It was pretty quiet and restful beside the taverna, but the buses for the package tourists got ready early on. I decided to make my way back up to the bridge over the canal and check out the breakfast options there.
It was six kms of uphills, but it was over quite quickly and I pulled into the Box Cafe at the top of the ride, just next to the canal. I’ve seen a few of these cafes around, but had never been in. It’s a fairly automated kind of place and I had a miniscule coffee and a fantastic vegie baguette for top dollar, so I left, took some more photos of the canal (it really is fantastic) and headed down to sea level once more.
The next section was quite average, run down and industrial with a huge oil refinery or two, but I knew I was getting closer to the metropolis of Athens and should expect things to be like this.
I did find a decent coffee shop towards the end of the industrial area and from there things improved somewhat. It was pretty nice actually – I rode very near the coastline with steep cliffs on one side. The traffic was quiet too.
That tranquillity came to an end as the trail diverted around an airport. It was a military airport and as I came around one corner, there would have been eight Chinook helicopters parked on the concourse. Another had just landed and was filling the area with helicopter noise.
It wasn’t long before I came to the ferry to Salamina, waited five minutes then crossed. It all happened very quickly and from there, I had fifteen kms of riding across an island that some people describe as uninteresting.
That’s about as apt a description as I can imagine. It seems neither built up in a nice way, nor looked after too well, but overall it just feels bland. I felt like I was just eating plain toast in a nice restaurant. The part of the island that looked best was near my BnB, and that was a relief. It’s a pity about Salamina though. It could easily be much nicer.
I was tired after the last few days, so I had a nap before checking out the surrounding area. Dinner was the usual salad, souvlaki and tzatziki.
