Day 16 – Thursday, August 21, 2025

Yes, most of my stuff dried, the socks the least, so waited for these to be soaked by the rays of the rising sun, shining right into my small room. Due to this, I left only around 9:45 – and had one important business, the rear brake urgently needed new pads. I rode around the center, which was pretty, large trees providing shade, inviting cafés with loads of people sitting there.

Pleasant trees in Agrinio, providing shade

An impressive church

I came across a smaller bike shop, but they did not have gear for disc brakes and sent me to another one, they then referred to a third one – and this was the one I had come across the previous evening. They said they would replace my brake for €20. Oh well, I had paid half in other countries, but it is important to be able to stop and probably more descents were in my way.

While my bike was getting ready, I ordered a coffee vis-à-vis, called CoffeeMind (I can really recommend it, in case you visit Agrinio, hereis the link), and started talking to a gentleman, Athanasios, who turned out to be the manager of the café and the boss of the friendly lady from the previous day. I told him how nice his staff was and he smiled. I told him about my trip and he was nice enough to prepare a full-fledged itinerary for the following section of my trip, giving me great suggestions, many of which I would follow.

A lady roughly my age, Dimitra, arrived at the café, and we struck up a conversation. She told me she was a local journalist and wanted to know everything about my trip, what my impressions about Agrinio were – she even recorded our discussion. To my surprise, a day or so later, I got a link to an article – featuring Dimitra's encounter with me! 😉 Here is the article – in Greek! Cool, eh?

After the interview, with my bike ready, I bid farewell to Dimitra and Athanasios, thanking them for their kindness – and Athanasios was nice enough to pack a large bag of snacks for my trip! You can hardly top this kind of friendliness and hospitality.

Thanks to Dimitra and Athanasios - my stay in Agrinio was unforgettable!

Quite late, at around 11:30, I left town, headed now towards the Peloponnese peninsula. There was a gorge of sorts to break through, the road led through a large rock-wall – but even in this difficult area, the Greeks were able to fit a church. After the highest point, it was a descent (well, obviously, imagine if there was no descent after the highest point), what I really wanted to write is that after 15 and a half days, I spotted the sea! That body of water in front of me was already salt water! I got a bit of goose-bumps.

Yet a bit of an ascent

First glimpse of (semi-)salt water!

Following the advice from Athanasios, I visited Aitoliko, referred to as the "Little Venice" of Greece due to its unique position on an island between two lagoons, with bridges connecting it to the mainland on either side. I first thought the town to be dead, it looked very interesting, but I did not see anyone, when suddenly, I heard some loud music playing.

Hmmm, when I wrote the draft, I must have been quite tired, as I put a placeholder "XXXXX" to describe what happened at Aitoliko. Hard to explain. First, it was "Tote Hose", then I heard some drumming, then some pipes. As I found out in the translated post of Dimitra, they were celebrating the feast of Agia Agathi on this island (mind you, you can see a recording of it at the bottom of the post). How? It was men (and just men) dressed in traditional folk dresses, falling in an art of ecstasy, dancing, singing, drumming, blowing their pipes, all non-stop. Mind you, this happened at noon, and I spent close to an hour there. They did not take a single minute of break, it just went on and on and on. I believe one was supposed to throw in some money, someone was counting a huge pile, some bills falling on the floor - it was something I had never seen before.

I thought - incorrectly - that the town was deserted...

...then I saw more and more men celebrating

Reminded me of Spain or Latin America...

...but this church was defiantly and unmistakenly Greek

From there, I biked to Mesolonghi, a town surrounded by lagoons and two rivers and even the sea (“sealake”, also referred to as brackish water). It played an important chapter in the Greek war of independence – and fames itself by being spared of mass tourism.

Starting in Mesolonghi is something quite special – it is a five kilometer-long narrow land bridge to Tourida, an island in the Missolonghi Lagoon (population: 15, yes, fifteen). On the way there, there was another piece of land made not for sunbathers, but “mudbathers”, people who cover themselves with mud, for healing purposes – similar to the Dead Sea in Israel.

The land bridge

Just like at Dead Sea...

In Tourida were many “dachas” (one would say in the Balkans), or weekend houses, many to let. There was also a beach there, where I enjoyed my first (and definitely not last) swim in the sea. Very faintly, very far, I could spot a bridge – one that connects mainland Greece to the Peloponnese peninsula.

First of many swims

Now came a somewhat silly idea, which became my next mini (or not so mini) adventure within an adventure – one that I am not too proud of; one that did not go all too well. You see, there was this 5 km bridge to Tourlida – and, as mentioned earlier, I dislike backtracking. I looked at the map and saw that Tourlida is connected to the mainland with one more “leg” (not bridge...) perpendicular to the bridge I had ridden from and I had this glorious idea of heading that way. Spoiler alert – I doubt I would want to repeat this one, ever.

So, here it goes – after the pleasant swim in salt water (i.e. the Ionian Sea), I started heading east. Actually, I should not have even started going that way, as it was cordoned off, by a salt museum – which was closed. Well, I decided to trespass and go around the locked gates of this museum and ride eastwards (I had come to the island from the north). There were machinery and equipment used in salt mining on display, which I did not pay too much attention to. The museum was about a mile long, and had one more locked gate, which was also easy to get around, so the worst was over, so I thought. This was just the warm-up.

