We split our Greece vacation up into two parts; Santorini, and the mainland. While it’s tempting to spend 10 days on an island as beautiful as Santorini, we also wanted to get a look at Athens, Meteora and Lefkada, as well as some of the countryside in between. As such, for the second part we rented a car and hit the road!
As much as I hate driving, the back country of Greece is a great trip; the red clays of the soil and lime greens of the olive groves combine to produce a scenery very unlike anywhere else I’ve been. The final leg followed the Ionian coastline, an amazing drive that has the sea on one side, and mountains on the other. Driving also enabled us to go through some nice villages, and see things you wouldn’t find in a city. At one point, traffic was forced to stop while a shepherd drove his flock of sheep across the road; another time we had to slow down to avoid an old lady leading her pack mule through a village! From honey stands on the side of the road, to cool villages that public transportation simply doesn‘t reach, Greece is a great country to drive through.
That said, the driving in Greece is on the one hand awesome, and on the other hand terrifying. Take a normal 2-lane road (1-lane on each side). In most countries, this means that you have one line of cars going each way, right? Well, in Greece, that’s just not enough, so they pretend the shoulder is actually a lane in and of itself, thereby making the road 4 lanes. Even mac trucks follow this logic, and at high speeds, you wonder if it’s really as safe as the Greeks seem to believe. That said, I picked up on this habit very quickly, and I’m not sure if I can go back to the wussy “driving in the correct lane” mentality that the rest of the world employs.
One thing that really struck us about Greece was the friendliness of the locals. Maybe it’s because we were slightly out of tourist season, but everyone we s
aw was friendly and eager to make conversation. For instance, we spoke at length with one of the ladies who ran our hotel in Meteora, who explained that the reason their homemade morello cherry jam was so amazing was that “it was made with love”. Another conversation brought us to the understanding that in Greece, my name would be “Andreas”. I replied, “in the US, that would be a girl’s name”, to which our host responded, “see, our countries aren’t so different”. Everyone, though, went nuts over Sophia’s Greek name, and thought she would make an excellent Grecian goddess, or at the very least a solid nymph.
Our first stop was at Meteora. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Meteora is one of those places that seems lost in time. Basically, a long time ago a bunch of monks wanted to get away from civilization, and so they climbed up into these oddly-shaped cliffs and built monasteries. Check the pictures to get a sense of how crazy this must have been. I thought Meteora was one of the coolest places ever, although if you don’t like monasteries on cliffs, then you might disagree.
We also hit the area around Lefkada, which is Greece’s beach country. Greece’s beaches (at least the ones we went to) are absurdly beautiful, in a unique way. While I generally consider a long stretch of white sand to be the pinnacle of a perfect beach, Greece adds on to that by putting a giant cliff right behind the sand. The result is you have some spectacular spots, which are secluded and private. The sand is also different – much like Santorini, it’s made up of tons of tiny rocks, so while it feels very similar to regular sand, it doesn’t stick to you quite as much. This makes for great beach-laying, and combined with the scenery and lack of people, the beaches are easily among the best we’ve seen.
The only downside to going cross-country through Greece is that the food is so cheap in the rural areas, that you feel obligated to eat Greek food every day. Don’t get me wrong – Greek food is great. Olives, feta cheese, lamb, kabobs, etc. – these are all wonderful dishes, and I highly recommend trying out a Greek restaurant if you haven’t in the past. However, as much as I like a good lamb kabob, to eat them multiple times that many days in a row is kind of, well, sickening. However, at seven euros for a main course, we were pretty much forced to order two or three each at every meal! We tried to mix it up every now and then with something like moussaka, but in the end, the lamb was good and you kind of felt like you were cheating yourself if you got anything different. At one small village, we even found a 1.50 euro kabob – that’s like practically free! And it happened to be probably the best kabob ever.
One thing you can have for every meal, though, is the Greek
coffee. What makes it “Greek coffee” is that the grounds are actually served in the cup when you drink it; scary at first, but once you get past that, it’s awesome. Best thing to come out of Europe since capitalism (although depending on what happens in the markets over the next couple of months, it might surpass even that!)
Finally, we made it to Athens to spend our final day. I’m not going to talk too much about Athens because it was kind of a letdown. Don’t get me wrong – the Acropolis was pretty cool, and there’s a lot of culture there. It’s just that the city seemed almost colorless, and the ancient ruins, while archeologically important, clashed with the city that has sprung up around them. That said, we still had fun walking around, and it’s definitely worth a day of your time – it’s just that rural Greece was so awesome that Athens paled in comparison.
In summary – Greece is an awesome country, and warrants a good two weeks of traveling. With that, I’ll leave you with a few stats from the trip:
# of pictures taken: 901
# of dishes eaten with lamb in them, per person: 9
# of times we stopped on the side of the road to buy something from a farmer: 5
# of Greek coffees I had: 28
# of times the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” was uttered: 15
# of times I yelled “This…is…Sparta!!!”, before kicking something: not enough
Next: Munich!
As much as I hate driving, the back country of 
aw was friendly and eager to make conversation. For instance, we spoke at length with one of the ladies who ran our hotel in Meteora, who explained that the reason their homemade morello cherry jam was so amazing was that “it was made with love”. Another conversation brought us to the understanding that in 
We also hit the area around Lefkada, which is 
coffee. What makes it “Greek coffee” is that the grounds are actually served in the cup when you drink it; scary at first, but once you get past that, it’s awesome. Best thing to come out of 
In summary – 