How does driving on Crete compare with driving in the Peloponnese?

The areas where I've driven in Greece (including Meteora and Thessaloniki) had cities named in both alphabets. That made the directional signs a little longer to read (so don't speed past), but I could read them.

How much of a problem will I have going from Ermioni, to Epidaurus, to Nafplio, to Corinth, to Mycenae, to Olympia, to Delphi, to Meteora, to Thessaloniki?

No problems at all along your route. Some legs are (new) motorways, the rest is decent highways: thanks to EU subsidies, Greece isn't the country of bad crooky roads any more. Traffic in Thessaloniki, however, is very dense. Any road signs in Greek usually are followed by others with Latin characters 50 or 100m after.

A bigger task might be to find a rental company that rents out it's cars to people over 75 yo (I will pick up a car from Enterprise at Athens airport tomorrow and the voucher says they don't). Hope you will find one.

You have an excellent itinerary planned! The only difference from our first trip to Greece is that we disn’t visit Thessaloniki. Yes, rent a car for the Peloponneasean. The only more difficult driving I recall in the Peloponnesean was twisting mountain roads from Sparti to Olympia via Kalamata, that bad part being between Sparti and Kalamata. If you have sriven in the Rockies, it is similar.
In Crete, we got off into the mountains returning to Chania from Elafonisi; we had driven there along the coast. The main hazard was watching for goats in the road. We also drove through the mountains driving from Chania to Chora Skafion to get the ferry to Loutro which I highly recommend doing for a night. In Greece, you are never far from the mountains or the sea.

Thank you. I really appreciate the information. I have rented a car in Crete and they are aware that I am 77. I was told that the only requirement in Greece is that you have an International Driving Permit? It would put a crimp in my plans when I get there if this is not true. I have driven through the Rockies, drove to Alaska and back, driven in Germany, Italy, France, England, Scotland, et al. Thessaloniki can't be worse than NYC or Chicago or LA hopefully. I had no trouble in Rome or Paris; but though I am linguistically challenged, I could read the alphabet.

Efashing, NO problem w driving in the Peloponnese OR in Crete. Regarding the Language -- outside the cities the main roads ALL have signs in ENGLISH as well as greek. FIrst you see the Greek sign.... then about 200 yards on, you see the sign in English. The one thing to be wary of is, don't expect 1-2-3 signs before the turn-off. In the USA, road-engineers cater to the attention-deficit driver... our signs remind and remind and remind "exit in one mile, " "exit in half-mile" "exit in 700 yards." In Greece they tell you ONCE, so be on he alert. Just take your time, so you can react in time. Also, sometimes locals pass you going very fast, and they take the middle of the road, so don't challenge them, just slide to the side half-on the paved shoulder while they whiz ahead.

The other thing about Peloponnese is, there are major routes to get places that go through valleys, no desperate mountain switchbacks unless you deliberately choose them. This map (click to enlarge) not only shows all routes & indicates relative sizes of them -- http://euro-map.com/karty-grecii/peloponnes/podrobnaya-turisticheskaya-karta-peloponnesa.jpg -- it also shows the terrain so you can avoid mountain routes for he most part. NOTE: don't count on just GPS, buy a good Map (the "Road" brand should be available in Airport newsshop) ... GPS can mislead -- for example there could be 4 towns named "Episcopi" in Peloponnese alone! -- so you need a paper map to cross-check.

to rent a car you need your own drivers license plus the International Drivers Permit. It is against the law to rent a vehicle without both.

Thats so right stanbr ... the last time I had folks along with me to greece, 2 of them were to get IDPs and they did ... but when I said in athens, of course you have your own license in addition, one of my friend's face turned completely red ... she said OMG, I took it out of my billfold and said, "won't need THIS" and left it on my bureau. Luckily friend Judy said, no problem I looove to drive. But yes.

I actually think it is an easy mistake to make so good to keep reminding people. I told all people in my family who got international drivers’ licenses to bring their state issued ones as well. And no one said, well of course. I have no doubt someone would have assumed that the international drivers license was a substitute for their state issued one!

Beth

In mainland Greece, we only drove from Athens to Napflio, and in that area. The highways and other roads were quite fine. In all it seemed on par with other countries we've driven in, particularly Spain. I'd say it was a level less in difficulty comparing that with Crete, although in Crete we drove through more rural areas while in Greece we were on tourist routes for the most part. By navigating with a GPS you're not relying on the road signs so much; the road signs become more like confirmation for where to turn or that you're still on the correct route. All tourist destinations were also signed in English. BTW when we picked up the rental car in Crete we could not figure out how to get the car-based one to work, and neither could the rental agent, so we were glad we had our own on-phone navigation. I've used the Here app for several trips. It allows you to download the entire country map and navigate with no internet access. We did end up returning a rental car in Athens and that was terrible. I chose what I thought was a suburban rental office, and it was still terrible due to crazy late evening traffic. If I were returning a car in Athens area I would return it to the airport.

My husband commented that happily there were no tight squeeze scenarios in our week driving in Crete, e.g. we did not have to retract the side mirrors to get past a narrow spot, or lighten the car (everyone, everything out) to negotiate exiting a parking garage. We did structure the trip so that we didn't drive in either Heraklio or Chania : ) IMO it's best to stay on the main roads in Crete; don't take that short cut that looks oh-so-promising if it puts you on the most minor roads on the map, unless you are not concerned with trip time. As I read somewhere else, a short cut in Crete usually isn't one. On secondary roads you'll sometimes find hairpin curves, blind curves which are not quite two car widths, heights with no guard rails, animals in the road (many), fallen rock in the road, etc. We tried to do as the other drivers did, e.g. a tap on the horn on a narrow blind curve. It sounds like you are an experienced and confident driver, so you should be fine. My husband actually enjoyed the driving there. It is a very beautiful country.

I went from Athens to Nafplio, day tripping to Epidavros, Mycene, and Corinth, then to Ermioni to return the car and board a ferry. No trouble whatsoever. Roads were well maintained and wide enough (some highways, some normal 2 lane roads). There were a few twisty roads but nothing out of the ordinary. Signs were in English as well as Greek. I navigated with Google Maps and everything went well. Overall a very easy experience. I'm comparing this to driving in Sicily, which was doable but quite a bit more intense!

I truly appreciate all of the information! Thank you.

BTW after re-reading Janet's post about sticking to non-mountainous routes, I would say that applies to Crete as well and is very good advice to help stay clear of some of the most challenging/bothersome/white knuckle (depending on your perspective) drives. The GPS will happily route you into the mountains since it's mostly concerned with trip time and KMs, so having a map that shows elevations will probably be helpful in route planning.

In case you find additional detail helpful.. the highway between Heraklio and Chania is an easy drive, although somehow we were always there in the evenings. During those times traffic was light. At times it reminded us of the driving down the California coast in terms of the views. The main highway from Heraklio to the Messara plain area (=Phaestos) was like a state highway. From there we went northwest toward Rethymno but dropped into the Amari valley. Driving in Amari valley was winding, with changes in elevation, some steeply pitched hills and blind curves, sometimes narrow.