Wacky Races European Edition
Driving in Greece
I just returned home after spending over two weeks in Greece with my family. We traveled to six different locations, mostly on the Peloponnese mainland, and even threw in a few islands to boot. To facilitate this indulgent and complicated itinerary, we had no choice but to rent a vehicle capable of accommodating five adults, one child, and five suitcases. And it had to be automatic. Behold the Mercedes Vito Tourer. 9-seater. Extra Long Edition.
In the U.S., the 9-seat Mercedes Vito Tourer is not much bigger than a large SUV, like a Chevy Yukon XL, which I have rented before and, although pretty damned big, has always been returned unscathed. Because in the U.S., there are things like highways and parking lots and other drivers on the road who grew up believing in concepts like the rule of law, the social contract, and the sanctity of human life. In Greece, driving a Mercedes Vito Tourer Extra Long is like showing up with an 18-wheeler at a bumper car ride at the town fair.
My wife’s family is from Greece, so we have been there a number of times. I can state with confidence that vacationing in Greece with your own car is truly a magical experience. For the passengers. For the driver, especially an American raised believing in concepts like the rule of law, the social contract, and the sanctity of human life, it is an ordeal. It is safe to say that two weeks driving in Greece has taken years off the end of my life. Since I am writing this, you already know a little something of how this story ends. You know at least that I didn’t die. But keep reading.
When one first sits behind the wheel of the 9-seat Mercedes Vito Tourer Extra Long automatic, you might notice something immediately. There is no rear-view camera. I don’t remember the last time I drove a vehicle, any vehicle, without a rear view camera. Even the shittiest car off the factory floor has a rear view camera nowadays—heck I’m pretty sure Big Wheels have them—so I’m not sure why this gigantic vehicle that really really needs one does not, but not to worry. My sons assured me, “no problem, Dad, it has sensors that will beep if you get too close to something.” Oddly, this did little to quell my anxieties. My wife said that she was convinced I was going to “kill us all,” which did even less to quell my anxieties.
When you sit behind the wheel, turn the key, and start barreling down the road, you quickly realize that there are certain hazards built into the fabric of the roadways in Greece. First, imagine if the roads for an entire country were designed and built to great satisfaction, and then someone asked the question, “what if cars wanted to go in the opposite direction?” That perfectly describes virtually every road in Greece. Each one would be sufficient as a one-way street, but most of them are intended to be used by cars in both directions. These narrow roads are most ridiculous when driving through towns, although my personal favorite was the bridge that could only fit one car at a time. But by far the most complicated and treacherous by-product of this network of narrow roads is the experience of driving across mountains.
Maybe it was just where we were in the Peloponnese, but man, were there mountains. Mountains are lovely to look at—from outside the car. And I’m sure there are great views from the backseat. From the driver’s seat, however, all you experience are the voids, the endless skies right in front of you, except you’re not flying a plane, you’re driving a car. There are no barriers preventing an accidental or intentional Thelma and/or Louise situation, just turns, largely blind turns, and more turns. (But that’s okay, because as one local told me, just “Beep Beep” when heading into a blind turn and you won’t crash into another car coming the other way. Can you believe I was ever worried in the first place?) But what happens when two cars meet up on the side of a mountain, one going up and one going down? The mere possibility of it instills a constant state of abject terror, like a ventriloquist doll sitting with a knife in the passenger seat. In that situation, one car will just need to back up until the other car has enough room to pass. Hey, did I mention that there was no rear view camera on the Mercedes Vito Tourer?
The most unsettling thing about driving up and down mountains are the ubiquitous makeshift memorials situated seemingly around every hairpin turn. Crosses, miniature churches, flowers, each marking the spot where somebody met their untimely demise. This serves as a constant reminder that you’re probably going to drive off the mountain as well—the only question is when. Although these shrines are poignant and meaningful, my vote would be to put guardrails there instead.
