TheBanyanTree: Life in the Slow Lane

[Kitty Park]

I've just returned from a 12-day cruise which began in Venice and ended in 
Barcelona.  I love the cruise experience and am willing to forego a land 
tour which might spend several days in one city to experience a taste of 
many.  Perhaps one day I might return to those where I want to spend more 
time.

For you who may be unfamiliar with cruise travel, ships offer shore 
excursions and buses carry up to 50 passengers from site to site.  Those 
vehicles can move only as quickly as the slowest passenger can get on and 
off the bus.  Therefore in each port we hired a private driver/guide so that 
we could move quickly from place to place with a maximum of 10 people 
getting out of or in to the car or van.  (For the curious, cost per person 
is generally less than the ships' tours.  And because roads in the old towns 
are no wider than two carriages, cars/vans can get clients closer to venues 
than buses can.)

In Athens as we drove from the city toward Cape Sounion to see the Temple of 
Poseidon, one of the folks in the back seat remarked about our speed and 
asked what the limit was.  Marcus replied, "There is no speed limit; the 
signs you see are merely suggestions."

On that same drive, we pulled up behind a long line of cars waiting to turn 
right at a traffic light.  Marcus drove into the left-hand turn lane where 
there were no cars, and when beside the first car in the right-hand turn 
lane, pulled in front of it, making us now the first car in line to turn 
right!  I was sitting in the front seat next to Marcus and spun my head to 
look at him.  "Are you *nuts*?", I asked him, thinking about road rage 
issues in the US.  He looked at me and smiled and shrugged.  "What?  This is 
no problem here," he replied.  And I guess it isn't.  I heard no horn honk 
or rapid-fire speech berating Marcus for his line cutting.

On my earlier visit to Santorini, I rented a car.  We had a marvelous time 
as we explored, although we were nearly T-boned by a bus that was prepared 
to run a stop sign.  (There are very few on the island.)  I rented a car 
again for this trip.  Before leaving the lot, the manager went over the car 
with us, looking for any marks on the car, running her hands along the 
vehicle, either caressing it or feeling for dents.  It was obvious that if 
we had a mishap, she'd be able to identify it!

The roads on Santorini are two-lane.  Ninety-nine percent of the cars are 
compact models.  Motor scooters abound.  We drove from Fira, the scenic town 
where the tenders dock, north to Oia, where the view is indescribable and 
the shops along the cliff, plentiful.  I was not speeding, but neither was I 
moseying along.  It became apparent there is no speed limit on Santorini 
either.  While my passengers white-knuckled it as we drove along the narrow 
winding road, a number of cars passed us.  (I was too busy keeping my eyes 
on the road to notice the cliff to our right.)  Later in the day as we 
rounded a curve (in our own lane, mind you), a car coming from the other 
direction fish-tailed coming around it, narrowly escaping impact with our 
grille.  Later there was another curve, and this time the driver was 
successful in pulling his out-of-control scooter out of a series of back-end 
swishes and back into his own lane.

We had nine ports of call, nine cities and numerous towns visited and 
hundreds of miles driven.  I heard horns honk twice.  We never saw an 
accident.  We never saw a trooper on an expressway.  Either all the bad 
drivers are dead or in jail or European citizens approach life differently 
than we Americans do.

Kitty
kpark at sssnet.com
www.parkplaceohio.com