Thrace Oddity

March 2025

My travels for this blog:

Alexandroupoli, Greece

I can't tell you how good it is to be here.

Right here...

The camping's so great in this part of Greece. There's spots everywhere. There's no one much around, as it's too cold for all the holiday tourists, or for those Grecians that have enough money to have their holiday digs here.

Some Grecians make money, I guess.

What's a Grecian earn?

Isn't it some type of jar?

Actually, chatting to some Greeks about the topic of wages is pretty sobering. Wages are super low here, which makes it really tough to get by, for many people.

But I'm lucky enough to be out of that world right now.

It's such a pleasure to be here at this spot on the beach.

Cold, but beautiful.

And right now I'm finally out of that biting wind, and have had the sun on my back for ages.

I've been in Greece for a few days now.

I crossed into the country at the Ipsala Turkish border crossing, rode on the big freeway for a short while (my only option), and then got onto a smaller road.

There was virtually no traffic anywhere.

And that's been a feature of my whole Grecian journey so far. It's been amazing. Really good roads, and nearly no traffic whatsoever, especially because I've been almost exclusively sticking to the smaller roads.

Below Centre: I lost my pocketknife somewhere, so my cucumber sandwich is a little rustic.

Above Left, Centre: Roadside memorials

There were some pretty tough winds again, but it didn't take me too long to roll from the border to the town of Alexandroupoli, a town named after the same person I was named after, ie., Alexander the Great, of Macedonia.

Yeah this part of Greece is called Macedonia, but it's also called Thrace, a region that also includes Southeastern Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey, and covers roughly the same area as ancient Roman Thrace did.

So I'm now in Western Thrace.

I rocked up in the town, found a municipal campground, and immediately met Hans, a young cyclist from near Nuremberg who's riding from Antalya to Milano. Hans has just been on a family holiday in Antalya in southern Turkey, and then decided to ride to his team's handball tournament in Milano, rather than fly.

What an idea! Who would do a crazy thing like that?

Actually he's riding much faster than me, as he has a strict deadline.

Hans is a super sweet guy, and this is his first cycling adventure. And I'm the first cycle tourist he's met on his journey. I'm privileged. We chatted for ages, and camped next to each other.

Above: My campsite

Not long after we set up camp, Ali and Oli rocked up in their camper van, and parked up on the other side of me. They're from Basel (although Ali is originally from Prague), and pretty much immediately asked us if we'd like to come over for gin and tonics.

Is the Pope a Catholic?

We finished setting up, and were over in a flash.

It was so nice to all chat together. Ali and Oli sold their home a couple of years ago, bought a camper, and have been cruising around ever since. Their main task is to perfect the art of doing nothing. A difficult but admirable goal. So they spend their days moving around (or not), listening to music, reading books, watching movies, walking their two dogs, and hangin out with other riffraff like Hans and I.

We sang a few songs together, those guys are great music fans, and were so happy to have it coming in live at their little campsite.

It was really beautiful to connect with them, and then later in the night Hans and I went off searching for food.

There were a string of empty restaurants on the road overlooking the sea, and then one full one, which we obviously ate at. I had the most delicious risotto ever, Hans the biggest Greek salad I'd ever seen (and 2 souvlakis), and we drank a beer, of course. Hans insisted on paying for the lot. What a guy!

Below: Beer shot

The next morning Ali and Oli invited us over for brekky. So kind. We drank delicious home made coffees, ate boiled eggs, (cooked in the good ole German-style electric egg-boilers), and ate delicious bread with Glühwein jelly. Man, what a treat!

We chatted for ages. It's so easy to connect with those guys, and I came away feeling like I'd learnt a lot.

I decided to have a rest day, and after farewelling Hans I pretty much spent the whole afternoon wandering around town, or sitting in a café working on this blog. Not that I could ever call it work, of course.

Below Right: Right where I am

Above Left: I haven't left yet

Above Centre: Oli hasn't worked out how to use the egg boiler yet

Above Right: Yes, Glühwein jelly, made out of real Glühwein.

Below Left: Hangout café

Alexandroupoli snaps

Above Left: Floral pasta shop

Above Centre: Floral tree

At a traffic intersection in town I saw a young woman doing some pretty amazing juggling tricks for the (few) motorists, and noticed she had a bicycle packed with all her belongings parked close by, obviously travelling that way too. I also noticed that her luggage included a unicycle, strapped on her back rack, just like my guitar is strapped on mine.

