The route out of Sounion towards Athens is beautiful, the self proclaimed Greek Riviera. And very much like the French Riviera it is spoilt by a fair few crap buildings and in Greece some pretty horrendous graffiti. But most of all there are the road both ways is full of cars, motorbikes, mopeds, lorries with their operators all thinking they are racing drivers.
But when designing the route Lake Vouliagmeni seemed to be recommended. And I can wholeheartedly endorse that recommendation.
The receptionist were fantastic they allowed me to lock my bike away in a cupboard so I felt relaxed. The €15 is for the whole day. You can use any free chair and just sit away from the hubbub outside. The waters are therapeutic and at 29⁰ and there are benches to sit on and gave your feet chewed at. There’s about 20mins where they swarm around you feet, obviously at this point I didn’t have my phone. I loitered for about an hour which was long enough for me you could easily wile a good few hours if you were with friends.
After this relaxing time I only had 20kms to get to the campsite. Unfortunately when I arrived it was nonexistent and had not been there for a bit. This threw my plans totally out of wack. There is a campsite near Central Athens but I really didn’t want to go there, so I decided to return to the Neo Makri campsite I had stayed at a few nights before. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the fires are getting worse and its best I return to Skyros.
The 1st ferry I needed to take was sort of towards the fires. Luckily I received a text saying there would be an early ferry at 7.30.
At 6am as I left the campsite site, still dark expecting to see the glow of flames from the fires on the mountains to the north. Hopefully the firefighters have subdued them a bit in the night. But it did feel counterintuitive to cycle towards where the fire is. But turning a bit west there was blue sky. I caught the boat.
A Couple of Days Ride Outta....... 