I hope the bikes have been able to sleep with all the noise. They’ve got a busy day ahead. I head out early looking for the white stuff again but everywhere is closed. Perhaps they were all out last night.
Getting out of Tirana is a lot easier than getting in thank God and after randomly stopping at the same fuel station I did in 2018 we’re out the city and headed for the coast road. After a couple of hours its time to grace a random cafe with our presence so I just touch the breaks at the first awning I see and in we go.
Its very busy .. and its full of nanas .. surely a good sign
I go inside and start chatting up the nanas, I reckon I’m reaching that time of life. They’re all really friendly and jibber jabbering away, smiling and giggling. I ask the oldest, and prettiest lady to sign my helmet. She doesn’t even hesitate.
Then she starts touching my hands and my forehead and sort of chanting some sing song words to me. She lets out a massive smile and holds my face in both her hands. I’m obviously looking a bit confused because a young woman comes over from the bar and tells me that the old lady has just blessed me! I don’t think I’ve ever been blessed before.. amazing. I give her smooth warm face a kiss and we’re off. I just nip to the toilet to check .. nope .. the blessing didn’t reach that far .. never mind ..
Get to the coast road and swim south on the most glorious, sinuous and spectacular part of the journey so far. Forget the Croatia coast road, it’s a lot lot better down here.
And just to add a bit of fun, we hit the squiggles I remember sitting in the dark at home and zooming in on Google Maps
Get to to the outskirts of Sarende and stop for some fuel. Albania is generally pretty poor so I assume the 4 Lambos and 3 Ferraris that pull in behind us are the local bad lads turning their drugs and people smuggling into rubber and fuel. The cars look like they’ve been driven through Twats’R’Us and are covered in stickers and shiny tasteless wraps. The blokes driving look like they have to shave their eyelids, all small and hairy and wiry, like Wooki-etts. Keep you distance and just go. Thats a whole different world I want nothing to do with.
Get to the hotel which is on a road front near the beach. I asked to use the parking, and I booked this place weeks ago. It seems though that the boss has decided to bump us in favour of some Serbian bikers arriving later this evening. I’m not happy but things like this are bound to happen and there really is fuck all you can do. Thats why a few of us bought locks and chains. Tie the horses up outside and hope they’re there in the morning
It’s not at all bad here. These places are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m happy to spend a few hours wandering about and relaxing in the sunshine.
If ever I’m reincarnated, I don’t want to come back as a foot. Feet get a really bad deal, especially mine. Locked in an airless dark hot and sweaty place for hours on end. I like to treat them when I can.. and I can today.. so I take them for a delicious lukewarm salt bath.
The road from Sarende climbs and twists and snakes up and over the mountains and pretty soon we’re at the border with Greece.
A quick thump from the stamp and we’re in. I’ve not been to northern Greece before and before I came I looked at the maps for some interesting roads. It looks like the cartographer either had Parkinsons or was pissed out their head.. and thats the way it turns out to be. The GPS committee sat for some time yesterday and agreed a route that seems to contain no straight longer than 100m. I just remember the day as being like one long speed wobble the bars never ever being still even for a moment. Take a look at the relive and you’ll see.
We’re in Kastraki tonight and approaching it really reminds me of Close Encounters of the third Kind. Solid mountains of rock just standing clear of the ground with lots of monasteries perched on top. It feels more like the USA than Greece. Anyway, I take the Richard Drafus suite and start practicing the tune on my travel keyboard just in case .. now how does it go again ..
Everyone is worried about their head bearing the next day due to their overactivity in the mountains yesterday, plus we’ve got a way to go today. We’ll all just take the quick and easy route down to Pireas and give our concentration batteries a chance to recharge. Give them a day off and just cruise down in the heat.
But first a quick scoot up to the top of the mountain for some tourist spotting.. and try to get another language on my helmet
Now.. I explained the rules to this lady. I told her.. girls only.. real girls.. none with penises .. no ‘Mike identifying as Mable’ .. but she still broke them and put both her AND her boyfriends name on my helmet.. this is the last picture ever taken of her .. she was warned :). And I couldn’t get the name off the helmet so he had to go and get a sex change that afternoon. Be warned. Those are the rules.. no exceptions!
Stop for the first time in Greece for Coffee and cake and fuel. Someone has made a mistake on the pumps though. I’m sure its just a slip of a finger .. but it appears these pumps are suppling molten gold rather than petrol. Fuck its expensive. And they double fuck you by disabling the cutout and letting you pour £100’s worth all over the forecourt too.
Time for drugs I think ..
Easy riding all the way down to Athens and then into the melee of any big capital city. Athens looks odd from the motorway though, all very low rise and sprawling. Not as I expected at all. Pireas is south of the city and its the only place I could find with parking in the whole of the city. It’s one of those underground car parks that looks like it was built by Swampy and his mate after the hotel was built above. It also goes down about 4 stories into the dark until you can feel the heat of the earth’s core. I absolutely hate these places. You just know the builders never got the proper plans out the envelope. They just dug a big hole and got their mate to prop it all up with columns of feta cheese. They all just feel like an accident waiting to happen. Good job I travel light. I grab my little bag and swim to the surface as quick as I can.
Take a wander down to the harbour to watch the world go by before the sun goes to bed. The Greeks sure love their boats.
We’re having a day off. Time to go and see some culture. And to get a shave. I never shave myself when I’m away. I like to take my life in my hands and get some random bloke to hold a blade to my throat just to feel alive. The older I get the harder it gets to get a kick out of anything. Kick me.. nope. kick me HARD… HARDER!!! Nope .. maybe there is something wrong with me.. I dunno. I live two lives and I step from one to the other when I go away on the bike.. then step back from sauntering down an alley in Bratislava in the dark .. to laying on the couch watching Eastenders .. and there is nothing in between. My wife just says hello like I’ve come back from the supermarket and its situation normal within 2 minutes. Anyway.. where was I. I like being wet shaved. Maybe its the fear that this barber will be a descendant of Sweeny Todd and my life will end in spurt of my jugular and a demonic smile from a barbaric barber.
Someone tells me there is a barista that has been perfectly pored into a pair of tight jeans just down the street so I go for what could be my last coffee .. its all part of the illusion ..
I’m in Greece so I’m expecting a Greek barber, but it proves unexpectedly difficult to find one willing. In the end the only one willing is an Iranian immigrant who proceeds to give me at least a dozen near death experiences as he skids and bumps the blade across my throat with all the subtlety of someone pealing an apple. He then proceeds to pour what feels like battery acid into every open cut and gives it all a vigorous rub to really make sure each and every nerve ending joins the fun. Fuck I’m sore, and as I walk back I feel little streams of pain as the sweat adds salt to the wounds.
And this bloke didn’t help by laughing at me
Mind you .. look a the bike he was riding ..
Maybe he had converted it to electric judging by the spare battery .. take a bit of a wander round the streets to give the camera a bit of exercise
I really dont feel like opening all my pores and liquidating 50% of my bodyweight today but its got to be done. Take the train into the city and wander up to the Acropolis. They’ve got the builders back in it seems. Why didn’t they build it properly in the first place? Its heaving and its hot and if I really want to see ancient ruins I just have to look at the two blokes I’ve walked here with 
On the way back Brian takes me to a taverna and fills me with 20 pints of ouzo in order to kidnap me and accompany him into the depths of Modor to check his tyre pressures
You can tell there is a problem when he presses the gauge to the valve and there is just a weedy little fart .. he has some of those shit cheap Japanese tubeless tyre conversions and they’ve obviously committed Hari-kari. Buggery fuck wombles..