I went over to give a donation and say hello.

Elenuk is from Catalonia, and, with her friend Judit, has travelled here all the way from there by bike. They've just spent the whole winter on the island of Samothraki, a beautiful island you can see from the coast here, and they just hung out and found some odd jobs to do to get by, and sat out the winter, as it's too cold to cycle.

Now they're raising funds so they can carry on to Turkey, and then into "Familystan," as Elenuk cutely calls the "stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

They have absolutely no money yet, but hopefully will raise enough to help them on their way, and don't want to go back to Europe to work and then come back, which is what I did.

Elenuk told me where their campsite was, and I told her maybe I'd visit later that night, but Ali and Oli had already invited me for dinner, and I ended up staying there till late. So kind of them.

I turned up at their van at 5pm for G & Ts again, then we ate the most delicious homemade mushroom pasta, and a gorgeous Greek salad. This is the life! I provided the rosé, as well as a collection of Greek pastries from a traditional bakery. They were the bomb, especially the lemóni bougatsa, a lemon filoux pastry slice.

It's my new fave Greek cake right now.

We all chatted and sang into the night, and I went to bed happy.

Below Left: Lemóni bougatsa, and other pleasures

Below Centre: Cosmic white hole

Below Right: It was chilly

Thracian Seeing

I had coffee compliments of Ali and Oli again in the morning, and then headed off. But before I left town I wanted to catch up with Elenuk again. She messaged me that she'd be there juggling at the intersection again, which she calls "her office." This time Judit was there too, who's also super nice.

Below: Morning beach stroll

We chatted again, and I'd been to the bank so could give them a decent donation for their journey this time. Elenuk said she found it hard to accept, but I told her that if she accepts my offering it'll make me feel good. I also told her that so many people have given me so much on this journey that it's always great to have the chance to give back.

In fact, when I think about it, people give me things almost every single day, without fail. That's what my world is right now, I'm very happy to say.

Elenuk and Judit were so grateful, they gave me some good campsite tips, and the contact of a friend of theirs in Thessaloniki where I can stay and store my bike if I need to.

Amazing innit. What goes around comes around.

I rode off feeling inspired, and full of memories of my own travels in my twenties, when I headed off with pretty much no money at all, just my guitar. I camped out in the bush, or on the floors/couches/hammocks/gardens or even beds of people I met (sometimes with them in it, ha! those were the days).

I earnt cash by playing guitar and singing on the street, sometimes I was offered gigs in cafés or pubs, or at parties, and made a little better money then. Eventually a music agent found me and got me contracts at holiday resorts where I earnt real money and lived a pretty luxurious life, I gotta say.

But in the earlier days sometimes it was a little tough, and when the busking was impossible I occasionally found myself at tourist sites, where tourists in tour groups would bin their pre-packed lunches or dinners, and then all head off on their buses.

When they were gone I'd go through the bins, and feast on untouched fully wrapped and hygienically sealed sandwiches, fruits and desserts, as much as I wanted. I'd always take extra for the next couple of meals as well.

Sometimes I went to food courts, where people would leave huge portions of virtually untouched foods, and I'd sneak around to their tables when they left, and help myself to the feast before the cleaners caught on.

I even admit to partaking in the occasional five-finger discounts at supermarkets, when I had no food and no money, and no other options. I didn't need to do that too often though, even though it was pretty risk-free, as CCTV was hardly around back then.

So anyway I know what it's like to be living in Elenuk and Judit's world.

I stocked up with some camping food, as I'd noticed there were hardly any shops open anywhere in the small towns, and headed up the hill, taking the main highway, as there was no traffic, and it was a direct route for awhile.

Bad move.

I wasn't far up the road when some cops pulled me over, and told me it was illegal to ride a bicycle on that road (which I honestly didn't know). They said they'd call me a taxi to ferry me and my bike to the next off ramp. At my expenses of course. €30 in fact! Ouch.

The silly thing was that there was no traffic, a huge shoulder for cycling, and it was completely safe for bicycles, especially to get to the next off ramp, only about 10 kms up the road. But rules are rules, especially for the one of the cops, who appeared angry and pretty inflexible.

