For those that know me, I thought it was time we bought you up to date.
For those that don't, you might find this interesting...or not...Emily and I moved to Greece in February this year to run our own mountain bike holiday company.
Read, or just look at the pics...
It’s been 3 months now since we left the UK, and it’s gone really quickly.
It's taken 3 months to get broadband, so we’ve been a bit out of the loop but we are properly connected now and able to make amendments to our website.
The journey here went pretty smoothly – as far as Ancona anyway.
We drove through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy, over 3 days. The car performed faultlessly despite the large load of luggage and trailer – all the way through the Alps without a hitch.
When we finally arrived in Ancona, though, we found that, due to a dockworkers strike in Greece, the ferries had been cancelled, and there was very little information. We were only held up for 24 hours in the end – we were lucky – there were people there that had been waiting for a week!
Once we got to Greece it was back on the road for a few more hours to get to the apartment…at 4 am, due to the ferry delays.
We had a bit of a rough start as I had trouble sorting out our car insurance, and then one of the locals saw us clearing a trail in the forests (The trail was already there – we were just removing deadwood and overgrowth) and decided that we were cutting down the whole forest and called the Police!
She turned up at the hotel and started shouting and screaming at Nikos (Nikos owns the hotel that we use for our guests). He sent her packing, and the same when the Police arrived, and it’s all calmed down now. We were lucky that Nikos was able to deal with all that, as it was the last thing we needed!
It’s all settling down now, we’ve made some great friends (English and Greek), and found some excellent trails in three different mountain ranges, all in easy reach of the hotel.
We’ve had 2 groups of guests now – 3 girls at Easter, and 3 boys and 2 girls a few weeks later. They all had a great time and we hope they are going to spread the word in the UK.
We’re also riding regularly with a group of Greek mountain bikers. They’ve been really friendly and welcoming – they even created an English speaking section on their internet forum just for us!
Our parents have all been over for a visit, as has Andrew, my best mate. We started diving when Andrew came over and were amazed at the number of fish in the water, even in the shallows with lots of swimmers.
It’s still early days so we're doing our best to show everyone a good time. You don’t have to be a biker to enjoy the beaches, hotel, pool, restaurants and bars!
We’re really enjoying the change of pace and new life and hope that we can get enough business this year to justify staying out here for longer…fingers crossed! We’ve even survived being with each other 24/7 for 3 months…
Rather than filling my post with photos, I’ve posted them
here. (The top three or four galleries are all photos taken here in Greece).
All the best…See you soon…HERE!!
Alaric (and Emily, of course)
