenging climb as we used our hands and feet to scale to the top.
The views from the summit were epic and we had managed to climb over 6,500 ft of elevation (up to 9,573 ft) to get there. After some celebratory photos as the last people crazy enough to summit so late in the day, we quickly turned around and began the long descent back down the mountain.
We had come prepared with our headlamps, knowing we would likely end up hiking down in the dark, but it was definitely an eerie feeling being the only ones on the trail as we navigated each step by the small glow of our headlamps for the last hour and a half.
12 hours, 6,500 ft of elevation gain and descent, and over 12 miles later, we had successfully climbed Mount Olympus! Exhausted, we rode the 30 minutes back to town, picked up some takeout, and called it a night.
After a good night’s rest, we rode back along the highway to Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, is bustling with shops that were perfect for the last-minute shopping we needed to do before storing the bikes in Bulgaria and flying to Nepal. We spent the next six hours running around town, acquiring various items including two large suitcases we could use to fly all of our motorcycle gear and other belongings to our next destinations.
We really liked Thessaloniki and wish we could have spent more time there, but the next morning we packed our bikes with our ridiculous-looking rolling suitcases and headed for the border of Bulgaria.
We took a long, six-hour stretch of highway across the border back to Motocamp Bulgaria. We spent the following two days packing, prepping the bikes for storage, chatting with some other riders, and trying to mentally process the end of our European adventure. Brian opted to make things a bit more exciting by accidentally putting his passport in the washing machine the day before we left for the airport, but thankfully we were able to salvage it with the help of an entire roll of toilet paper sheets, a fan, and a weighted door stopper.
And just like that, our European adventure had come to an end. Luckily, however, this wasn’t the last stop on our itinerary. We said goodbye to our bikes and our friends at the motocamp and headed to Sofia to board our flight to Nepal!
Cheers,
Brian and Erin
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