I'd already met the same young cop earlier in the day. When I was chatting with the Catalonian women the same cops had pulled up and the young guy told the women they weren't allowed to be there juggling at the intersection. Elenuk argued with him, in a friendly way, and told him that they'd keep juggling for one hour and then move on, as they needed money, and that was their work. He said no, they had to move now - but then drove off.

Elenuk and Judit got back to work when he left. Feisty buggers. But also they had little choice I guess.

I was happy, because when the same cop pulled me up not long afterwards, he waited up there on the highway with me for my cab for about 45 mins, and I knew that that would mean that my juggling friends had plenty of time to make some cash before he went back down to check up on them.

Every cloud has a silver lining innit.

Below Centre: My auspicious waiting place on the highway, where the cops stayed and made sure I got into my cab.

Above Left: Dead roads

Above Right: The European E6 walking path comes through here. It starts in Finland, and ends at the Turkish border, rather a long stroll. Maybe I'll do a walk like that one day, if I get bored.

The riding was totally beautiful. Absolutely no one around. No traffic. Stunning views. But the wind was a bastard sometimes, and a really cold heartless bastard actually, and I was often heading into it. Once I got out of the wind it was super warm, but in it was like constantly being blasted by a freezer fan.

Looks so benign doesn't it.

Eventually I hit the coast again, at the tiny town of Platanitis, which sounds like the name of an affliction you have when all the girls or boys you're in love with just want you as a friend. I think I'm suffering from that pretty much permanently these days.

Nah, not really.

I mean, sure, I've met loads of amazing women, some that are super attractive, but I haven't met anyone that I've actually seriously considered getting involved with. I'm pretty attached to my vagabondish lifestyle, at least for the moment, and am absolutely loving being single, and being on the road is not necessarily that conducive to having a relationship - unless, of course it's with a fellow traveller, and we wanna go to the same places.

And as for casual sexual relationships? Well, it's been slim pickings in that department, I've gotta admit, and I don't seem to find myself making any effort at all. These days I really wanna feel connected to someone first, and that normally takes more time, which I pretty much never have in one place, because I'm always moving on. And often they are too.

Above Left, Centre: Platonic village

Above Right: Cotton-pickin crop

Yeah, eventually I reached the little town of Kryoneri, I found myself a nice spot to camp, under the trees by the beach, and cooked myself up a feast.

It's so nice to be camping so much again. I've missed it. It's been super cold, going down to zero at night, but I'm pretty well equipped for such stupid temperatures.

Above Centre: I did a dumb thing. My camp cooker is multi-fuel, and I'm using petrol at the moment. I overfilled the fuel bottle by mistake, and forgot that if I did that extra fuel would leak out of another outlet and catch fire. Ooops. I totally fried my cooker, the whole thing was burning, but luckily it survived, and I still managed to cook up a feast.

I went to bed at sunset, and slept for 14 hours, pretty much straight through. So good!

To Porto Lagos

Yeah, not that crazy Nigerian capital, but just a tiny Greek seaside village, named after the Portuguese word for "lakes." The tiny village that's not far from this spot is surrounded by them.

For most of the day I felt like I was in a world of no people. The roads were tiny, with no traffic. I'd been on the road for an hour before I saw my first moving car. I passed through lots of beautiful farmland, the road was relatively flat, but that icy wind kept me on my toes.

The coastline is so beautiful here, and I basically had it all to myself. If you ever want to ride through Greece, this time of year is perfect. There's just no one around.

In the busy season, on the other hand, the number of tourists coming through is just nuts, apparently.

According to Akis, the guy who was working at the campsite in Alexandroupoli, at that campground alone they have 800 people coming in every day in peak season. Sounds horrific to me.

There's also so many spots to hide away and camp, in fact you don't even really need to hide away if you don't want to. No one seems to care. And the dogs feel a little more benign here, in general. I've seen the occasional hunt by an angry pack (unfortunately I was the hunted), but so far it's happened significantly less than in Turkey.

Most of the time here I can talk them out of it, and they eventually get bored.

There seems to be significantly less of them too.

