Bulgaria Istanbul Turkey Visas

Posted by: Andrew

As US citizens, we are allowed 90 days in the Schengen Territories (most of what is considered Europe). Normally that is enough time to do what needs be done for travelers — but when on a bicycle, 90 days proves barely enough. Around Florence, Italy, Devin did some math and we had a meeting. We weren’t going to make it out in time at the rate we were traveling with the plans we had.

So, in the last few days FBR has split into its couples once again, this time Devin and Tori to Istanbul, Lindsey and Peter to Bulgaria, and Andrew and Kallie to the coast of Turkey by ferry. Perhaps we should assign letters of our acronym FBR to each couple… we’ll be couple “R”.

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Italy Video

Posted by: Kallie

faith Greece prayer shepherds

Posted by: Andrew

“he had no beauty or majesty that we should be attracted to him…” -Isaiah 53:2

Biking through northern Greece we don’t see many people–mostly shepherds and their flocks. Actually, we keep a wary eye out for sheep dogs, as they can be a bit aggressive to bikers on the road. Often the shepherd is there, however, and is able to call the dogs back if necessary. It’s the shepherd that strikes me.

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camping Italy

Posted by: Andrew

At 4 a.m. I grew restless in my sleeping bag. Maybe it was my air mattress deflating to the point of my regular nightly re-inflation. Maybe it was the hot chocolate, wine, and water that attended dinner, finally finding their way through my system. More than likely it was a combination of both, and maybe some unknown night bird’s call at the critical moment that brought me out of the warm fog of sleep into awareness of the night.

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arrival bicycle cycle tour schedule France hospitality hosting Nice people showers

Posted by: Tori

In the aftermath of the accident, I realized the pain that remained was in my upper leg, and my pride. In spite of the injury, Devin and I cycled 60 km the next morning to the town of Antiebs where a possible host and the promise of rest and recuperation lived. After a beautiful yet painful ride along the rocky coastal roads, we arrived in Antieb to find not our host Manford, but instead his temporary roommate named Juliana- and adorable student from Columbia. She was kind, laid back, a bit bubbly and the apartment was comfy and calm- just what I needed to shake the pounding headache and rest my leg in peace.

Shortly after settling in she told us she was having a couple friends over to make pizza, and invited us to join- a low key night with pizza, perfect! By midnight fourteen of her friends had arrived, each bringing a bottle of wine or liquor and an endless supply of beer. They were all  students around our age and came from all over the world to earn a European Maters in Renewable Energy.  Every person there was awesome, friendly, talkative, and knew English well enough to be our best friend by the end of the evening. Music blasted while custom pizzas flew in and out of the oven- some with eggs on top and even “Mr.Pizza” were created and devoured. Great conversation, music swapping and even dancing pushed until the early hours of morning, and then it all ended with a bang- literally.

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bicycle Cycling France French Rivera ouch touring Traffic travel water

Posted by: Tori

When I think back to my travels in the French Rivera I see palm trees, sunny beaches, beautiful salt water waves, and that one curb that ruined it all. It has now been a month since I flew off of my bike onto the pavement below and slowed my pace to a record low- stationary. A minor concussion, scrapes and bruises have since healed, but a tear to a small muscle in my leg has made me switch gears and paths for this trip.

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? It’s a long story but worth sharing I think, and mostly true…

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Greece

Posted by: Andrew

Well, after nearly 3 weeks of separation, all six of us managed to show up at the same time and the same place: Thessaloniki, Greece. Devin and Tori have already been here two weeks, and have some good stories about home stays and people they’ve met. Kallie and I took the motorway in from the coast 70km out–a recommendation of travellingtwo.com–and we arrived in roughly 3 hours, cruising at 25-30 kph.* Peter and Lindsey opted to pick their way through smaller roads, but since the maps we have aren’t completely reliable, they ended up coming in at 105 km for the day and arriving five hours later than we did. But we made it, and celebrated with pizza and gyros! We are staying with Gael, a friend we met on the road back in 2008 in Cambodia, who was doing his own world tour (common-life.org). Now he’s offering us hospitality in his studio flat, and we are seven. Lindsey’s friend Priya joined us from England for a week, so we are planning to celebrate an early Thanksgiving today and enjoy our collectiveness until tomorrow night, when Kal and I catch a ferry to Turkey to continue our journey with hopes of meeting up in Istanbul Dec. 1. Devin and Tori plan to bus it to Istanbul, as Tori is still not bike-ready (traveling can make for poor convalescence). Lindsey and Peter, as of now, are still planning to bike to Istanbul from Thess., but as always, nothing is final. Stay tuned…!!! *When we entered the city, we found our way to the coastal walking area and rolled along, noticing a Starbucks. Kallie immediately grew fairly excited about the prospect of her favorite holiday drink from Starbucks, and made some sort of vow to come back and procure one. About 500 meters farther down we saw another one, and then we saw a blonde sitting outside next to a bearded fellow and it was… “Devin and Tori?!!” We caught up then and there with a Starbucks holiday drink.

people

Posted by: Kallie

Surprisingly enough, we haven’t ran into that many other bicycle tourists. In Germany, we saw hundreds of people out for a weekend ride, but it wasn’t until Pisa where we met our first long-distance biker. We pulled up next to him and noticed his freshly-laundered socks strapped on his luggage to dry. We complimented his system (we usually have a couple pairs of underwear flapping in the wind as we bike). Keegan is from California and was biking and wwoofing throughout Europe (“wwoofing” is volunteering on organic farms). He was on his way to a farm, so we unfortunately didn’t get the chance to bike with Keegan.

The next cyclist we met while sitting down eating pitas in Metsovo, Greece. We flagged Wouter down and instantly liked him. He just graduated with a Masters degree in engineering and was celebrating by taking a one year bike trip from Switzerland to China. We biked with Wouter for a few days and were sad when the day came that we had to part ways.

We stayed in Meteora for a few days to hike around the famous monasteries. While we were there we met two couples set out to travel the world. The first couple were Americans. Ashley was a recent graduate of Vanderbilt and had received a 14-month travel fellowship. She and her husband (also newlyweds) are documenting people and their stories via photo and video. Their work is beautiful, so make sure you check out their site: http://www.tell-well.com

Last but not least, we ran into Christian on his bicycle and stopped to say hello to a fellow biker. We learned that he and his wife, Anja, quit their jobs, sold their car, left their house and children (now grown) in pursuit of their dream to travel the world. They hope to take two years to travel the silk road east to China. We met up for drinks, swapped travel stories and found comfort sharing similar beliefs and reasons for traveling. Christian and Anja have a great philosophy and are great people. http://www.nordseehnsucht.de/

Today we arrived in Thessaloniki. We are being hosted by Gael, a Frenchman who cycled around the world from 2006-2009 with Elena. He and Elena were working for Unesco, photographing all of the world heritage sites. Elena is now working on a project in Siberia for national geographic. http://www.common-life.org

camping Greece

Posted by: Andrew

Our last two campsites have been in full view of Mt. Olympus. It has been clear and cold, with a slight breeze to keep down the frost, and the mountain has snow on its cap. Each of us has been digging deep to find all the warm clothes we are finally glad we brought, and the fires have been a bit bigger than usual (especially since the night a Greek farm woman showed us how it was done).

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camping Greece home stays hospitality Italy

Posted by: Andrew

We are always looking for a place to stay. Whether it be a place to camp, a hostel or hotel, a home stay set up on warmshowers.org or couchsurfing.com, or a spontaneous invitation, we are daily in need of a place. So far on the trip we have had all of these, but we were not always welcome.

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