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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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 people

Posted by: Andrew

After a couple days in Igoumenitsa, we were primed and ready to enter Greece… and it happened to be Halloween.

We found a LiDL grocery store (one of our favorites–like ALDI) that accepted credit cards, so we decided to stock up on groceries and Kallie and I decided to buy $15 worth of candy for our very own FBR Halloween celebration. We did this on the sly, and then hid some among Peter and Lindsey’s gear for a surprise. They were thrilled when they found it, and we were surprised when we found out Lindsey had also purchased $15 worth of candy just because they accepted credit cards. We had also heard rumors that the sheep dogs in Greece were somewhat aggressive, so we each picked up a “dog stick” in case any got too close for comfort. Peter’s was an intimidating yet mostly harmless dried thistle stock…

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