Day 32 - A dog of a day

 Kastoria To Grevena

52 miles and 5 hours 32 mins in the saddle

A tricky one!

We had an excellent stay at the Hotel Nostos, Maniaki, near to Kastoria. Looked after brilliantly by Daniella (thank you so much), we found ourselves in a car - that’s a novelty- as a taxi took us to the local medical centre. Everyone there was so lovely, we were seen immediately and they cleaned and dressed HOO’s wound, gave him antibiotics and a tetanus jab and we were back at the hotel by 11 only €25 poorer! Not including the taxi cost! What a service. Daniella had looked after our bikes and bags and waved us off and we were on our way. A huge thank you to all the staff who helped us at the Medical Centre in Argos Orestiko, we were so impressed with your care and professionalism.

Unfortunately it was cold today and wet. We tried to keep our spirits up but we got cold, cycling was dull and then became uncertain as we encountered a number of incidents with the stray dog brigade. We used our shout and scream approach and pedal as fast as you can, but although it worked for us today, we are not sure this is the best way forward as at some point we are not going to be able to out pedal them. We are now researching guide lines and talking to locals and will have a different plan tomorrow but cannot keep cycling dreading what we are going to face around each corner, so something must be done. We are sure a good nights sleep and better weather forecast for tomorrow will help and we only have 6 days to go - but safety is always paramount so we shall see.

There have been some blessings today- our experiences first thing were uplifting, the roads are very much quieter than we have had for some time and the autumn colours are beautiful, a pit stop in a garage in the middle of nowhere, where the owner gave us coffee even though we didn’t have enough Euros to pay for it (and had two lovely big old dogs) and I had a live chat with Year 4 on the side of the road in Greece - how clever is that! It was so lovely to see all those happy, smily faces. Huge love to everyone at Churchers - can’t wait to be back with you after half term.

So restorative sleep here for us and back on the horse tomorrow so to speak.

With much love P and J XX.

Who said what! (Tricky one!)

This is a hateful day!

I just want to get there! 

Even the photos are dismal I’m afraid!

Empty roads at last

There are some friendly ones