(written by Nancy)

So, regular readers will know by now that we are having trouble with our internet connection and have been unable to post in the last several days.  All a bit of a farce – despite all of the time spent trying to get our original sim with Cosmote set up correctly it conveniently shut off internet access after 1 day.  It’s almost impossible to figure out what to do unless you can find an open shop and as it was Sunday yesterday we had no luck finding any help.

We left the campground this morning about 8:30 and headed into the next village to get some breakfast (hate to pass up all those bakeries, you know).  It seems to be a two-step process, as most bakeries don’t seem to sell coffee so I picked out the breakfast items (two ham & cheese rolls) while Dave ran across the road to get two coffees.

As we left town after breakfast we rode past a Vodafone shop that was open.  The sim that the nice woman at Starbucks gave us was a Vodafone sim so we pulled over to see if maybe we could just switch to that sim and get some help working it out.  The gal in the Vodafone shop was a little confused as to why we were switching but she did help us get it worked out.  More money paid over to hopefully get web access.  Hmm, remember when we rode across the US with only a camera, sending postcards back home along the way…

We were on the coast road the whole day today, and for much of it we were right next to the water.  Lots of nice scenery so Dave stopped many times for pictures.  We weren’t in too much of a hurry though and it was nice and warm in the sun so that was fine.  We stopped for morning tea at a little village right on the water.  We repeated the breakfast action and ended up with two cups of coffee and some great pastries sitting on a bench right beside the water.  We watched groups of Greek ladies wandering by, chattering at each other – funny as they barely made it a few steps before stopping again to have another animated discussion.

We rode back out into the sunshine, continuing through lots of small little villages.  Our aim was to get somewhere around the city of Korinthos so that we could make it into Athens tomorrow.  Dave’s map showed two campgrounds near Korinthos but we had no idea if they would be open.  It looked like it was a big enough town though so if there were no open campgrounds we could at least find a hotel.

We stopped for lunch in a town called Assos (unfortunately not the birthplace of the great Swiss riding gear).  We tried to go into one shop that we thought was a restaurant but they did not serve food – only lots of men sitting around drinking.  One old man sitting outside pointed me to a place across the street and said we could get food there (at least that’s what I think he was saying).  Dave got the same message inside, so we headed over there – really we could not go anywhere else with all the old Greek men sitting there pointing us across the street.

The lunch spot turned out to be quiet a hoot.  No menu, but fortunately the woman who came to take our order spoke English and described a few things we could have (I think they only had two choices).  We declined the fried fish but decided on the bean soup (see Mom, eating our vegetables).  Out came two very big bowls of very delicious soup and some nice chunks of bread for dipping.  Actually the flavor reminded me a lot of the old Campbell’s bean with bacon soup that I used to love.  It was all very nice and I think we provided an amusing distraction for all of the old men sitting in the restaurant.  It was quite funny though, as right near the door in the restaurant there was a no smoking sign but many of the old guys sat smoking away, with no comment from the proprietor (and the table he sat at had a pack of cigarettes sitting on it).

It wasn’t too long after lunch that we came upon a sign for the first campground that we had read about.  We followed the signs down to the campground and the gate was open – always a good sign.  We found one of the owners, who said that while they were not ‘officially’ open we could stay.  It also sounded like there might be some other cyclists expected, as the owner had gotten a call from some cyclists asking if they were open.

We set up the tent quickly and Dave rode back into the village to get some supplies for dinner.  We have a nice spot again, right on the water.  Showers and a load of laundry later we tried to tether the phone again to the computer and, you guessed it, it would not work.  Many calls to Vodafone later, Dave seems to have it working.  Not sure that technology is a good thing some days….  But perhaps this time we will be lucky and it will actually work for more than a day.

Time to go make snags for dinner – this place even has kind of a camp kitchen so we don’t have to drag the stove out.  The other cyclists have not shown up and it is late enough now I don’t think they will.  So it should be a very quiet night tonight as we are the only ones here.  Tomorrow we are aiming for somewhere in Athens or nearby Piraeus, where the ferry port is.  We think it is around 80k or so, though we may be able to do a bit of island hopping to get us right into Piraeus and save some time.  Not sure yet how long we will be in Athens as we first need to check the ferry schedules to get us to Turkey, but hopefully will have at least a day or two to see some of the sites.

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