Cycling in Greece
Greece is famous for its beautiful islands, sailing and it's ancient history. I've never really thought about Greece as a place to go cycling and this was my first Greek cycling experience.
We visited the two very different Greek locations over the summer.
The first being Paleros on the western coast of mainland Greece, and the second being the historic island of Rhodes.
Both offered different experiences for both road cycling and some off road adventures. Both of these holidays were Neilson holidays which means that cycling was just one of the many activities that you can undertake in these beautiful locations. In both cases, there are routes you can download from the resort’s Strava group, so you can go self guided if you prefer.
Paleros
(komoot links to my favourite rides)
The roads around Paleros were very quiet. Cycling was quite a pleasant experience - we did a combination of some road riding and at least one mountain bike ride up to Monastraki, which was a bit of a challenge, but lots of fun.
Probably my favourite ride in Paleros was a coastal route down to the small town of Mitikas, where you hug the coast on an undulating route the whole way along. Randomly there are some wild cows wandering on the road which are the only hazard really to look out for, before reaching this small seaside village. The scenery as you go along the coast is just stunning and the roads are so quiet it makes for a very pleasant cycling experience.
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Rhodes
(komoot links to my favourite rides)
The island of Rhodes is part of the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea. This was my first time to the island of Rhodes and I would definitely return.
There is so much history in Rhodes, I was particularly impressed by the the old town of Rhodes complete with its walls and historic harbour where once stood the ancient wonder of the world - the Collossus of Rhodes.
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Over the centuries Rhodes has had many different occupiers. The Knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem built the town of Rhodes and had it has a stronghold for 2 centuries before becoming, part of the Ottoman Empire for several hundred years, then Italian rule, then Nazi occupation during WWII, then under British Administration before being ceded to Greece in 1947.
Again we did a combination of road cycling and off-road. The weather was a little bit more erratic in Rhodes than it was in Paleros with quite a few of the days bringing lightning storms nearby. On at least one of the days the rain was so torrential we had to take shelter in a bunker and then had a bit of a mudfest on the way down the climb.
My favourite routes included a climb and then off road trail to Seven Springs nature reserve and an off road trail to Psalidi (the day we had the torrential rain), we also had a lovely cycle to Anthony Quinn Bay for snorkelling.
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