While in Thessaloniki I managed to buy a book of maps for Europe (not a great scale) and the Lonely Planet (LP) for Mediterranean Europe (in English). LP doesn't cover all the countries I want eg Austria Switzerland Germany but does cover the Balkin countries Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia which I wanted. I may end up going through the top of Italy and France, both covered.
From Thessaloniki I rode to Meteora, an amazing place you all would have probably seen photo's of (or even seen in movies) it is where the magnificent late 14th century monasteries are perched atop enormous rocky pinnacles, it is one of Greece's most extraordinary sights (to quote LP). I agree it was absolutely stunning another highlight of my trip. I spent a few hours there before riding on to Monodendri a small village in the mountainous Zagoria region. It also just happens to be on my way to the Albanian border. The highlight here (actually there were two) is the Vikos Gorge with it's sheer limestone cliffs and it's (dry, being summer) river bed 1000 metres below another incredible sight.
The second highlight was the hotel I stayed in. Archontike Zarkada, with it's grey slate architecture was outstanding value (35Euro) for what I would class as 4 star so I decided to stay 2 nights. I had a lovely room with a balcony over looking the mountains, it was great, as was the food served in their restaurant. On the second day I got my walking boots out (first time) and went for a walk into the valley, very nice apart from the heat. I also meet a couple of nice Australians, it is possible... (brother & sister) and spent some time chatting with them in the evenings.
This came up in conversation.... It was observed that Turkish women tend to be a bit broad a beam (big bum to you) and the Greek women tend to be on the rather larger side in the breasts dept. Just to re-assure that it was not only the women we observed, we also commented on the fact that both Turkish and Greek men tend to be on the rather hairy side, actually quite an abundance of body hair it was noted.