Olympia, Kalamata, Sparta

The next morning, I headed to Olympia. I stopped for coffee and some strudel, and to study my map. A bus of Germans on tour happened to stop there as well. The bike attracted the attention if a few folk, and then others joined in. One couple called their son, Philipp, over, as he had just received his moto license. He was pretty excited about the trip and the bike. I promised I would write to him. 

I went to ancient Olympia, and it is very impressive. The museum is incredible, with treasure after treasure from the site, and all explained in several languages, English among them. 

I took too many pictures. Here are just a few. 

There are acres and acres of these ruins. The history just enveloped me. 

I rode down to Kalamata, as that was on the way to Sparta and Mystrás. Mr. Garmin took me to the beach there, and then through downtown and past the old Cadtle, then up the hill towards Sparta. I topped out the first ridge, then stopped to take these pictures. 

The highway between Kalamata and Sparta is, hands down, one of the best motorcycle roads in the world. I don't think there is a straight section more than 500 meters long the whole way. It is all curves, ups, downs, hairpin right ascending, hairpin left descending, then back, I mean it is just great. Down into steep, narrow valleys, then back up climbing huge ridge lines, over that top, then down into another steep valley. Along the way you ride through a village way up on the shoulder of the ridge, a small place, and the road takes you past the church. 

In the last valley, the road is cut into the side of the mountain in a few places, with the rock hanging over the roadway, and in one place a tunnel cut through the rock with "windows" to the valley. I've seen photos of similar roads in the Himalaya's but never thought I would ride on such a wonderful road. 

Not too far below the rock overhangs, I was coming downhill and saw a bike with two up stopped in a corner taking photos, or maybe just looking. They started uphill, and yelled something in passing, and I waved, yelled something, entered the turn, hairpin descending right turn, looked down at the road, and stopped riding right at the apex if the corner. Boom!  

Fortunately, they saw the fall and turned back to help. Frank, a Greek living in England and taking his 50th birthday victory tour of Greece, helped me get the bike up while the woman with him, whose name I didn't get, salt with the little bit of traffic in the corner. Frank was delighted to hear about my trip, and took many photos which he immediately posted to Facebook. He is a guy you would like to be friends with, full of vitality.

A word about why I fell. The basic rule of riding is you have to ride the bike until you put the kickstand down. If you stop riding, you fall over. Boom. To ride the bike, you look to where you want to go. In a curve, or a corner, your eyes must be looking for the exit from the corner. If you look down in front of the front wheel, there is a high likelihood that you will ride to that spot. In essence, that's what I did. I rode to that spot and quit riding. I didn't have the presence of mind to look up, keep adding throttle and push the right handgrip. In fact, I'm pretty sure I exacerbated the problem by pulling the clutch, thereby losing any power I had, leaving me only momentum. Since I was leaning hard right in a tight right downhill turn, the momentum was down and to the right. Boom. 

I looked for a place to camp, and found the Castlevuew Campground in Mystrás. I was greeted by a gentleman maybe ten years older than me, speaking English well, who opined that, since I asked, yes, the kitchen was open. I had tzatziki sauce and lamb chops. Deelishus as Oskar would say. 

Why they call it Castleview:

I was ready for bed.