I kept riding, there was a line of dachas between the sea and a river (or lake?), I even saw a few people swimming in sort of an inland channel. I asked them if it was OK to head eastward, they told me that it would be tough and suggested I go back from where I came from – but with welcoming Greek hospitality, asked if I needed anything, like water. They warned me of wild dogs, I nodded and pushed on.

Even in this remote area, next to the "dachas", they had a tiny church, cute, eh?

I reached a dacha and there was wild barking coming from it; there were at least five dogs locked up behind the fence. That was not the issue – two were on the loose, very close to me. I picked up a few pieces of stones, just in case. Luckily, they were just as scared of me as I was of them.

And on I rode, now on a very rough dirt path, not even a road. In places where there are no places of reference, Google Map gets less accurate. I tried to monitor where I was (or at least attempted to) and noticed there would be a gap, i.e., some sort of water separating me from the opposite side.

Now I got to this dry river- (lake-/sea-/whatever) bed, thinking I had made the crossing

I could not have been more wrong. I reached the side of the dry riverbed and there was an embankment. The issue was that I could not go up that embankment with my loaded bike, so steep was the bank, so I had to unload all my bags and push up my bike, go back for these and load the bike again. To my horror, I suddenly noticed that the “gap” I referred to earlier, there indeed was a wide and deep body of water stopping my advance to the east.

One option would be to backtrack, all the way I had come from, through the dry waterbed, the dogs, the dachas, the salt museum, the 5 km bridge and then find a road going around the lagoon – for me, that was completely out of question. Plan B? Follow the banks of the river back north, but it would also mean a long detour. Here I spotted two fishermen in their boats and shouted to them. One actually spoke English and he understood what I was asking. He told me to ride southward to the very end of the water inlet and haul my bike over my head to the other side. This would be Plan C.

So I started towards the mouth of this inlet, towards the sea, it was not too far, I could always turn around and do Plan A or B. So from the open sea, water was flowing into this inlet (hence the name, silly me). It was not too wide, maybe 15 or 20 meters, but could not really tell how deep it was. I thought, in Hungarian, “I have one life, one death, I shall try this” (it rhymes in my language) and stripped, leaving all my belongings at the mouth of the inlet and started heading to the other side. To my surprise, the water, even though relatively fast moving towards land, was not too deep – at least not all places - it was like knee-deep, then waist-deep, at some places even a bit deeper, but I always had my head and arms above the water. It was also quite muddy – and definitely not all too clean or appetizing, it had some smell of drying mud. Still, once on the other side (without my belongings), I thought this is the way to go. So I strode back through the water and hauled my bike over, once almost tripping with it. Repeat this, I got the one large bag, then the other one, then the two small ones – and at a final crossing, I brought my wallet, papers, cameras and electronic equipment. Man is a learning species, with each crossing, I perfected the crossing, found where the water was the least deep and where it makes sense to step. Not sure, but I felt I was bitten by some fish or crab - but that did not hurt.

In case you were confused about my description, this is the map of this crazy mini-adventure

I felt like a victor, having hauled over all my belongings, now I just need to bike a few kilometers and I am back in civilization again. How very wrong I was yet again. I was probably the first human to walk on that side of the inlet, it was either muddy or full of thorns (yes, yet again). Not even a meter could I ride, as the ground was too soft, to make matter worse, my bike kept getting stuck, the wheels making a deep mark in the ground. Not sure if you have watched the movie called Better Call Saul, there is a scene where the main character gets lost in the desert and is pulling himself with his last strength, that is probably how I felt (if you have not watched it, I can recommend it). I was hoping there would be no high tide or any other event that would stop my otherwise painfully slow progress.

Sinking in the mud

I tried hitch-hiking, but no one came

Still sinking, the sun about to set

Apart from my suffering, the views were amazing. A very calm Ionian Sea to my right, a lagoon to my left and me on a narrow panhandle. There were beautiful shorebirds everywhere, rather large ones, many evidently in panic, it was their natural habitat and I was the intruder. A pity I am not an ornithologist, I would have had a blast. I did hear earlier that this is a grooming spot for grey pelican and had seen three of them fly (before my mini adventure), now there were two not too far away – they were probably wondering what the heck this guy was doing there.

Flamingoes

Finally, finally, I reached some kind of an embankment, somehow pushed my bike up on it and now I was on a dirt road, how happy to ride on pieces of large stones! It was rough, but at least I could ride. Not much was left of this day, it was 8 pm and we are past the ides of August.

It was then I saw a large field being irrigated – but memories of Sveti Neam came to my mind. There was a guy in his large tractor about to finish a full day´s work, I went to him and explained my intentions. He was very nice, understood what I wanted and showed me a place, in the middle of a field away from the river, which would not be irrigated. He also showed a generator, which was hauling water and told me I can drink out of it. He asked if I would want a coffee, but I thanked him, said no and he disappeared.

Wonderful sunset

Here I camped

It was a beautiful sunset, I enjoyed me being on this large field in my tent. Here, for a change, a lot of mosquitoes were present in the evening hours, so I did not spend a lot of time getting ready to sleep, quickly brushed my teeth and curled into the sleeping bag. A few had still made it inside, I spent like twenty minutes getting rid of them, then fell asleep. What a day!

Yes, an "interesting day", only 57 km and with 210 meters of elevation, I sure managed to scare away a lot of shorebirds.