Friday 08.04.2011 – We packed up and headed out of Athens bright and early to avoid the peak hour traffic. We set Tom for Corinth; about 80km away just to get us out of the city. Destination – unknown but somewhere into the Greek Peloponnese. We thought we were doing fine for the first 3 km before we hit the motorway as the traffic was light and travelling at a steady speed. Then chaos!! The motorway traffic was not only horrendous but downright suicidal as well. To get anywhere on a bike it is the norm to lane split between cars that are crawling along at snail's pace. No problems there, except no car was doing the proverbial snail’s pace! All were doing the 100 km plus with bikes and scooters lane splitting them at that speed! There seems no explanation for it except for the bike rider to prove they can get to the end faster than the car. Crazy! We were overtaken (again & again) by bikes & scooters, even though we were lane splitting. We saw an almost disaster – a scooter flew past us on our right, then cut back in front of us. At almost the same time a guy riding what looked like a Suzuki VStrom overtook us on the left, cut across the front of us to his right and almost cleaned up the scooter guy, all 20 metres or so in front of us at 100 kph! Anyway, the Suzuki guy just floored it and shot between the scooter and a car with about 10 centimetres clearance each side. Hardly a challenge!

On the way south Kerrie mentioned to look to the horizon - mountains & snow! Are we going that way? We pulled in for morning tea and ordered a cheese pie - a local Greek delicacy apparently; delicious!

Early afternoon we pulled into a servo off the motorway to stretch the legs. There was a Greek guy called Spiro riding a Yamaha TDM 900cc having his breakfast – a cigarette and an expresso coffee. Anyway Greg got into a conversation with Spiro and he spoke passable English. Greg asked him where he was headed and he said he was off to Kalamata (about 200km south) for the weekend. Greg pulled out the map and asked him where he would recommend we head to. Spiro pointed to a small fishing village called Gythio and said it was scenic spot and a nice ride to boot. So deal done, we set Tom to Gythio, said our thanks to Spiro who then took off like there was no tomorrow. Why is it all European guys can ride like the wind? Before we left Greg bought a feast of salted nuts and sultanas from an old lady who had a stall set up. One Euro the lot! Bargain.

We arrived at Gythio mid afternoon and checked into the Aktaion Hotel, right on the waterfront of a small harbour. We then took off on foot and explored the village. We were struck by the beauty of the village and many thanks to Spiro who will likely never read this blog; but thanks anyway for the tip to visit Gythio. Guess what we ate for dinner? Correct. Being a fishing village, seafood was the order of the day.