Swift Car Rental delivered our car (a Hyundai mini-SUV) to the hotel at 10am, and provided maps and directions out of Athens. They also gave us directions for returning the car in two weeks. Fortunately our hotel was located north of the Athens city center and required us to make only two turns to get onto the main road out of town. We stopped to fill up the tank and we were off. We spent the first week touring the Peloponnese from our base in the small town of Astros on the Argolic Gulf. From Athens we drove west crossing the Corinth canal to the ancient city of Corinth and then on to Astros. We booked our apartment accomodation for the week through the internet, so we weren't totally sure what to expect. While the apartment was more than adequate (3 bedrooms, a large living room, bathroom, large kitchen, balconies front and back), the town itself was hardly what you'd call a tourist stop. In fact, we figured that by the time our week there was over, the whole town knew about the "Americans". We used Astros as our base for day trips to Nafplio and Epidaurus, Mycenae, Monamvasia and Methoni. For our visit to Mystras, we decided to spend the night, rather than do the whole trip in one day. While touring the ruins at Mystras, we met a couple (Allan & Linda) from Scotland. They are perpetual travelers who frequently spend months in Paros, evne while he teaches college courses over the internet. They were planning to be in Paros when we were and thought they might even be on the same ferry. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to get in touch.

It didn't take long to get used to the Greek drivers and the winding mountain roads. We were constantly amazed at their seeming recklessness, but we never saw an accident. There was very little traffic outside of the towns, so after a while, Rick got pretty good at passing trucks and other slow moving vehicles even on blind curves! The coastal scenery rivaled any we'd seen along the Amalfi Drive in Italy, the Great Ocean Road in Australia or the Pacific Coast Highway in California. If we'd stopped for every photo opportunity, we'd still be there--absolutely GORGEOUS!!. The roads through the mountains were rugged and not nearly as picuturesque. We had excellent maps, the only issue being that several of the highspeed roads, though clearly indicated on the map, had not yet been finished. Often we'd find ourselves winding slowly up and down the mountains, rather than tooling along on a superhighway.

Before leaving the US, we purchased an international cell phone through Telestial. We purchased a Greek SIM card which gave us a local number in Greece. We did the same thing in Australia last year, but this year Rick avoided drowning (i.e. ruining) it. This enabled us to call ahead for accomodations and to keep in touch with some of the people we met along the way. Later in our trip, it came in handy for contacting the proprietors of the apartments we rented on the islands to let them know when our ferries were arriving and arrange pick-ups and drop-offs.) It's far cheaper to buy a phone than rent one--you can purchase a SIM card for whatever country you visit. The nice thing is that incoming calls don't count against your minutes!

If we had the opportunity to do it over again we would have done a few things differently. First of all, Astros was not as centrally located as we would have wished. (We might have been better off staying a night or two in several towns rather than the whole week there. This is what we did in Central Greece the following week and it worked out quite well.) Secondly, rather than a day trip to Monamvasia, we would plan to stay at least one night in the old town across the concourse from the "modern" town. Third, we would have spent a night in Gythio rather than in Mystras.

At the end of the week we headed for mainland Greece via Olympia (where we spent the night) and the Rio Bridge which spans the Gulf of Corinth from the just northeast of Patra to Andino on the mainland.

To get the most out of the photos below, we suggest you check out our Peloponnese journal. Otherwise, just click on any photo below to enlarge it. (Note that they are not necessarily presented in the order they were taken.)