Greek Infraspace

I discovered again yesterday that driving in rural Greece is a special experience, not at all comparable to any other roadastry.   Having learned to drive in the endlessness of Texas, then honing my intuition on the glorietas of Mexico City, I thought there wasn't much that could surprise me - until I started driving here in 2014.

(Don't worry, car rental agent, I did NOT drive this road.)

It isn't the improvisational flare of my fellow roadsters or the single-bed width of the village streets or the innocent twitching of the traffic lights that gets me.  It is the fact that distances between cities and villages are wildly miscalculated - based on a Western European technocrat's idea of how far things should be from one another.   Well, suck it, boys - I am here to depone: that satellite tells you one thing, experience another.

The nearest magnet town (can't be called a city really, with less than 200K people) is, by the map, about 100 kms from the coast.   60 miles. But go ahead, try to get there in an hour, I dare you.   And that is on the national highway.  When it comes to state roads --often 2-lane, shoulderless and switchbacky like your mother-in-law's monologues-- double your estimates.

Estuary of the Acheron River (Limni Gliki) 

Yesterday I drove toward the source of the Acheron River, which according to every map, was no more than 25 kms from here.  About 15 miles.  Leaving at noon, it was 1 p.m. before I even got to the prefecture, and still a good 10 kms away from the springs themselves.  Now, I did stop twice and take pictures, but that accounts for all of 10 minutes That's nine miles in 45 minutes (for you Amerikees), on a road with no traffic.  None.  

As I wrote last year, I have a theory that you have to measure Greek kilometers with some kind of toroidal, circular ruler. Yesterday, as I was gazing over the mountain gate to the Limni Gliki, it hit me, for every meter one expects to go forward, add another up or down. Or maybe up and down.

No, blasting tunnels through the Pindus Mountains doesn't seem to help.   Although they are lots of fun to race.