Awake early, I had to wait for the bakery to open before I. Could head off. My plan was to go as far as I could manage along the opposite shore, first crossing the amazing suspension bridge.
This iconic, graceful span is the world's longest cable-stayed suspension bridge, 2880m long and 90 feet wide. It reminds me of those designs we made as children, a curve created by arranging dozens of straight lines at regular intervals and various angles between the arms of a right angle. I always loved the way straight lines indisputably between them formed a curve. This bridge sketches such curves against the sky.
At the hotel they recommended I join the bridge by climbing some steps, and after a couple of false starts this proves good advice. The wind is still frighteningly fierce and I am quite nervous as I start the crossing. At the foot of each tower, to give access for maintenance, the path is replaced with a steel grating, placed level with the surrounding road surface. There is no way I will cycle over these slits opening on the sea so far below. There is not enough room to wheel the bike on the small remaining path of tarmac. So I walk over the horrid grid, telling myself a grid is probably less liable to catastrophic failure than any single piece of metal or glass could be. I still hate walking on it. But then I have been known to lie down in the floor of a glass lift, so overwhelming is my fear of heights. So, cycling an extra 100km or so just to cycle over this bridge suddenly seems a really daft idea. To be fair, despite the strong gale that twice shifts me laterally across the cycle path, there is no sensation of movement of the bridge, and I cross easily enough, dismounting for each grid.
At the abrupt end of the cycle path I am surprised to find that I am expected to carry my laden bike down 55 metal steps (each one a grid). It annoys me that someone deliberately designed this: what were they thinking?
From this point on the ride becomes pretty grim. Although it's pleasantly lumpy like yesterday's coastline, the traffic and its noise are unending. I am running parallel with the motorway but of course it is a toll road and so lots of traffic is on my road. I have seen the same in Italy, a new motorway empty while trucks batter the surface of local roads made by pouring tar over uneven cobbles.
It's a good argument against tolls!
The villages come and go, a new name being posted as soon as I pass the sign saying the last village is gone. GK Chesterton writes of a London bus journey being passing through thirteen separate vulgar cities all just touching one another. This feels the same, although my spirits are lifted by occasional views over a vivid dark sea. On and on through dust and smelly, noisy streets. My legs feel strong but after 50k my head is hurting and I feel bewildered and exhausted by the relentless noise. The road is narrow, too, so I have to pay attention constantly to my position and the overtaking vehicles, sometimes only inches from my knee.
On a whim and with little hope I head left down into one village to see whether the famous track and pinion railway is running. I arrive 40 minutes before it's due to depart for the mountains, Serendipity is such that I feel I have to take this trip. I cool down with a freshly-squeezed orange juice in a cafe with free wifi that lets me chat to Martin. Perfect!
The ride up 800m to Kalavritsa is stunning, as we follow the narrow river gorge. At times the train seems to hang over the river, suspended on nothing... The squashed and tortured rocks visible as we pass recall the titanic forces that shaped this mountain so long ago.
I add warmer clothes as we climb, and an glad of it at the top. I am sorry to be too late to visit the museum in memory of Nazi brutality here, the families herded into the school house to be burned, and every male over 14 shot. Greeks speaking of this town mutter that now Germany wants to run Europe again: this gives me a different way of thinking about the anti- German feeling that abounds here. Maybe fiscal hegemony is the new means of invasion: but however grim, it is no massacre. The protested austerity seems necessary to me, and no invasion plan.
A walk around town for provisions and then the usual early night, sweetened by delicious honey morsels from the nearby bakery. It was a great idea to head for the hills and escape the relentless drone of traffic. Here the silence is broken only by barking dogs and the church bells.
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