Day 9 - Edessa orchard camp to Demir Hasar
The morning ride was a dream, following a quiet road with a nice surface along the perimeter of a lake. There were fruit trees and fruit pickers and the sun was shining. It felt like it was worth the 650kms it took to get to this place just to ride this road.
We crossed out of Greece and into Macedonia just after lunch, stopped for a drink and met a friendly guy named Petar, who was out for a bike ride with his father. He rode with us into the town of Bitola and showed us around, sharing little tidbits about the town history and his life there.
We learned that the prehistory dates back to the copper age, but that most of the important settlements came with the bizantines. We learned that the nice buildings in the city centre were built by the Jews, but that there weren't any Jews there anymore since they were taken away during the war. We learned that Petar worked for a german company that makes cables and that the company had 12 factories around the world, but it doesn't have one in Australia.
As Petar rode with us to the Bitola city limit (to ensure that we didn't get lost on our way out), he mentioned that the town that we were going to (Demir Hasar) had very little except for a mental institution. He warned us that there would be a lot of people walking around in pajamas. Any apprehension this may have caused us was outweighed by curiosity, and we were quickly on our way to check it out.
Though we had planned to camp, we opted for a hotel since it was the equivalent of 10 euros per person per night (including breakfast) and we had just finished riding 25kms with visions of zombie psychiatric patients in pajamas wandering the area at all hours for the night.
Among the dessert options at our hotel is "sexy salad". The two young boys who seem to have responsibility for the establishment this evening seem to be enjoying the opportunity to practice english, though they have not yet been able to explain what "sexy salad" is. I think that the only solution is to try it.
We crossed out of Greece and into Macedonia just after lunch, stopped for a drink and met a friendly guy named Petar, who was out for a bike ride with his father. He rode with us into the town of Bitola and showed us around, sharing little tidbits about the town history and his life there.
We learned that the prehistory dates back to the copper age, but that most of the important settlements came with the bizantines. We learned that the nice buildings in the city centre were built by the Jews, but that there weren't any Jews there anymore since they were taken away during the war. We learned that Petar worked for a german company that makes cables and that the company had 12 factories around the world, but it doesn't have one in Australia.
As Petar rode with us to the Bitola city limit (to ensure that we didn't get lost on our way out), he mentioned that the town that we were going to (Demir Hasar) had very little except for a mental institution. He warned us that there would be a lot of people walking around in pajamas. Any apprehension this may have caused us was outweighed by curiosity, and we were quickly on our way to check it out.
Though we had planned to camp, we opted for a hotel since it was the equivalent of 10 euros per person per night (including breakfast) and we had just finished riding 25kms with visions of zombie psychiatric patients in pajamas wandering the area at all hours for the night.
Among the dessert options at our hotel is "sexy salad". The two young boys who seem to have responsibility for the establishment this evening seem to be enjoying the opportunity to practice english, though they have not yet been able to explain what "sexy salad" is. I think that the only solution is to try it.
posted by tori at
2:38 PM
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