Wednesday 12.06.2002 - Robola

	Route: Argostoli - Troianata - Metaxata - Lassi - Argostoli Distance: 46,4 km Total: 410,y km	ROUTE

One of the advantages of staying in a hotel is the possibility to have an early breakfast. So we start the day early and get up at 7 am. We stay another night in the hotel so we have no luggage to carry with us today. Only towel and swimming gear are required.

But before leaving we do have to pop in at the bank. Quite a number of friends have asked us to collect Greek Euro coins for them but 1 and 2 Euro cents are difficult to find. We thought it would be a good idea to ask for them at the bank. And it would have been indeed, but today of all days, bank employees decided to go on strike. Alain won't give up and starts looking for the National Bank.

Meanwhile Piet and Gert are waiting at the small market place close to the port where local people try to sell their vegetables. There is a nice atmosphere over here and the elder sales men are chatting and screaming to each other in the typical Greek way.
One of them even starts singing and approaches us when Piet tries to take a picture. He says several things in Greek, but we hardly understand a word of it. But we did get a nice picture though.

Market

Alain gets back from the National Bank, but has no Euros!
Some of his friends are going to be disappointed!

We can go now.

The bridge at the port takes us to the beginning of the last climb of this journey. There is not a single cloud in the sky, making this climb quite tough due to the heat. But the mere thought it will be downhill for the rest of the day gives us the strength to go up.
 

Top!

Today we are close to the Robola wine district and we surely won't miss a wine taste. Before arriving at the winery we pass by the convict of Agios Gerasimos together with its church.
The church is being repainted with religious drawings, which is clearly done by professionals.

Agios Gerasimos		New religious drawings

Robola wine is Kefalonia's most famous wine. We extensively taste the wine and order a couple of bottles. The 2 boxes, each one filled with 3 bottles of wine perfectly match into our bike bags.

Tasting the wine on an empty stomach leaves us with a funny feeling in the head but also with limbs like lead...
We are careful at every bump in the road so the bottles won't break.

Inside the Robola Winery

From now on the road goes down to the coast.
Since it's our last day, we want to laze away on the beach for a while. It was planned to go to the Lassi beach but the water is too tempting so we stop a bit earlier at The White Rock's beach.
It's great over here, but 2 hours in the sun is largely enough for us.

We pass the rather touristy Lassi beach and choose for a quite costal road instead of the main road. It is nice cycling through this green area with the sea constantly beside us.

We stop at the light house in Argostoli, take some pictures and try to fix the last hours of cycling in our minds.

Lighthouse

The trip continous through a shady wood – one of the 2 camping sites of the isle is established here.
We nearly miss Katavothres. At the water wheel you can see the sea water disappearing into the rocks, starting a long trip through the island to then appear again all the way at the east coast.

We enter Argostoli via the old port. The sky is bright and the mountain Enos is clearly noticeable. We get flashbacks of our tough climb a couple of days ago...

Enos and the old port of Argostoli

With regret we get back to the hotel and we clean the bikes without saying a word. Tonight we have to take them back.
While Piet and Alain are taking a shower and put back the luggage into the suitcase, Gert calls Pantelis. We will meet at 10 pm at his shop. Pantelis' nick name for Gert is 'Bigfoot', which actually has nothing to do with the size of his feet but everything with the e-mail provider for his mail address. He invites us for a drink in a friend's bar which we of course accept!
It's rather calm at the moment but in a couple of weeks this should be the place to be for students.

Yannis, the owner of the Daccapo Café and good friend of Pantelis, joins us and we tell them about our trip and the great moments we had.
We also talk about the life on Kefalonia which seems to be comfortable. The inhabitants are relatively rich compared to the rest of the Greek people. Maybe this can explain why they don't really need tourism and can keep the island just as it is.

Meanwhile our glasses constantly get refilled with Amstel beer, while hours are flying by. And though we have to get up at 5 am to catch our plane, we enjoy the Greek hospitality too much to get into bed! We are not even allowed to buy them one single drink in return and Pantelis doesn't even want us to pay for the bikes.

But not paying for the bikes is unacceptable for us, after all we got excellent bikes for an entire week! So we insist on paying for them.

We get a brief tour in the Daccapo bar, internet-corner included and have a group picture taken...
 

Alain - Piet - Pantelis - Gert - Yannis

We then get back to a bar in the center where Pantelis knows the owner as well. Again several drinks are offered and they do taste stronger than lemonade...

We ask the DJ to play Faithless for a change instead of the Greec beat, which he actually does. Let's dance!

Meanwhile Pantelis is planning to go home. So we say goodbye to this extremely friendly man and hope to ever see him again. We leave the bar after a last Greek Mythos beer. Alain clearly had a drop too much and his common sense tells him to get into bed straight away.

Though it's early in the morning Piet and Gert haven't quite considered to do the same yet. They walk around the square to find another bar with good music but most bars are practically empty. So finally they also decide to get into bed. After all it's 3.30 in the morning.