greece wrap up

2025-05-14

this is my (long-awaited) wrap-up post for my greece trip! i’ll be covering the gear i used, driving map, stats, trip highlights, and more! read to the end for a fun surprise ;)

welcome to the gear wall over here at dragon’s blogma where you get to read all about the cool gear i used on my trip!

for almost all photos, i used a (new-to-me) camera, the canon g5 x mark ii. this thing is small, takes beautiful photos, and was plain fun to use. it is a major upgrade from my iphone camera, and i can’t wait to take it on my next trip!

for all of my steps, flights climbed, and walking distances, i used my garmin forerunner 955 solar gps watch. 10/10 would recommend!! it works!!

i packed everything for my trip in a patagonia mlc 45. again, 10/10 would recommend!! it works!! i also brought a small shoulder bag (the B2TM crescent bag) for packing all of my daytime essentials as i was out and about :)

and finally, the goat:

sup nerds, it’s STAT TIME!

first off is my driving map! i drove all over the peloponnese, mostly the eastern side. despite how much of greece i appear to have covered, the driving times were not that bad compared to driving in the united states. here is the full driving map of my trip (note that i had to add in a few intermediary stops to get the map to route correctly):

here is a little breakdown of each leg that I drove including any stops:

in general, i tried to do most of my sightseeing in the morning while the sites were not busy (and while they were open), then driving to my next accommodation in the afternoon. the roads in greece were interesting: many of the highway and toll roads were built after greece joined the european union got funding to improve their road network, whereas most of the small highways, mountain roads, and rural roads (while not in disrepair) have not seen the same treatment.

the drive from nafplio to patras on my way to delphi (march 17) was almost entirely on toll highways; they are very wide, very smooth, and very easy driving. however, my drive from monemvasia to nafplio via leonidio (“the scenic route,” march 14) was almost entirely on mountain roads; they are narrow, lawless, and were lined with many orthodox shrines.

next are my walking stats! march 10 was my travel day from seattle to greece, and i didn’t include my travel day home on march 21 because i left so early in the morning.

i have a couple interesting considerations about my walking stats:

first, during the first half of my trip as i was driving around the peloponnese, i was doing a lot of fortress and acropolis sightseeing. this led to a decevingly small amount of steps, but lots and lots and lots of walking uphill. the day i walked 121 flights was the day i visited mystras: the mountainside byzantine ruins and venetian fortress. the 121 flights were definitely worth it for how beautiful it was; here is a link to that blog post so you can see for yourself!

when i got back into athens on march 17, i needed to do a lot less walking uphill until visiting the athens acropolis and parthenon on march 20 with my friends. this can definitely be seen in my increased number of climbed flights for that day. here is a link to that blog post if you want to check it out :)

second, once i got back to athens, aside from the acropolis, things in the main city area are generally pretty flat! but i had a lot that i wanted to see and tried to cover as much ground as possible. the city goes on and on and on so i could keep walking around forever; you can definitely see the increase in my step count and distance covered after march 16! this is in contrast to sightseeing in the countryside where the sites were in a much smaller, more concentrated area and required covering smaller distances.

my biggest walking day ended up being the day that my ferry to hydra was cancelled! i think that i was frustrated by having my island adventure ripped from my grasp (dramatic), and once i got to my hotel in athens, i walked the frustration off. it also gave me a good chance to get a sense of the different core neighborhoods of athens and was good preparation for the last couple days of my trip which were more sightseeing focused compared to march 17. here is a link to the blog post where you can read all about my ferry catastrophe!

forget the numbers, it’s time to get emotional ( T-T)

highlight 1: visiting mystras. i love byzantine art and architecture, i love how quiet it was, and i love the views. this site seems a little less visited than many of the ancient greek sites, but i would highly recommend it to anyone visiting greece! (as long as you like walking uphill lol)

highlight 2: visitng the athens acropolis and parthenon with friends. secretly, this highlight was just the insane lunch that we all ate together where we befriended the restaurant owner. it was great to see some familiar faces after spending the majority of my trip solo!

highlight 3: visiting monemvasia. damn this place was COOL. it was a little touristy, but walking along the narrow medieval streets and later hiking up to the upper town was really just amazing. also, seeing the rock out in the water from the shore is so stinkin’ cool. i’m sure monemvasia gets crazy busy in the typical tourist season, but i would definitely recommend staying a night or two on the rock!!

honorable mention: the theater at epidavros before the teenagers arrived :)

now it’s time to go to class: what did i learn?

lesson 1: i’m really glad I rented a car. sure, i knew i wanted to drive around to many places, but a majority of major sites can be accessed easily by bus, usually as day trips from athens. however, the car was so great because it allowed me to follow my own schedule and often beat the tour busses by 1–2 hours in the morning. once the tour busses arrived, the sites became packed with hordes of people, and it made the experience much worse for me. 

ultimately, with the car, i was fast on my feet, flexible in schedule, and able to visit uncrowded sites. take this advice with a grain of salt: driving in large towns and cities is mildly a nightmare, but out on the open road, driving is easy and the scenery is S tier. this is all without mentioning how cheap the car rental was! for 5 days, i was able to rent a nice car for about $100. some of the cheaper and smaller cars had 5-day rentals for as low as $70!

my car:

IMG_3367_Original

lesson 2: i think i lucked out with trip timing. i was visiting in march when a lot of places were beginning to re-open from the winter offseason. i specifically stayed on the mainland which has more year-round tourism, but i think i was there at the beginning of the tourism upswing for the year.

in march, the weather was warm but mild, the sites had people but were not packed, and enough places were open to have a good time. i can imagine that the later spring through summer and early fall would be so busy that I would lose my mind, so i can definitely recommend the shoulder season! note that these are my feelings about the places i personally went to, and it also leads into my next lesson about places i didn't visit:

lesson 3: don’t plan a ferry ride in the off season unless you are very flexible. the sea and weather around greece can be unpredictable in the shoulder season and winter, meaning that it is not uncommon for ferry rides to be cancelled due to dangerous sailing conditions.

the islands are much more popular in the summer for their beaches, and the seas are much calmer then as well. additionally, businesses and hotels on many of the islands are VERY seasonal; they are only open during summer and would have been closed around the time i was there. the island i intended to visit, hydra (circled on my driving map above), is a bit more of a year-round destination which is why i added it to my itinerary. hopefully one day i will visit the greek islands!