GREECE   DIARY, MAP  and PHOTOS

I've been travelling around Greece once before, and this is just to connect Albania and Macedonia. Actually, I walked in the same area. Never the less, I will enjoy the nature. I know from my previous tour; it is a remote place! Especially Agios Germanios and Lake Prespa. I will stick to a larger road this time! Map in the button of the page.

12/6 2018. Entering from Albania is easy; pass some busses and show passport and green card, wait for the custom officer to finish his phone-call and get to say Macedonia as target. It is NOT called Macedonia in Greece!

It is a 270 kilometre tour in the northern part of the country, and it is great! The landscape changes all the time: Farmland, endless forests with oak or beech, huge lakes, almost barren mountains, green hills and tiny villages. Here are hardly any traffic, but the roads are fare from smooth in most stretches. Well, it is minor roads, but sealed most of the way - eons ago.

I haven't driven long before I see the first Hermann's Tortoise; Testudo hermanni, which in Danish is called Greek Tortoise, and I had one as a child. The next I meet is a mirror lake with quite some interesting plants around. Here are hardly any settlement, but the few small villages have storks on the telephone poles.

I try to find some food and restock my Euro stock. Many signs show off to archaeological sites, but it is only the sign to Konitsa Old Bridge (and 500 metres), that lours me. It is 20 meter tall and 40 long arch bridge. Finished in 1871 and build in local stone. Real elegant, and next to it, is a nice waterfall.

The big river is coming from a gorge, and behind is the big but misty mountains. Every time the landscape changes, there are new plants. It some areas, herds of sheep and a few cows are found. Some of the villages I drive through, are build in the local rocks, others a bit more modern.

I stop in a little town to get dinner. The first place have only liquids, but recommends another. It is open, but here are none. Then a older guy turns up on an old moped. I get yet another sandwich with cheese and French fries, but at least a few slices of tomatoes as well. He make two deliveries while I eat - that is why he races the moped.

One of the farmed areas have lavender, and with a insane colour. Other have harvested wheat or barley fields. Others again have sunflowers, still some time from flowering. The corn are from five to fifty centimetres high. Here are some olive trees and one little area have a lot of fruit trees of different species.

I follow a highway for a short period, and the most striking is the warning for bears! But I don't see any. I reach another large lake, and a typical Greek town on the other side. In the fare end of the lake, I spot a single white pelican.

The next little town have an ATM, a supermarket and a new church I actually like. Then another small villages in local rocks, and a skiing sport place! Well, I have seen snow on some of the higher peaks, and they have snow ploughs and alike stored away.

In one of the deep forests, I see a ten centimetre millipede. Then a little waterfall with ferns and then another Hermann's Tortoise. I offer it some of the wild strawberries, but is refuses? On an abandon barn, I spot a Little Owl; Athene noctua - I think. It is the third in just as many countries. Guess they don't like company?

I reach another area with farming and sheep. Then the Macedonian border. I show my passport, and get through. Greece was a real treat, and so cheep: Diesel would have been around €10, but on the other hand; I stocked some food for the same amount. Guess the price is ten for diesel and two for the sandwich. Not bad for 270 beautiful kilometres and a 252 photos along with a lot of nature experiences.

I enters Macedonia - which actually changes it name today to The Republic Northern Macedonia. I somehow thing they will continue calling it the same, but the Greeks are satisfied.

PHOTOS of the day (144).