I wasn’t sure what to expect from Greece: my vision of it having been formed by films like Shirley Valentine, and posters of Santorini. So the reality is somewhat to the left of centre as regards my expectations. Obviously, to start with it looks exactly like Albania (well, duh, I’m ten minutes across the border), but I can’t see a single white building with a domed roof and a blue doorway beneath a searing sun.
Frankly, I’m shocked. Where are the legendarily horny and handsome Greek waiters? Isn’t this the land of the holiday romance? Shouldn’t there be a Taverna on every corner? How come I travel for days and not once do I see a Bazouki player? Perhaps it’s just the difference between summer Greece and autumn Greece? Or between island and mainland Greece? Between Shirley sodding Valentine’s Greece and the bits that I found?
No. It’s that I’m looking for the wrong thing.
What makes this crumbly little corner of Europe special is the people – their generosity, helpfulness, and hospitality. Now, I am a smiley person, and Steve likes to talk to strangers (his preference veering strongly towards waiters and check-out girls), so we are used to a certain amount of reciprocal friendliness, but in Greece – well, this is on a whole new level.
As we’ve been driving all day like maniacs (to get away from the maniac drivers in Albania), we stop fairly soon after arriving in Greece. There’s a nice looking roadside restaurant with a massive, almost empty, car park in front. We pull in and asked if we can stay there for the night if we eat in the restaurant? Of course, no problem, come in, have a drink.
We eat the best meal we’ve had in ages, and learn how to say hello and a few other things, from a large family at the next table. They tell us the best food to order (the lamb chops, butchered on the premises). The son dashes over to a laptop on the counter and finds traditional Greek music for us to listen to (and, ok, he starts with the theme to Zorba the Greek, but that’s actually surreally good in the circumstances). The dad sends over a local dessert (on his bill) for us to try (grapes in syrup, nom nom) and then they invite us to their table and ply us with wine. Utter sweethearts.
In the morning I wake to a strange sound: outside is an enclosure full of turkeys, free-ranging it like anything. I take a picture and they all rush towards me thinking that I’ve come to feed them. I figure if we stay another day, it’s more likely the other way around. So I feel guilty and we leave.
As travellers on a budget, we can’t really afford to cover the distances we do and pay tolls on the roads. This leads to us taking the long way around most of the time. We don’t mind this as the view is usually better, and we get an intensified sense of how people really live in the countries we visit. It can really increase our driving time, though, especially if mountains are involved.
Consequently, it’s already dark (and we’re both tired, and totally bereft of all concentration and common sense) when Deirdre the Sat-Nav slut takes us down another wrong turn. She can be the most almighty cow at times. And that’s where we get stuck. When I say ‘we’ I mean Georgie (our American RV) gets stuck, all 34 feet of her, impaled on both sides by low walls as Steve tries to turn a corner.
A guy on a bicycle helps us for a bit, and then a chap on a motorbike arrives and takes charge. First he shoots off home to picks up his sister who can speak better English, and then he directs Steve (carefully, in reverse) off the walls, back up the road, around all the bins, and into a side lane to turn around.
He gets other blokes out of their houses and helping too. Then he and sis got on the bike, and lead us down other (larger) roads until we are back on the main road again. Says it is his pleasure to help us.
In Patras we find a little restaurant called Labyrinthos, which sounds properly traditional – no more schnitzel for me! The waiter suggests the baby goat cooked slowly in olive oil and oregano, which is so good I want to marry it and have its babies.
His mother is the cook and uses old family recipes – Labyrinthos was started by his grandfather. He spends ages showing us all the places in the Peloponnese that we should visit, and gives us a free dessert and a home-made liquor.
A few weeks later we fetch up at ancient Corinth. Lots of ruins, and an incredibly hard to say Isthmus. Same story, though – people going out of their way to help us. At Corinth we’re unable to find the campsite as Deirdre is sulking and telling us we are already there, which is sat-nav for ‘Bog off, I’m tired’. And the road signs are less than helpful. So we park in a big car park and head off to find it on foot.
An old chap is nearby, so Steve points to Georgie and half-mimes, ‘is it ok for us to park here? Will we get in trouble with the police?’ At the word ‘police’ the guy bursts out laughing.
‘Where you from?’ he says.
‘England.’
‘Well, this is Greece.’
Then he takes us to see his mate at a local restaurant; does he know where the campsite is? No, but he knows who might, and then all the guys in the restaurant get up, race over the road, and accost an old fella doing his shopping. He’s the campsite owner (yay) but he only wants to speak to us in French (he isn’t French).
We collect the car, and follow him to the site on his beaten-up old motorbike. He also has a beaten-up old face – with stitches. I wonder if the two are connected and if he’s recently driven in Albania. At the site we meet another chap (German, I think) who offers to show us a better route, and says he’ll come and fetch us the next day at 9 o’clock and lead the way.
We go to the restaurant that we’d been led to earlier and have the world’s best kebab. The owner then gives us a mountain of free stuff – bread, olives (from his tree), coffee, and a plate of mandarin oranges. Lots of very warm handshakes. And then he runs up after us as we stagger down the hill to the car park, as Steve has left his car keys on the table.
The next day he sees Steve in the street and gives him a whole bag of oranges. If we stay in Greece much longer we reckon we’ll start getting entire meals for free. The next day, a couple staying in the hotel behind the car park give us the wifi code from the hotel.
Apart from the people, ancient Corinth is great. Loads of it is still standing, including an almost complete street, with the outlines of shops on either side.
The museum houses some nice things too, including these chaps caught practicing their moves from The Full Monty.
The Corinth canal is worth a quick look, too. Here it is, just before we drive over it multiple times, because Deirdre kept wanting to take us to a non-existent bridge. She gets a bit bride-of-Chucky from time to time.
. . . . . . . . . .
And that was it for our stay in Corinth. Now we needed to find somewhere to spend Christmas.
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