108.9km
6 hours 38 mins
1,896m elevation gain
One stretch from today is our favourite piece of riding so far. We headed out from Tirana on our route and onto the motorway, yes bicycles and even pedestrians are allowed, there's a hard shoulder for slow vehicles like us and then three more lanes for other traffic. Soon we came off the motorway (under construction) and spotted three touring cyclists ahead of us and we caught up with them when they stopped to take a photo. We rode along with them for a while and shared stories, routes and plans for the road ahead. They are three British guys who started out with a bigger group but they all got a bad dose of food poisoning, so a few more had gone home and one stayed in Tirana. Coincidentally they fly out on the same day as us from the same airport!
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A fantastic day of cycling |
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Cycling on the motorway |
Plans Change
This is where I need to update you on our plan, we have now decided to make Thessaloniki our end destination. We are slightly ahead of schedule but we need to get back home for some meetings/friend's visiting etc. so we are heading East to the slightly closer Thessaloniki and flying out of Greece in one week. It now feels weird that we do finally have a deadline but we should make it there in time and with one day to sort out the packing of the bikes for the plane.
Our favourite stretch of riding to date
As we said bye to the Brits we headed up on the old road towards Elbasan and passing through Gracen. Basically they have built a new motorway with a 2km tunnel through the mountains, so all of the traffic goes along there and we had the old road completely to ourselves and it was stunning! Bicycles are not allowed in the tunnel. We had a lot of climbing but it was totally worth it, viewing mountains for miles and many different views every time we turned a corner. We also had a great stretch of downhill riding and we could see Elbasan from afar.
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Mountains for miles |
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Looking out over Elbasan |
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The winding downhill stretch |
Elbasan and afternoon riding
We had lunch in a huge cafe/restaurant that has a garden behind the stone city walls, which was a lovely spot to re-fuel. We did a lot of riding today and we were trying to reach Lake Ohrid, but we didn't quite make it that far before darkness descended. The road out of Elbasan was still beautiful with mountains and great viewpoints but it was busy and a fairly narrow road, so not as pleasant. We stopped at a hotel in Prrenjas, just below the steep climb to the lake - we decided to leave that until tomorrow!
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Lunch in the garden of the city walls - Elbasan |
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Views from the afternoon |
Sights of note
- A limo belonging to one hotel along the route to the lake
- Cycling on a motorway
- Lots of fruit sellers on the side of the road with pomegranates and apples, Asia-style
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The hotel limo |
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