![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20190601_211935-72169497.jpg\" "\\"rps20190601_211935-72169497.jpg\\"")
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Other than that I had mostly flat, with traffic light enough that I stayed on the main roads even when a smaller road paralleled my course. \n<\/p>\n
By my current estimate I’m seven days ahead of schedule; my original plan of cycling across Albania was spot on. This meshes well with my updated plan of reaching Athens and taking a ferry to a Greek island or two. <\/p>\n I’ve downgraded my daily distance target. Normally my base is 100 km +\/- 20 km. Now I’m using 80 km as the base, in part because that puts less strain on my knee, which still bothers me on occasion. Greece scales to that; every day my choice ends up being 80 km or 140.<\/p>\n I finally feel like I’m in a new country. Absolutely everything shuts down in the afternoon for a multi-hour lunch. I arrived in Mesolongi in that window and felt like I’d entered a ghost town. The owner of the hotel was outside in a cafe. This is the first budget accommodation that feels budget, but it’s OK. Stepping back out in the evening, the town bustled with activity, kids riding bicycles, cafes packed with people.<\/p>\n Scattered storms are in the forecast. The coastal road doesn’t provide many opportunities for shelter. On the other hand, I’m much farther south than the rains in Italy; while nights are still cool, temps during the day are hitting the 30s. <\/p>\n I have a hostel reservation for Patras tomorrow. From Patras I’ve identified only three more campground stays before Athens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night I committed to cycling to Mesolongi and reserved a hotel room at Avra Inn. I’m out of campgrounds for a while, and Mesolongi fell in the right place. I left the campground by 9:00 am, after having to search out the camp host to pay. The ride today was great, mostly along the … Continue reading “190601”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n