Still in Greece, 1st Travel report

After having spent a couple weeks in the south of France to get my lasik surgery done at Vision Future clinic in Nice www.visionfuture.net, Linn and I flew to Athens in Greece to meet up with Angelos and Fani, the Ocean Rodeo dealers and owners of www.kiteclub.gr the main greek kiteboarding website and forum.

At first we were a little worried about this trip. There had been a”kite ban” and riots shown on TV in Athens, and everyone was surprised to hear we were heading to Greece at this time. But being used to travel and knowing how things can be extremely different from what you see on TV and what really happens in a country we flew to Athens.

A couple month ago, Angelo’s sister Fani invited us to come and visit Greece. I had never been there and we thought it would be a great trip while staying in Europe.

 

They have organized everything for us so we could visit as many spots as we can during our stay and shoot a great episode for my TV series Ride Along and my web Travel series.

We are based in Athens and drive around to the various spots.

 

The first great kite spot visited was Raches where we attended a local competition for a couple days. I was there as a judge and to do some demos. The spot is great for freestyle with butter flat water and a good thermal wind. The local riders gave us a great show and I had an amazing time riding this spot.

 

Here is the video of the Raches kite festival by Adrenalini tv:

 
Back in Athens Fani and Angelos showed us the best places to eat and go out, when we were not visiting the usual touristics places like the Acropolis, located only a few hundred meters from where we were staying.

 

We are now in Pefki in North Evia on the west coast at Terry’s kite school: www.kitesguru.com .

 

The place here is amazing, Terry has set up a nice kite center right on the beach, he has the latest Ocean Rodeo gear, organises iko courses, gives kite lessons and is the coolest guy you can meet around here.

Together with his wife Angela he is running the school which benefits from a good 15 to 25 knots side on shore thermal wind every day.

You can kite right in front of the kite school or go downwind and ride a great flat water kite spot.

The water is warm and you won’t need any wetsuits now.

The hotel where we are staying is Irene’s studios, very clean and with a beautiful view it is a great place to stay while in Pefki. It is located maybe less than a kilometer from the kite center so it is ok to walk from there: www.irenestudios.gr

 

Greece is defenitely the summer destination, the food is great, the people are very friendly, the wind is here and there is no reason to worry about all the things the medias show you on TV about the riots or the crisis. Everything is fine and everyone is happy.

 

Regarding the kite ban you might have heard about in several forums, this is how it works. Here in Pefki you won’t have in troubles as the kite school of Terri allows kiters to kite in front without paying anything for sure.

If you want to kite in any other spots try to respect the areas, if you are on one of the main kite spots with other local riders and the coast guard come and stop you, stop for a while and see how the other riders act, usually they all wait the coast guard to leave and everyone get back on the water 20 minutes after… so nothing to worry about…. some cat and mouse game but nothing too bad.

The new law allowing everyone to kite again will be effective in a few days so you can start planing your next greek hollidays.

 

We are here in Terry’s kiteschool for the next 4 days. We will be heading to the cyclade islands next week for the next report 😉