Greek Driving

The drive out of Thessaloniki was pretty tedious. Although we had one less body, leaving Christopher off and allowing Grandma to get up in the front and the kids to have some stretching room in the back, it's almost as if the extra freedom goes to Basil's head. He was like a little monster through part of the drive, aggravating his sister, generally misbehaving and causing everyone grief.

We took the National Road which is beautiful to drive. It is a great road, easy, well-laid, quite straight. Driving partially along the coastline, we began to climb a little and went through another series of tunnels, but nothing like the huge series we came down from Meteora through. Still, seeing these wide, well-lighted tunnels through the mountainside is quite impressive. Highway driving is also much easier than city driving, of course. Besides not having all the congestion, the only thing that breaks your motion is the occasional toll booth.

In the cities, what I found challenging (besides the other drivers!) was the lack of consistency with road signs. When a stoplight or stop sign popped up, it always surprised me, unless it was a very major thoroughfare. Most of the streets were small and it seemed pretty random to me when they had a stop posted.

When there is a stoplight, you also have to stop well back from what we are used to in the States. There's no line on the road. But even after almost 2 weeks of driving, I still pull up too far at lights, the unfortunate consequence being that you cannot see the light anymore!! They are all on the street, not overhead, and if you pull up to what I think of as the beginning of the intersection, it's too far. Emma has gotten good at looking for the light change, as she's usually the one able to see it. The up side is that in Greece it only takes seconds for those behind you to lean on their horns and let you know the light has changed. So we've gotten by alright.

The conclusion I've come to about driving in Greece is that it's a whole different set of skills one must acquire. But if you do acquire them, it actually works pretty well. Poor Grandma has not as easily adapted to nor appreciated these "skills", and being in the front seat is perhaps an additional trial rather than a blessing for her. But I've rather come to like Greek driving.

Most everyone drives a stick shift here, which gives one more control, particularly over faster acceleration. This enhances the ability to dart around in between other cars, around corners, and to take advantage of the straight shot by accellerating very quickly. People here also drive very small cars. In fact, I've seen few cars in America this size. I remember the old Honda Rabbits, I think they were, but most of even our "compact" cars are much sturdier and larger than what most people drive here. This certainly does make it easier to squeeze down a narrow road between cars parked on both sides of the street (and sidewalks).

So driving in Greece is just much more interesting in the towns. You have to always be aware of people around you -- both other drivers, pedestrians, and the ubiquitous motorcyclists, that fly through the streets like little sparrows, darting back and forth, never stopping in one place or going in one direction very long. It's rather amazing to watch them at a stoplight on a busy road. With all the cars stopped, the motorcycles all snake up around them until you have this glut of shiny chrome and bare legs all around you, kind of like silt piling up at a river's delta. When the light changes, they are all off, zipping forward and fanning out into the empty concrete ahead.

The one thing I would probably change or improve, however, is the street signs. We have probably spent hours on our trip, if you tally it all up, trying to figure out where we are. A large part of this is the lack of street signs. Even in big towns like Athens and Thessaloniki, you don't have signs posted on street corners (or, very rarely). Rather, you have to look at the corners of the corner buildings to see the street name, and it is small white letters on a blue background in Greek and sometimes the English version is in gold (harder to see!). It's impossible for me to read from the road as we're passing by. My only hope is to have a stoplight where I have the leisure to sound out the little Greek letters to see where we are. And the larger roads sometimes have signage for the area you are going to, but not the name of the street, when a larger street splits in different directions. This has gotten us going wrong many times.

Oh, and lines on the road? I've learned that they are simply mere suggestions, not rules, as they are in America. This drives Grandma crazy, as does people opening car doors into traffic. But the thing I've come to appreciate, is that all the drivers know that the lines are not much more than suggestions, and they fully appreciate the actuality of a body in motion. In other words, if you go over the line separating you from oncoming traffic because someone has opened his door or parked his car on your side of the road, the oncoming driver will notice this and swerve over. It may not be pretty, but it works. And I think it's kind of fun. But I don't think Grandma will ever be a believer.