A Grecian Roadtrip

I know I said that I was not going to attempt to drive in Greece.  I did use the metro, tram, and ferry; however, my friend and I opted to rent a car to see the countryside.  So I rented a compact Kia (bright orange as to draw even more attention to my inept driving) to explore the beautiful coastal towns and the central region's mountainous landscape (and extremely curvy roads!).  The compact car with a manual transmission got very good mileage, which was a great benefit since gas cost about 1 euro or more for a liter (roughly about $4.50 a gallon- much more than prices here). 

After 3 days of navigating through roller coaster roads, wicked driving and speedy drivers, we made it back to Athens during a rush period on a Friday evening! The map we had didn't show all of the streets and some streets that were shown were actually designated solely for pedestrians.  Needless to say, our arrival time was further and further delayed as we drove up and down narrow, hilly streets getting more and more lost and further from our destination, Syntagma Square in the central part of the city. Tired from driving and anxious to avoid more near collisions with the constant onslaught of speedy mopeds and motorcycles, I stopped and took a deep breath.  A driver saw my deplorable expression and took pity, offering for us to follow him to downtown Athens. 

Ten minutes later we were back in the city, but still having difficulties locating our end destination (In my mind that haven was a dark parking garage with large spaces. There was no way I was going to even attempt parallel parking on a steep incline with half of the car straddled over a narrow sidewalk...)  because our guide sped away in hot pursuit of something more exciting.

So I pulled over and asked for directions yet again.  A friendly woman seemed eager to help.  I explained where I wanted to go and before giving instruction she walked to the front of the orange Kia and looked at the front end.  My first thought was that I bumped another car or a rock and had a huge dent!

After her inspection, she explained that our license plate ended in an odd number so it was our day to go into the central part of Athens.  Apparently, in order to combat some conjestion, cars with plates ending in even numbers are allowed into the central city every other day and plates ending in odd numbers are allowed on the other days.  Everyone can drive into the downtown area during the weekend. It seems to be a good way to get people to either combine trips or try public transportation when it isn't one of their allocated days to drive downtown. Would such a strategy work in the DC area?

Beside a few scares, my driving experience gave me a lot to think about.  It could have been much worse! For instance, at least there weren't any large SUV's on the road- only small compact cars and the very small smart cars.  But after three days of endless curvy roads and mountains, I was thankful to get on the city's coastal tram to go to the beach and relax.

Carly Nider, Arlington Transportation Partners

Comments

[FrugalTraveller]

In my experience, the more simple your means of travel, the more exciting and rewarding the entire trip will be. Nothing beats the classic roadtrip or backpacking tour to open up your eyes to the world.

[C4bl3Fl4m3]

I'm a big transit fan (read my writings on Richard Layman's blogs) but I'd have to say this even-odd license plate thing is ridiculous. Not to mention I doubt it would work here.

1.) We have too many tourists who wouldn't know the rules.

2.) We have too many delivery vehicles and other vehicles that have a reason to be there.

3.) What if, for some reason, you just need your car on a certain day?

I never like solutions that FORCE people to do anything because I know the way to win people over to transit's side is to make transit so appealing that it's better than taking your vehicle. You get more flies with honey than vinegar and all that jazz. Also, all this will cause is confusion, resentment and anger. Do you want to be the one who has to hear people complaining about how they couldn't drive downtown when they needed to?

Let's get people taking transit, but let's get them loving it instead of resenting having to do it.