Into Greece in the rain: To Sidirokastro

September 22, 2015

When I got up in the morning, it was absolutely pouring rain. I went down to the hotel restaurant, and the woman there suggested that I go back to sleep. The weather forecast was for rain all day, and I wasn't anxious to spend the day there, so I had breakfast and got set to leave.

I shouldn't have been so smug yesterday about not having had any flat tires. When I pulled my bike put of the garage, the rear was flat. I went about fixing it outside in the rain. No one paid any attention or suggested that I find a drier spot to work. I think I did okay, given the circumstances, putting in a new tube and getting it pumped up and the wheel on the bike in about half an hour, including the time I spent in the washroom trying to get my hands clean. The Rohloff oil does ooze somewhat, and the dropouts and quick release were grimy. I didn't find the cause of the flat, and the old tube stayed inflated when I pumped it up, so I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

After the repair I left. It was still raining pretty hard.

Top of a hill past Sandanski. It was really wet, but the rain was starting to let up.

The road was a little less busy than the previous day, but I was still getting a lot of spray from other vehicles, and there were a couple of good climbs.

Then I reached the area where maps.me showed the road disappearing. It didn't disappear! It changed into a nice modern divided highway (aka dual carriageway) with a wide shoulder!

The lovely new Bulgarian highway shoulder, approaching the border with Greece.

It was truly lovely. Traffic was light, and I had space to feel safe. Of course, some Bulgarian drivers haven't fully grasped the meaning of a shoulder, and used it as a traffic lane even when there was no other traffic, but then they had plenty of space to pull over when passing me.

I rode on toward the border with Greece. I was a little concerned that this new road would not go directly through Kulata and that I wouldn't find any money changers to get rid of my Bulgarian lev, but the road narrowed back down to a 2 lane highway and went through the town. There were several money changers and snack bars, and quite a crowd. There was a Bulgarian TV crew filming all the trucks coming over the border. I tried to ask why, but didn't get an answer I understood. Maybe it was related to the migrant crisis. Look for me on the Bulgarian news. I had to ride past the camera to get to the border.

Immigration was easy, with passport control on the Greek side.

Then I was quickly on the Greek version of the divided highway with a big shoulder.

I was a little nervous about it, as I've heard that some cyclists have been stopped by the police and taken back to the previous exit to ride the smaller roads. But the shoulder felt so safe that I stuck with it until I reached a construction zone that sent me a smaller road anyway. The rain stopped, too, and I eventually took off my rain jacket.

I stopped in the town of Sidirokastro and took a room at the Hotel Olympic. I expected Greece to be cheap, but it seems to be a bit more expensive than the countries I've been through recently. Accommodation options are limited, and I may have an even shorter day tomorrow in order to find another hotel.

I'd like to get back to camping, but there is supposed to be more rain tomorrow, and there aren't any established campgrounds until the coast.

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 2,853 km (1,772 miles)

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