Traveling to Greece

[Idomeneas]

Geia!
I noticed you wanna come to Greece
Let me give you some advices-hints
First of all you have a very tight schedule. Believe me you havent calculated everything. Train/bus delays, time to get where you want. There is absolutely no chance to get from Rio to olympia without a car in a day and be able to see stuff and not drop dead in a corner with shadow.
Aegina can be reached with a fast ferry but after that you have to take a taxi or bus to sights, possibly eat and be on time back to port.

You havent calculated traffic jams on national highway and traffic till you reach national highway. There is no standard in this but if you are there in summer high season or weekend you will discover that just getting to Athens-Lamia highway its an adventure by itself Having a car will make things easier but costly also.

Now that i mention cost. Your badget seems pretty low to me if you intend to see all those places. If you mean to pass by and wave its ok but to really stay im afraid it wont do. Offcourse it depends from the kind of vacations you want to have. But anyway you havent calculated the factor ''eating''. Also Greece is notorious for the nightlife. Believe me we may not have other things but that we have. And ALOT lol: . The problem is that nightlife is expensive. People are so addicted to it that they may save money from other needs just to be able to go out in clubs and offcourse Bouzoukia, where tourists get cultural shock when they see girls dancing on tables and everybody throw flowers around. A bottle of whisky or any other spirit can cost up to 150 euros there and its for 4 people. Meanning 7 or 8 people 2 bottles if you want to have a table.
About eating you will have no problem. Do yourself a favor and dont eat those plastic american stuff you are used to. They will kill you and you will be hungry again in few hours. Try a nice tavern. Even if you are hard with food i dont know anybody hating a nice steak or lampchops D D

Make sure to get rooms with a/c or else during the summer you will boil in your sweat. In athens you can go around with taxi, since its cheap. BUT take care cause the yellow tribe (as we call the taxi drivers) is a sneaky one. There are certain snakes taking advantage the fact that tourists are used to pay more abroad to charge more. Always look the meter. To give you an example i live in a suburb of Peiraias about 8 km away. For this distance+ traffic i pay 3-3,5 euros. In amsterdam for 1/3 of the distance i payed 15.
Generally most people speak english and are helpfull. Signs are in english too so dont worry about language. Count in also the hordes of tourists in Athens and you will never feel alone.

This year i made the round of pelloponessos with a buddy. We started from Katakolo and ended up in Loutra Oraias Elenis where i have a house (near loutraki on the way to epidauros) It costed us 800 per person and we where invited in friend for a couple of days plus 3 days we stayed in my house. You should see if you can visit Monemvasia alsi cause the place is just magical. A castle town built on a small island connected with land by a long bridge. Its like going back in time and its ideal for romantic weekends :twisted: .

I would suggest to pick a region and really get in to it. There are so many places that you can go. BTW Nauplion is a very beautifull city and has many medieval sites like the castle of the city. Unfortunatelly the region around Olympia is destroyed by fire and i dont know how long it will take to be restored to some point. It would be great to swim in Zaharo a 35km long beach with golden sand and a forest.

I would suggest to keep in mind Crete also but that is a whole different chapter and needs an entire expedition of its own.

(a pic from the top walls of monemvasia)