Cycling Penteli mountain (Athens - GREECE)

I always wanted to be on the top of Penteli mountain when I see it from my balcony during sunset bathed in orange color. So yesterday when I saw the weather cleared I decided to go for it, cycling.

The route from Kifisia center its around 13km to the top, although its not much distance its a quite challenging ride as the uphill is pretty steep, especially once you hit the hairpins halfway to the top, I was checking many times the grade and it was mostly 10%!Due to lack of time to make it up and down before the light goes out I didn't manage to do sightseeing, there are some interesting spots to explore like a cave, a few churches and an abandoned quarry. Penteli is supposed to be the mountain where the marble used to build the Acropolis was extracted.Map by Google maps

 

Elevation chart, destination at 1.109 meters high
By Bike Route Toaster

 Penteli mountain looks like this from my balcony. It is situated northeast of Athens and its highest point, peak Pyrgari has an elevation of 1.109 meters. That peak was also my target destination.

 From Kifisia, once I left the houses behind I reached here which is the start of the road to take you up to the mountain

 Getting a bit closer to the mountain

 Slowly slowly the Athens landscape started to reveal itself

 Look what I found on the way up! This guy-gal was going downhill but as I approached changed his/her mind and started going uphill again :)

 Near the top, beautiful vista

 The highest peak and top of Penteli mountain with its small little church (which now has radio antennas) and the abandoned military radar base

 Beautiful vista on my way down

 Thats the way you have to go uphill to reach the top, many steep hairpins

 Made a stop to enjoy the view while the sun was going down

 One last stop for the view before going full downhill to manage to be out of the mountain before the twilight

Watched a beautiful sunset on my way down the mountain :)

All in all was a great ride. You need to be VERY careful on the way down as due to the steepness of the road you can go very fast, I reached 50km/h going downhill in no time, the condition of the road is not very good with many potholes which can easily give you an accident considering you are going down fast.

Totally recommended ride, I will be going back as well, no sunset this time but with more time in order to check on the sights :)