Doing the Peloponnese by car clockwise - Nafplio to Monemvasia through Kosmas. Looking at RS comments, I am not sure why he mentions Skala and Vrontamas as route indicators. When I input those on a map it seems to offer a route that is a few minutes longer than the default route Google maps offers which would turn left at Geronthres and through Apidea. I don't mind doing extra time but is there anything I should know to avoid the route Google suggested?
Posted by
1226 posts
I have never driven that particular stretch, but I will say that driving the backroads of Greece using Google maps resulted in one of the most hairy driving experiences of our lives and added several hours. I'd follow Rick's advice if for no other reason than he's been there and knows it works. Especially in a rental car - the roads can get awful (fwiw, we ended up on a dirt road with huge potholes on the edge of a cliff and not wide enough to turn around. If the car had any problems we would have been in deep doo-doo - no cell service naturally. That was thanks to Google maps in the Arcadian mountains)
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thanks Jessica. I will follow your advice.
In one of our trips in Portugal Google took us on what I assume was the shortest route - I think the road was from Roman times. Luckily we survived it although the grazing donkeys gave us a surprised stare.
Posted by
New York
62 posts
Interesting posts, thanks for sharing this experience. When did that happen? Several years back or quite recently? Google Maps improved very much over last years, I was wondering if this still the case.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Actually relying on Google is a mixed bag. I had an instance in Italy where we were relying on the rental car GPS app and it took us to a dead end at dusk while we were trying to reach an agritourism farm in the mountains above Lucca. We were saved by turning to Google on our phone. True Google does not give you a clue on the quality of the road or how dangerous it is.
Posted by
Philadelphia, PA, USA
3320 posts
One of the reasons Google is a problem is that it's just an automated program... it can process data and provide instructions according to program steps, but cannot use common sense. Perfect example in Greece is village names -- almost every Prefecture (lik a county) has a village named Episkopi .... But if you are in the Peloponnese and ask for Episkopi 15 miles frm Nafplio... the program could send you to an Episkopi 4 hours away on the West coast. Also, because of the switch in Alphabets, there can be 3 ways or more to spell a destnation (the 2nd biggest town in Crete, Chania, is also Spelled Xania and Hanya -- and then there's Nafplio, Nauplia and Nauplion). So if you put the wrong spelling into a program, its little brain can't figure it out.
One of our intrepid contributors, "Stanbr" uses an online program, but ALSO has his wife riding shotgun, looking at a paper map -- and NOT the dumb map the rental place gives you ... a ROAD Editions map 1/250,000. I have Peloponnese and a Crete Road Editions map on my shelf, both of them marked up in red pen, for the routes my friends & I took. Makes a nice souvenir too ... and easy to show to people who want to visualize possible routes.
Posted by
Nanaimo, BC, Canada
1373 posts
As I read this thread I was reminded of our experience with GPS that Jan was referring to. We were driving from Delphi to Meteora. 5 hours later we arrived in Thessaloniki. It turns out there are 7 places called Meteora in Greece. One of them is a suburb of Thessaloniki. That experience is why we always have a good map so we can check out where the GPS is taking us.
Posted by
11156 posts
We were correctly warned by a Greek travel agent that drive times would be longer due to twisting mountain roads and he was correct.