'Cycling for champagne' in Athens

  The Greece-based cycling4wine initiative on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2011, organised the first-ever "Athens Champagne Ride", a bike ride from the all-marble Panathinaiko stadium in central Athens -- the venue for the first modern
Olympics in 1896 -- to the upscale coastal district of Glyfada and back to downtown Athens again and Lycabettus Hill. It was at the last stop, and with a view of the entire greater Athens area below, that cyclists opened champagne bottles and cut a traditional New Year's cake, known in Greece as "Vassilopita".





ANA-MPA / P. SAITAS.