The end of the road - Part 3 (The Peloponnese)

We picked up our Fiat Panda at the port in Piraeus (Athens' port) from Budget, chosen mainly due to its very conveninet location close to the cruiseship terminal. 

The agent explained that a service to drive you out or in of Athens/Pireaeus was available at 15 euros per direction. Having taken a cab to the port originally through Piraeus' warren of one-way unlabelled streets, I understood why this service was offered, or could be useful. We did have a GPS but couldn’t get it work for us. It seemed to fail to recognize any destination outside of the Athens prefecture.

'STOP' signs re larger than they are here but don't mean what we North Americans think. I found that out very soon after picking up the car and coming to a complete stop at the first sign, only have several cars start honking at me. Apparently 'stop' here only means yield.

Penalties for traffic violations are stiff - I was told 1500 euros for running a red light. Driving through Kalamata I noticed that many overhead traffic signals at minor intersections were not operating that morning. A while later, I noticed that while some overhead traffic lights weren't working, other lights barely 6 feet off the ground and way over to the right next to the sidewalk were working ... !  I don't think I ran through any red lights - I may find out if I get a summons in the mail.

Drivers in Greece do not turn on their headlights during the day. For our own safety, I chose to turn ours on especially as we drove thru some small settlements where the space between 2 buildings (on the main road) allowed for only one car to pass through at a time

Speed limit signs are posted regularly throughout the eastern and central Peloponnese. However I discovered that there were very few 'resume speed' signs; not being keen on paying fines, this meant I went much slower than necessary much of the time. Apparently it's ok to resume speed as soon as you are past a settlement - just hope you don't make that judgement at the wrong place. I encountered very little police presence on the roads.  In the Mani, I saw virtually no speed signs whatsoever - perhaps due to the recognized fiercely independent nature of Maniots.

In spite of beautiful scenery enountered all over the Pelopennese, there are very few places where you can stop and take a quality picture. Many of mine are simply shot while moving, with loss of quality

Beautiful flowering shrubs and bushes everywhere. Offset occasionally by a garbage dump alongside the main road

There are virtually no public WCs outside of Athens. This made the day-long drives uncomfortable at times

There are many small (size of a rural mail box) roadside chapels throughout. The ones in the south were beautifully made and kept; those near Mycenae were rusted and smashed.

There was a wide variety of plant life, even in the same location - confers mixed with deciduous, olive groves, a tall cypress, palms, bougainvillias

Outside of  Athens, you are requested not to put anything in the toilets, including any paper products. I found bathroom tissue everywhere we traveled in Greece to be of good quality; none of that waxy stuff we sometimes get in public places here in N.A.

Children:  Syntagma Square in Nafplio is ringed with restaurants, much like Piazza Navona in Rome only smaller. While we had supper, a dozens of kids were playing soccer, riding scooters, playing games etc. – many of their parents were having supper along with us. It was a heart-warming family scene.

Oh the times when I wished my camera had been ready while driving the Mani.
- a ‘rickshaw’ contraption containing an older couple being pulled by what looked like a self-propelled lawn mower
- a John Deere tractor driven by a middle-aged man pulling a wagon with wooden slats on which his elderly folks were sitting on dining room chairs
- a Holstein cow emerging from a sidestreet in a village seemingly looking at the road behind us to see if it was safe to cross
- a tourist from the land of indifferent/rude waiters descending a tour bus at Mycenae and looking at our car (unaware of being observed) and saying “Hunh, Fiat … and then hunh, Bood-jet” – the irony of him being on public transportation not being obvious to him in his snobby attitude
- my face as all of a sudden I found myself slaloming our car thru café tables on the main street in Aeropoli.

The Greek alphabet. The time I spent studying it before going to Greece (in spite of bringing back painful memories of trigonometry) was worth the effort. One can get away with English only even in the Mani but English signs are sometimes few and far between, and often much later than the Greek ones.  Knowing sooner rather than later was quite comforting and helped to minimize stress while driving.

Seeing the graves of Castor and Pollux near Kardamyli.  Who knew you could actually see the graves of the stars of a major constellation?

Finally, two thumbs up for our Garmin GPS. It guided us back thru the gnarly, unmarked streets of Piraeus to the Budget office like a hot knife cutting thru butter. The Budget agent seemed happy, and pleasantly surprised, to see us. 

Thank you, Greece!