Yeah, it feels super different to be back in Europe. Many more people speak English here. In the small villages and towns of Turkey, no one did. Greece is way cleaner too, rubbish wise. Not as clean as central and northern Europe, but pretty clean. 

Above Centre: Besides the occasional used condom and wet wet wipes, that is.

The population density appears much lower here too, at least in this region. As a whole the density of Turkey is 111 people per square kilometre, compared to 77 in Greece. But western Turkey compared to eastern Greece has a much greater difference - at least on the route I took. Some villages are totally empty right now, and look like they're comprised totally of holiday digs for rich Athenians or Thessaloknickers.

Prices are higher here as well, of course, but I already knew that.

So anyway, late in the day I found yet another beautiful quiet spot to camp, right on one of the lagos, which also bordered a beautiful wetlands area. At dusk I was serenaded by the sounds of countless birds. At dawn as well, and even occasionally during the night.

I was hidden behind some dry bushes alongside a road, but there was virtually no traffic on it, and, again, I slept for nearly 14 hours. Wow! I must've really needed to catch up. I mean, cycling makes my body tired, but I've been surprised at how much I've been sleeping.

Above Centre: The famous monastery at Port Lagos

It was a long ride the next day, and actually for most of it I was away from the coast. For the first half I was on tiny roads heading towards the larger town of Xanthi, mainly through farmland, but there were some shortcuts west, and then I had no option but to cycle on a larger road to get here, to the small town of Nea Karvali.

Below Centre: Unhealthy breakfast, but it was all there was, and I was foodless.

Below Right: How could I not share with this cutie?

Above Right: Huge solar panels

Below Left: This ancient factory was actually operating

Lunch pastries

Above: My campsite beach

Below: The small town of Nea Karvali

It's so nice here. Last night at the campsite I met Joachim and Anke from Ulm, near Stuttgart in Germany, and later we had beers together at a seaside restaurant, and had some really interesting conversations about their lives as a couple without kids, and all the travels and different things they've done, without the very real emotional, financial and time commitments of life with kids.

They're currently ending a road trip which brought them right through the Arabian peninsula, and sounds like it was super interesting. We had loads to talk about, it was really nice connecting with those guys.

I've decided to rest here today. Uwe, a lovely German guy from Hanover, who pulled up in his van late last night, came over with a hot coffee for me this morning. What a guy! So nice. We chatted, I cooked him up some eggs, and we've just been hangin out and doin our own thing. It feels so nice to just chill for a whole day. It's 2pm and nothing much has happened.

I love it like that.

Uwe has travelled quite a lot through Europe, either with his wife, or, like on this trip, alone. He plans to travel through southern and western Turkey next, before returning to his home in northern Germany, a trip that he said will take him about seven weeks.

He's had what he calls a pretty conventional life, spending his whole working years with the same company in Germany, and bringing up kids with his wife. But whether his life is conventional or not doesn't make it any more or less interesting, as far as I'm concerned. He suggested that his life had been boring, compared to mine, and he didn't have much to teach me. But I begged to differ.

I told him that the way I see it, each of us has just as much to learn from each other, we all have our life wisdoms that we pick up on the way, and for me it's so good to connect and talk about these things.

It doesn't matter what age the person is either, by the way.

Later in the day Uwe cooked us up a rice feast, we drank red wine and Jim Beam and had a wow of a time.

Das ist das Leben! (This is the life!)

Above: Town snaps, including my lunch dessert on the right, which was the bomb.

Racing Along The Thracian

Well, it won't be too long now and my Thrace odyssey will morph into some new adventure.

It's been beautiful riding and camping in eastern Greece so far.

My destination for this little leg of my journey is Thessaloniki, where I plan to store my bike for a few weeks so I can visit my dear friend April, who's gonna be staying in a house up in northern Italy.

We're close friends, have known each other for many years, and are both excited to see each other for the first time since she came over to Laos to visit me about 18 months ago. Northern Italy's a long way north from here, but she has a limited time window, and I've got way more flexibility time-wise.

However I've still got some beautiful Grecian coast to explore before then, more grassy banks to sleep on, more fresh air to breathe in, more old villages and towns and buildings to marvel at, and more local food to savour.

And I have many more people to meet.

And, of course, their dogs❤️

http://buymeacoffee.com/krolesh9