Day 46 – Komotini to Samothraki – 78km 698m

Riders on the storm

Being awoken at 2am by my phone emitting a high pitched alert is never the best start. The fact that the alert was from the Greek civil defence unit advising everyone in the vicinity of an extreme weather warning (unusually high rainfall, potential flooding, high gusts) made matters worse.

So we woke with heavy hearts. A dousing seemed inevitable.

From our beds we heard the call to prayer – highly unusual in Greece – followed by the chanting of the Orthodox service in the church in front of the hotel. Above it, the chatter of thousands of starlings roosting in the nearby trees. But not much sound of rain.

Although leaden skies looked fit to burst, they currently held their watery payload, against available all evidence of the multiple weather apps we were using. So we used our eyes instead. It’s not currently raining so get on the bikes.

Soon we were chugging through undulating cotton fields, past the usual territorial hounds. We had a sprinkling of rain, but nothing significant. On one horizon were broken clouds with sunlight threatening, on the other: torrents. Ride then and just hope the wind carries the torrents away from us.

At one point the heavens did open. The only shelter was a drainage channel under the motorway, so we took cover for fifteen minutes until it passed.

And that was it! No more rain for the rest of the day!

Spine tingling moment of the day occurred as we rounded a corner over uncoiling downhill tarmac to see the sun sparkling on the Aegean Sea, and Samothraki Island, our destination for the night cloaked in cloud. We whooped with joy!

At the port town of Alexandroupoli we had a supermarket lunch and eventually boarded the ferry.

Once at Samothraki we pedalled the remaining 8km to our hotel, watching the sun dip into the sparkling sea. A bottle of Retsina now awaits.