The road to Tripoli was not all dowhill, but followed a lush valley floor up to the pass, more like the alpine forests we’re familiar with around Seattle. This Greek road didn’t even make too many unneccesary trips up to the ridge and back. But the area was used as a giant honey production center — the roads were lined with thousands of wooden bee hives and millions of bees swarmed around us for more than 20km. Fortunately neither of us were stung on this day as bees careened off my helmet and sunglasses, bounced off arms and buzzed by our ears.

Honey is used a lot in Greece and even the smallest markets will have a notable selection. We were introduced to it our first day when we had yogurt with honey for dessert, and have eaten this nearly every day since.

We’re just outside of the archaelogic site of Mycenae which we’ll explore tomorrow. Today had us descending out of the mountains down a lovely twisty road — it reminded me of skiing in fresh powder, back and forth through the turns until we reached the sea. We stopped for lunch in Nafplio, the original capital of Greece, before catching a tailwind to our current campground location, averaging 20km/hour, fast for us over the course of a day.

European campgrounds are one of the best friends of a touring cyclist. For 10-15 euros you get a hot shower, place to wash and dry your clothes, usually a restaurant or at least a place to cook some food, and often a swimming pool to cool off at the end of the day. They are often near cities or tourist atteactions. And there are other travelers, sometimes cyclists, in which to talk to and learn from. This is our first choice for overnight accomodation.

It has become preferable for us to cook dinner in the evenings mainly because restaurants never give us enough carbohydrates and if anything is fried or greasy we’ll feel it in our legs the next day. Not to mention that being vegetarians (or more accurately “vegequarians”) there aren’t a lot of meat- free choices in Greece.

The private rooms for rent are another option when no campground is available — almost always maintained by older, often widowed women, advertised on signs in the outskirts or center of small villages. In Croatia, as is more often the case in touristy areas, the women would wait by the incoming ferries, trains or buses with photos of their rooms and homemade brochures in several languages, competing for your attention.

Hotels, our least favorite option, involve hauling all our panniers up flights of stairs and none of the other amenities, and are several times more expensive. We haven’t tried any “wild camping” like we often do at home mainly because of the lack of water and smell of goat shit out in hills. And the draw of a hot shower keeps us pedaling until we find something.