Rest Day



F's a sucker for any town or city with dedicated bike lanes.  

That puts Kalamata and Alexandroupoli at the top of the list of likes in the cities we have visited so far (Kalamata - beautiful eyes - was December last year. You can read about it here and here). 

In Alexandroupoli we have seen young kids, teenage kids, mothers with kids, and old men riding bikes, and young women parking bikes they have presumably just ridden. It is a young city and a very flat city so ideally suited for cycling and for cycling developments go be built into its transport infrastructure (big word).

F says it is a lot like Christchurch in NZ in many ways; less populated but low rise, relatively modern buildings, wealth based on a rural hinterland and proximity to sea/port. An open and light place, its population looks quite youthful (at a glance).

Boy is it different to the Greece we live in. 

Quite apart from the cycling, there are PARKING WARDENS! (we saw someone get a parking ticket!) so you can actually find a park and the streets are navigable without double and triple parked cars and intersections blocked by parked cars. Car drivers pause at pedestrian crossings and give right of way to pedestrians! There seems to be very little grafitti (not good or bad, just different). There doesn't seem to be much crumbling abandonment. 

And what is it about their spoken Greek that has F understanding more of what people say to us?

They have a lighthouse on the seafront a block from the main shopping street, so we guess ships can find their port without accidentally wiping out their shopping area.
Council car (nothing flashy about this other than the flashing orange light in the back)

I want one of these. I reckon it  could go faster than my Donkey

And now for a few pictures from town:




...with grass....

And finally a beach because my humans have some sort of water magnets in them. F did her #2minute beach clean after we'd gone to a beach for a picnic tea enhanced with some local red wine (no wine for me thanks, I'm on the wagon)
She found a sort of Nemo..... That's Thassos in the background.  We plan to go there in a couple of days. I guess that will mean a ferry trip; no holiday with these 2 is complete without a boat in it somewhere.πŸ˜ΎπŸ™„

Comments

  1. I've never seen a council car quite like that, I wonder how someone can sit comfortable in it

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  2. Hari OM
    ...something about this place makes me sigh and breath deeply - in a good way! How I would love to see it. Not in current travel climes. But I am glad to see it through your eyes, Tigger, and the lens of F. That water feature is lovely. As is the veiw across the water... sigh... sigh... sigh... Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx

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