On the Run

The Greek Islands – as beautiful as they are eventful. Always something to do, especially in peak season. Two weeks on the islands of Naxos, Paros and Ios.

Naxos:

We hired a quad bike – which sounds like a dangerous idea.. and it was. Keep in mind I’ve never driven on the streets of Greece before, and my cousin hasn’t even got his licence at all, nor has he ever driven a quad bike before. So we go to a nearby field to practice on the bike before taking it out on the road. I go him a crash course (no pun intended) on quad bikes and off we went.

I’m driving first. We drive straight into town; a 25minute journey. Road signs in Greece/Europe are different from Australia. So as we passed each one significant to us, he was explaining to me the road rules on the run: “This means this, go there. That means this, do this”. Very interesting experience – throw in the fact that Greeks drive like.. well.. Greeks. Dangerous overtaking, illegal turns, speeding, just to name a few.

Anyways, we make it to town in one piece, park the quad and scope out the bars and clubs in the day time to see where we’ll go that night. Naturally we grab a pita gyros (which by the way we lived off of for 10 days. Breakfast lunch and dinner, this is all we ate and I wish I was exaggerating.. but I’m not).

As we’re heading back to the quad, I see a police woman near the bike writing us a ticket (apparently we couldn’t park there). We run over and she’s already written down the number plate and afew other particulars. My cousin does the talking. Basically, “This is Greece” he says to me as we drive away from her without a parking fine. He talked his way out of it, luckily, as the bike in front of us had indeed gotten a ticket. So off we go home to relax ready for our afternoon adventures. To be continued..