16 September 2011

It was my highest mileage day out of the 51 days I’ve been away. In fact I did about 450 miles (725 km) today. My previous best on my Turkey motorcycle tour was 415 miles.

And it seemed too easy.

Can you tell I left Turkey today?

I did have a short distance to get to the border with Greece from Eceabat but this was plain sailing.

And the roads in Greece were noticeably different. The Family Truckster was back in familiar territory and in 90mph cruising mode on the smooth motorways.

I hadn’t planned to go so far today but it was so easy. I was going to stop somewhere in Greece. But it was just too early to stop in any of the coastal towns. Not that they didn’t look good.

My first stop of the day once making it over the border was Alexandroupoli. First espresso in a while also but I will miss the Turkish coffee (I feel like a traitor!).

I was in a very trendy café where many beautiful people were congregating for lunch.

Unfortunately I wasn’t one of them and I probably stank. But it did give me a chance to program the GPS to as far as western Slovenia. It’s close to Italy so many options are available from there back to London.

But today was a riding day. No stops for history lessons and unfortunately no chance to meet the locals. It was still hot most of the way but the roads were like heaven. On occasions I ventured off the motorway and followed the coast. It didn’t matter what road I took they were all good. No wonder Greece is broke.

I kept going into Macedonia – three countries today. The roads here were not up to Greece standards but still fine. It’s not a big country, only about 2 million people and just shy of 26,000 square km in area. I was following the wine route into the capital city of Skopje. Nice though not spectacular scenery and a few too many tolls towards the end of the day.

I got an hour back when I crossed the border but it was still over 30 degrees when I arrived in Skopje around 1730. There were people in the city centre everywhere. The semi finals of European basketball championships were on and Macedonia was playing Spain (I think). People were dressed in their country’s colours and watching on TV’s in bars . A big screen was showing the game in the main square and thousands of people were cheering every basket from their team (I don’t know who won though).

No new friends tonight. I’m on my own. A chance to get my blog up to date.

Boy the Truckster went well today. It really is such a great machine to ride. Definitely built for Europe and it enjoyed being back in its natural habitat.

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

 

Distance travelled today 448 miles (721km), cumulative 7,520 miles (12,102km).