coffee, made to sit and talk while being served raki (take what’s left after grapes are pressed for wine and distill it —twice), brought cakes and cognac after we had paid for our meal, and generally overwhelmed with sincere kindness. It’s like being in the deep South squared, but everybody speaks Greek. If riders have a minor concern, it’s the


backroads pavement. Choose to venture deep into authentic Greece and there will be grooved shell grip at many apexes. There may be very little wildlife to hit and no bugs, but you will share the open-range road with goats, sheep and cattle. If you’re lucky, they’ll announce themselves with fresh droppings before you actually come up on them at speed. Thank Hermes, the god of travelers, for our R 1200 GS. Two up and fully loaded with gear, it handled as if it were stripped to the frame.


To the visiting eye, Greece seems to be


doing fine economically. Wi-fi is every- where, high-speed superhighways are avail- able and cafés are packed, but too many business buildings stand abandoned and the Greek debt crisis might be limiting the number of Mythos beers or caffe freddos the average person chooses to order. Because Greeks are self-respecting and proud, careful not to display any suffering, it’s impossible for the short-term visitor to get a complete read on the complex situa- tion. However, to a chronic worrier, the restrained approach is refreshingly upbeat. After our first long day of mountain rid-


ing, we found optimism personified in Christos and Georgia, who run Oixalia, a jewel-like hotel above Kremasta Lake, Greece’s largest man-made reservoir. Like many, Chris left home during the Junta, a coup d’état in 1967 followed by punishing


right-wing military rule until 1974. He landed in upstate New York, where he made pizza and became successful. When he returned to his beloved homeland, he put his life’s savings and a scary big loan into this new place in the mountains. The fuzzy future doesn’t faze him, and he says (in Brooklynese), “Doan wurry aboud it.” We were the only visitors — and some-


thing of a sensation — high above old town Kastoria in the stone village of Nymfaio, which could as easily be in Switzerland except that the European brown bear replaces the Saint Bernard as the featured animal. The wildlife group Arcturos cares for a dozen bruins, rehabilitating them after their mistreatment as Greek dancing bears, a remnant of a less enlightened day. When they arrive, the bears have never been allowed to experience hibernation. Arc- turos remedies that, providing man-made


We were invited into a Kastoria home to enjoy this view, coffee and conversation. The bear-rescue operation Arcturos and the stone village of Nymfaio are situated high in the mountains in the background.


June 2016 BMW OWNERS NEWS


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