Hellas Bike Rocks

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I went to Crete a Greek Island for my summer holiday this year. I chose this destination mostly because I knew it was a place to relax and enjoy long late days in the sun by the sea. A place were I actually could take a bath in the sea without getting frostbites and getting numb just by dipping your toe in the sea. I also chose this place because I had been here about 10 years ago and this is a place where I always wanted to go back to. I wanted to go back to the place where I got really drunk for the first time and where I ate the best pancakes I have ever had at "Clown pancakes".

I traveled with Star tour Tui and went to Agia Marina and stayed at the Hotel Theo. This was a good hotel "only" 150 meters from the beach according to the traveling brochure. What we figured out was 150 Greek meters down to the beach. The metric system i Greece is one of a kind. They got their own time and meters. If you are thinking of walking somewhere, I hope you got good shoes. Because it will in any case be the double amount of meters than it says. And when we are talking about signs you can really be confused. I experienced two different signs standing 1 meter from each other pointing to the same direction. At the first sign it said to the beach 100 meters and the other To the beach 200 meters. So between 1 meter the way at the beach had gained 100 meters. What I learned..... Never trust a Greek sign and always use good shoes in case you are planing or have to walk a bit.

At Agia Marina it is not too much to do if you do during the day if you easily get tired of laying at the beach. It is to hot to walk anywhere without being totally sweaty and it is to hot for traveling to Chania city. The only thing that is rational to do is being at the beach or by the pool side enjoying the sun, the cool breeze and to take a cooling bath when your body gets to hot.

When I first arrived Agia Marina I felt I could sleep for many weeks. I was tired after a hard winter at work. Felt this was the right kind of vacation, 2 weeks with just relaxation not to think about work, training or family and friends. But after 3 days relaxing my body had rested enough and I got restless, but my mind still tired. I tried to take long walks with backpack and figured out it was not a good idea. I tried to go into Chania but I figured out this either was a good idea.

Then on one of our daily walks for dinner in the evening we passed a small shop named Hellas Bike. I asked my guide what she knew about them and the one thing of reason in the mishmashes she could tell me was they organized guided tours different places in Crete and she gave me a pamphlet with information about them. After being totally confused I read the pamphlet and figured out they had many interesting trips I wanted to order and go on. But since I did not knew to much about the trips and about the guides actually could talk such good English I ordered the easiest trip first just to figure out if this was something I wanted to use my money on.

The day for the first trip it was 44 degrees Celsius in the shadow. The destination for the trip was Meskla and the Orange experience. We were picked up in a mini bus with bikes by on of the owners and one of the guides from Hellas Bike Thaniassis. On our way up to our starting point an old church in Meskla Thanassis guided us trough Cretan lifestyle, vegetation, nature, driving styles and everything you ever had thought about. I felt I got better information and guiding than from the trained Star tour guides. And all my worries about poor English speaking guides was demolished. I actually got a little bit ashamed of my assumptions and my previous feeling of being the best English speaking entity in Crete because he was a much better English speaker than me.

At our starting point we met our tour guides Alex from Southampton UK and Jukka from Tampere Finland. We were given our cycles and helmets. A quick information about how our equipments worked, our trip and things to watch out of like cats, dogs, traffic and flies. When we started cycling Jukka followed us with the minibus and a spare bike in case something should happen during the trip. As we started cycling I felt my mind stopped thinking of work and started to relax for the first time during my vacation. Alex had a lot of good information about the vegetation and how it influenced the Cretans now and later on. He had many stops where he showed us different plants and had us smelling at the ouzo plant and mandarins and so on. We went through olive groves, fruit groves, fruit groves and stopped talking to a horse. The terrain was mostly flat with many down hills and small up hills. It was a good trip and even though it was extremely hot outside it was the perfect thing to do. In retrospective this was much to easy trip even for me, but it was good fun. I got so inspired that I order one more trip a bit harder and longer.

The next trip went to Paleochora. When we started the weather was actually Grey and cold. We thought it would end up with rain. But when we reached our starting point the weather was fine. At this trip we had Vytas from Lithuania as our cycling guide and once again Jukka from Finland as our lazy bus driver.

While we were cycling he drove behind us with all of our unnecessary and necessary equipment and played music. I have never laughed as much of one song as Monty Pythons "Finland" a song Jukka played constantly first as a joke and soon as a request from the participant even though everybody said they hated the song. I guess everyone by now have downloaded it from the internet after arriving home. I have.........

We started with some up hill before we had to cycle downhill cross country and I felt a rush of adreanlin through my body while cycling downhill. We stopped in Kantanos a small village that has a historical value after the Second World War for the Cretan. We had a small tour to the church before we had some breakfast and drinks at a cafe and we got the chance to get to know a little bit more about our guides. Then we continued our cycling towards Paleochora were we had our lunch and siesta with bathing. During our cycling Vytas ate a bag of Haribo bananas while we were breathing heavily and wished we had been as fit.

The first thing that struck me when arriving Paleochora was its beauty. It was quiet but buzzing at the same time. It was old but modern at the same time. I just fell in love in this place. And the beach was much nicer than the one in Agia Marina. It had the perfect waves, the clean sand and it was easy going and quiet. After a good rest in Paleochora we went to our final destination Kissamos beach were we had something to drink before Jukka drove us back to our hotels.

After arriving my hotel I felt happy, tired and content and I did not care that I got a pain in my legs, my bum or that the knee I had an operations on asked for a rest. The only thing I thought of was what a perfect day I had, that I would have gone on one more trip if I could and that I would recommend this to all my friends who are going to Crete and ask my friends who works at the traveling agency to recommend Hellas Bike to all his costumers who were going to Crete.

To all of you who are going to Chania in Crete I can recommend trips with Hellas Bike. This is the way of discoering Crete. For more information, go to: www.hellasbike.net

In the end I just have to send my regards to everyone at Hellas Bike who made my vacation perfect.
Alex, thanks for the good talk about everything from football to fruits. Claus Lundekvam rocks. It was a bit sad that you were not our guide to Paleochora.
Edita, you still amaze me with your cycling style
Jukka, I still do not know if you can cycle 😉 but you are a good driver and a good DJ (Finland, Finland).
And boys I hope you had a good party with the Jagermeister.
Thanassis you are the best guide I have ever met.

Thanassis and Linda you got the BEST coworkers, take good care of them.

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Photos

Paleochora
Stopped to viewed our destination Paleochora as a finger out in the sea

Kantanos
The view from the church in Kantanos

A part of the road
Looking at the road we are going to cycle down to Kantanos

Lunch in Paleochora
Everyone ate lunch together, talked and laughed

Comments

[Vytas]

thx
Thats the best revard for us guides. Jagermeister party was fantastic as far as I remember :D

[Jukka]

Finland, finland
Hi there my dear friends!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your lovely words - you are far too kind! We really had a great time with you. Wish you all the best. And hey, next time we meet I promise to show if I can cycle :D Definitely not after zehn kleine Jägermeister - we had a party with it! Hugs, Jukka