What about navigation? Happily, Google Maps was pretty reliable throughout the country, but it took me a few days to figure out a key feature. Pop quiz. When travelling in the Greek countryside, which route should you choose, the one that takes two hours to go 158 kilometers or the one that takes you one hour and 44 minutes to go 76 kilometers?
Answer: unless your name is Evel Knievel, just leave your house 16 minutes earlier. In the absence of a GPS feature set to Maximize Life, you’re going to have to use your best visual judgement when peering at your phone.
Another constant hazard was the slow moving vehicles. The vast majority of any long drive through Greece will take place on two lane highways, one lane in each direction. Your ability to traverse the distance on those roads depends entirely on the number of slow moving vehicles on your particular road on that particular day. Tractors pulling hay. Tractors hauling produce. An occasional cement truck. Sometimes just a random flock of sheep. We encountered them all. Why are they hazards? Because everyone has to pass them, and pass them as fast as humanly possible. You see, all Greek drivers are in an insane rush and absolutely positively need to get past you. They all seemingly have diarrhea at the same time. When it comes to passing a slow moving vehicle, eventually it will be your turn. So, if you want to, for example, get to the port on time to catch a ferry, you will need to pass that tractor hauling tomatoes. (Why are there so many god damned tomatoes? Are they an invasive species here?) While there are certainly driving hazards in New York City, colorful and myriad dangers, I am admittedly unaccustomed to speeding up to play chicken with oncoming traffic, which in Greece one must do multiple times on any given drive over twenty minutes.
Another unique feature of driving in Greece is the parking. It’s not quite as life or death as driving on the sides of mountains, but it is equally stupid. My family had a running joke that I always parked at least a football field’s length from wherever we had to go. Ha ha. Except every time it was a minor miracle that I was able to safely place that beast of a vehicle so close to our destination in the first place, because there are no parking lots in Greece. Everyone puts their car wherever the fuck they want. Oh, am I blocking you in? Fuck you, malaka. That’s your fault. The only places to park always seem to be single file along the side of a mountain. Or how about in the middle of the road? Rule of thumb for Greeks: if a car can go there, it can stay there.
With all these hazards built into the system, something remarkable started to happen. As the days passed and we drove everywhere, these just became a normal part of everyday life. It was a very small price to pay for the beauty, specifically for the privilege of experiencing that beauty not as a bystander, but from the inside. What was ridiculous at first, don’t get me wrong, remained ridiculous, but somehow became an accepted reality, happily accepted, not as a bug but as a feature. It is the bargain you strike when you want to live like a Greek in Greece. It might very well be the case that the most Greek thing one can possibly do is drive in Greece.
As the days passed, the other running joke in my family was that the more I drove, the more I started to metamorphize into an old Greek man. I started to drink straight Ouzo at dinner. I even started drinking Greek coffee, one of the more odious beverage choices imaginable, taste’s bad AND there’s mud at the bottom of your cup! Even my eyebrow hairs started to go off in crazy directions. After a week, I was the guy angrily passing other motorists who were too timid to pass a tractor hauling eggplants around a blind turn. “Ade re, Malaka!”
It was at the two week milestone of our trip that we had to drive across the Peloponnese to catch a ferry to Zakynthos, a good three-and-a-half hour drive. Using my newly honed military skills, I bypassed multiple tomato-hauling vehicles and got the family to the port with time to spare, enough time to pick up a Greek coffee, and some tiropitas. Brimming with confidence, I skillfully loaded the Vito Tourer onto the ferry, backing up into a tight space while an impatient Greek ferry employee was guiding me, turn left, then right, then LEFT, then RIGHT! When I was done, I was three inches from the other cars all on four sides, exactly as the ferry people directed.
When the ferry finally reached the island, after experiencing the controlled chaos of every driver waiting to have enough room to open the door to their vehicle, I drove off the boat, gathered my family, and we made our way to our final destination, an actual nice hotel (we had been mostly staying in Airbnb’s and the family house so far on the trip). After quickly realizing that even the islands were mountainous death traps, we reached the hotel, unloaded the luggage, and I felt at that moment that I probably had had enough. I proclaimed to my family that for the remaining days of the trip, “I would be drinking at the hotel and not driving anywhere.” And I meant it. We ate a fantastic dinner at the hotel that night, drank like fishes, and slept in the next morning.
