Day 1: Athens to Milos Camping in Evia, Greece

First day of the Athens to Nordkapp bike tour, so a reasonably easy day in order to get used to cycling with weight once more.

Cycling out of Athens

(Wednesday 4th June 2025)

It’s always a bit of an issue cycling out of a major city, especially one as cycle-unfriendly as Athens! Still, I had a route planned that took me away from the worst of the traffic, and an early-ish start saw me avoid heavier traffic later.

Ideally, I would have left early on a Sunday morning (and I recommend that to anyone thinking to ride a bike out of Athens), but after living in Athens for so long, I was more used to the traffic, and didn’t want to wait the extra days.

Here’s the route I took if you are interested:

By the way, for some reason when I embed this it shows in Imperial measurements, but I personally use metric!

The aim of the day’s ride was to keep it simple, do a short day, and end up in a camp ground I had previously stayed at. This would act as a kind of shakedown day to make sure the bike was fine, baggage balanced, and all kit doing what it was supposed to!

 

Ferry to Evia

Once out of Athens, I took a route to the port town of Oropos. I stopped briefly in the shade where I could such as this curious little building.

Here’s a view looking out of the small window in that rest stop:

After cooling down a little, I carried on down to the port at Oropos. From there, a 3 Euro ferry over to Evia island. (No need to pre-book the ferry, just buy the ticket from the kiosk).

Once over on Evia, I cycled a short distance to Milos Camping, and set up the tent.

All in all a pretty successful day’s ride for day 1 with no issues to report – uneventful can be fine sometimes! Evening meal was couscous with cucumber, tomato and tuna. Lovely!

A note on weather: It was 30 degrees during the day, and things are warming up in Greece. At night, I didn’t even need to use my sleeping bag!