6/15 - day 6

Day 6: Elafonisos Island

Yet another European breakfast. Sigh.

Here's the view from the parking lot as we were getting ready to ride. It is a little hard to see, but the land across the water is where we were the previous few days.

Today was our last day of riding. We were warned that there would be more climbing than any other day this week and Stu decided to skip the ride and enjoy the resort. It was listed as 26 miles and 2600' of climbing - in other words, 100' of climbing for every mile.

We left the hotel promptly because we had to catch a ferry at the end of the route. I don't like riding with a deadline, and with so many ebikes, Mike and I didn't want to be the last ones to finish the morning segment. Of course, that is what happened. 

Normally, we would be the last ones out of the parking lot because we'd be fiddling with our gadgets. (Even so, I never got everything to work correctly this week. I was running three apps to make sure at least one of them worked.) On most VBT rides, we could pick off riders as we went along and usually finish ahead of everyone. But with a group of ebikes, we were almost guaranteed to finish last, even if we started ahead of one or more of the others. If they started behind us, they would pick us off on the hills, and if they started ahead of us, there was no catching them.

The climbing was challenging, as promised. Not impossible, but slow going, and I made a point of not chasing Mike. What made it tougher were rough road surfaces. And to add insult to injury, we had a stiff headwind on the descents.

Today, I spent a lot of time as the lantern rouge, riding with Fotis who was riding sweep. We had a couple of nice conversations.

Mike had to wait for me on the climbs. Occasionally, I would keep going and then stop so I could take a picture of him riding. The only times I can reliably do this is when I'm at home and riding my ebike.

As expected, we were the last to arrive. The plan for the day was to catch a 12:00 ferry. When we could see the ferry in the distance, I asked Mike what time it was. When he said 11:27, I said facetiously, let's pick it up and try to make the 11:30. When the guides saw us, they checked with each other and with the ferry operators, and we hopped on the 11:30. It was the first time a VBT group had gotten on an 11:30 ferry.

It was a big boat that carried cars and trucks as well as pedestrians and bikes. It was the only way to access the island.



Here's the pier that we left.

The water is all shades of green and impossibly clean. You can always see the bottom.

We took a short ferry ride to an island and then pedaled across the island to a beach. Apparently it doesn't get any better than this.


We left the beach and went to the village on the island for food and sightseeing. 


I figured I would have a traditional souvlaki at some point, but they had veggie wraps. It was delish.


And non-alcoholic beer. This one is an Alpha. I had a couple different Greek non-alcoholic beers, but I liked this one the best, not because it tasted much different from the others, but because it is a working class beer. 


Here's a cute little church on a spit of land. Who thought it would be a good idea to build out there?


We went back to the pier, got on the ferry, and rode back to the mainland. 

Here's a view of the little village where we had lunch.


And that little church.


We watched the docking when we returned. The ramps on both ends of the ferry stayed up like walls during the trip and then extended down to let everyone on and off the ferry. Don't try this at home. This guy is a highly-trained professional.


We took a bus back to the hotel for showers, naps, and our farewell dinner.

Here are the stats for the day: https://www.strava.com/activities/9270638486

Here are the stats for the ride on the island: https://www.strava.com/activities/9270638960


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