After four years of preparations, hard labour, disappointments and delays due to covid, the time had finally come to hit the road again! Before setting off on my previous missions, to Asia and Africa, I couldn’t sleep on the final night, not because I was anxious or stressed, but because I had so much to do until the very morning of my departure! This time though, the preparations had lasted so long that everything had been completed by the final evening. There was nothing more that had to be done and I even had time to go out and say my goodbyes to friends that I will probably not see again for several years…

On Sunday the 23^rd of July 2023, disregarding the civil protection messages about the heat wave, we got together, as per usual, at the White Tower of Thessaloniki for the final farewell. Relatives and friends had come not just from Thessaloniki, but all the way from Larisa, Athens, even from Patras! After opening the customary champagne that my friend Kostis brings on each one of my departures, we rode with Angeliki the ready-to-roll XR and set off to Pades along with Giorgos Grintelas, who also travels by motorbike.

The departure from Thessaloniki’s White Tower on July the 23^rd, 2023

We had spent two winters in Pades, a small mountain village, on the foothills of Mount Smolikas. Naturally, it holds a special place in our hearts and we spent two days there in order to recuperate from the struggles of the last months. After bidding our friends there goodbye, we set off to Igoumenitsa, where the van was waiting for us, in order to be loaded on the ship heading to Italy. By the evening of the same day we had arrived in Brindisi and our wheels were rolling on Italian ground!

The van, with the motorbike in its guts, is ready to embark on the ship to Italy!

I was not worried at all about the motorbike… After all these years, I know it like the back of my hand. We had done a lot of trials with the van, but the expedition had now begun and we were in a foreign country. My main worry was whether everything would work the way I had designed it to, whereas Angeliki was worried much more about whether she would be able to use all the equipment properly. Luckily, everything worked perfectly well, so as the days went by, our stress would decrease and our enthusiasm would increase, as we came to realise that all these years of work on the van didn’t go to waste!

Since the Middle Ages, the houses in Alberobello were being built with these domes (trulli), so that they could be disassembled in order to avoid the heavy taxation imposed by the Kingdom of Naples.

Both myself and Angeliki had visited the cities and tourist attractions of Italy before. This time round, we wanted to visit places that we hadn’t seen before. We started off in the picturesque Alberobello and the old town of Matera, prior to driving up the Apennine Mountains, Italy’s backbone. During this time, we cooled off the summer heat and discovered beautiful, isolated mountains! Our favourite spot was above the small town of Capistrello, on a green glade in the middle of a forest, which we liked so much that we stayed there for two nights!

One of our first stops in Italy was the old town of Matera, in South Italy.

We continued on on Tuscany’s rural roads and made it to the ancient spa town of Saturnia, in an otherworldly landscape! After a stop at the picturesque castle town of Cortona, it was time to descend the Appennines. We crossed the plains that were of little interest to us and headed towards the Alps, where we would spend two of the three weeks that we had at our disposal for the short European part of the trip.

The thermal springs of Saturnia are exactly how we like them: outdoors, free access 24/7, impressive scenery and lukewarm waters!

It was time to start the hiking! Although we were well into August, the Alps made us forget it was summer… At night, the temperature would drop down as low as 6^o Celsius and Angeliki kept saying how wise of a choice it was to install a cabin heater and a water heater in the van! The sceneries were beautiful, but packed with tourists. Thankfully, the 4×4 would allow us to get away from it all and spend quiet evenings in the mountains. It was clear that Europe is not our cup of tea, as we had to always keep in mind the various rules and laws that govern peoples’ lives in these countries. Italy, however, is very well organised for motorhomes and nearly every city has free facilities for them, so we never had to spend a night in a camping or a hostel. We spent every night in the van, since we had everything we needed in there. We had a toilet, hot water to shower, endless energy, our kitchen, our warm bed and whatever else we could think of!

Hiking on the Route of the 52 Tunnels that were constructed in 1917, during the First World War.

After visiting the beautiful, mountainous tax haven of Livigno, where we filled up with diesel for just 1.27 € per litre, we decided to enter Switzerland for a little bit, since it was next door. It was a good opportunity to visit a picturesque village that we missed during the winter of 2018, when we lived in Geneva for a few months. The village is called Guarda in the Romansh region of Switzerland, and it is full of restored houses with beautiful murals!

The Swiss village of Guarda is famous for the beautiful murals on its old houses.

Upon our return to Italy, we headed to Lake Como. The time had come to try out the Italian part of the Trans Euro Trail (TET), a largely off-road route, which has been designed for motorbikes! Riding an unloaded motorbike, which was unheard of in my past trips, I enjoyed amazing mountain routes and found myself in incredible places! Angeliki was, of course, driving the van on tarmac and we would reunite in the evenings.

While exploring the Trans Euro Trail on Italy’s mountains, I found myself in amazing places!

I was naturally dying for a flight on my paraglider on the Alps! At Mount Belice I had the chance to do so and flew for over an hour, reaching the clouds! The days were going by quickly and it was time to enter France… We chose the Colle dell’ Agnello Pass, at an altitude of 2,744 metres (9,003 ft), which I liked much more than the famous Stelvio Pass, since its curves are much more satisfying, there are barely any vehicles, the scenery is majestic and we even saw chamois!

It was time to see the Alps from above!

After a short wander around the French Alps, we made our way to Marseille, where we had to deliver the vehicles to the company that would ship them on a vessel to South America, to Uruguay. We loaded the motorbike in the van, which we dropped off at a warehouse, we signed a document and that was that. Carrying a backpack each, we took a bus to reach our hosts’ house, who would host us in Marseille for a night, before flying back to Greece. The vehicles would arrive to South America a month and a half later, so we would return to Greece for a month, before flying out to Buenos Aires.

Our vehicles with all our belongings in a container, to be shipped to Uruguay!

Don’t forget that you can see our correspondence from every place we visit on LiveTrips, while you can also follow our journey on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube!

This is the documentary about the beginnings of our adventure in Europe, on our way to the Americas (with English subtitles):