What happened next was inexplicable. Still is. By mid-day I started to get antsy. The hotel was really nice, but maybe there was one more trek afoot, maybe into town? One more excursion. One more day with Dad behind the wheel. One more bone-headed attempt to park an 18-wheeler on the side of a mountain. Like the grizzled bomb defusing soldier in The Hurt Locker, I was itching for one more tour of duty. This drinking in the hotel business wasn’t going to fly. I needed my real fix.
My family was agnostic. They didn’t care whether I was driving or whether we were paying for a taxi. But I cared. I was the cop one day from retirement, with some unfinished business. I was Robert Duvall in Falling Down and Michael Douglas was still out there raising hell. Just one more drive.
So we packed into the 9-seat Mercedes Vito Tourer and headed off towards the port town. Predictably I parked in a completely reasonable location and predictably my family made fun of me. We visited the island’s landmark church, saw the relics, bought souvenirs, even randomly ran into a guy we went to high school with in Brooklyn (because only the Greek Americans go to church, not the locals). We had a nice dinner, walked along the water, ate ice cream, and it was soon time to drive home. By this point in the evening, the town was a zoo, jammed with people and cars and motorbikes all itching to claim the perfect parking spot I had secured hours earlier.
We got into the car and headed off towards the hotel, this time on Friday night during the mad bacchanal commonplace on the Greek islands. As always, we dodged speeders, drunk-drivers, motorbikes, random pedestrians, stray dogs, the busses and trucks that always seem to be barreling down in the opposite direction—Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome—blind turns up mountains, blind turns down mountains, surprise road work, no lights, and yet, almost magically, we returned back the hotel, family and vehicle unscathed. I was ready for my gold watch.
Since it was late, and this was Greece, the tired valets directed us to find a spot and park in the back parking area (park it yourself, malaka). It was dark. There was one spot left. But by this point, I was a pro. I maneuvered the car and started effortlessly backing into the spot, a perfect distance on both right and left. And then one of the most shocking things that ever happened to me in my life happened. It wasn’t the worst, it wasn’t even that big a deal on retrospect, but it was a complete and utter surprise.
It all happened in slow motion, audio only. A creaking, followed by a popping, followed by what sounded like the end of a Jenga game, the crumbling sound of falling blocks. There were other sounds as well, for example, my son next to me saying, “you’re good, you're good . . .”, and my wife saying the opposite, “Stop!” but there was one sound no one heard. Beeping. You know, the “you don’t have a rear camera and the car is going to hit something” beeping. Because there was none. It was also particularly shocking because I was only halfway into the spot. It made no sense.
I got out of the car to see what happened, and that’s when I saw the broken glass from the shattered back windshield. And the branch of the olive tree, furtively jutting out into the parking space, just high enough to puncture the back windshield of a 9-seat Mercedes Vito Tourer Extra Long. I beheld the damage. No one said anything. I slammed my car door and more glass fell. This time my kids let out a few involuntary laughs. I quietly got back into the car and moved it to a spot that wasn’t even a spot, perhaps the most authentically Greek thing I did the entire trip.
We got back to the room and no one said a word for five minutes.
And then we all burst out laughing.
Postscript.
The next day, I alerted the rental car agency about what happened. The man on the other end of the phone initially thought I was calling from the hospital. He seemed genuinely surprised that I wasn’t there by now.
When the gentleman came to pick up the car, his method for securing the vehicle was not particularly scientific. He showed up with duct tape and a garbage bag. Seems as if the people in Greece employ the same high tech methods as the people in Brooklyn.
At the end of the day, after two plus weeks in a strange and savage land, I had managed to take a perfectly good passenger-transporting vehicle and turn it into a ramshackle clown car. It was like surviving a war and shooting your dick off on the ride home. But at least it gave my family our favorite photo from the whole trip.
Stay hard bro!