GPS Greece

We are planning a trip to Greece this April and will be driving. We
would like to use a GPS but it appears that GPS systems don't have
maps available for anything but Athens. Is this true? If it is why? If
not can we rent something while we are in Greece?

Thanks
Steve

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:04:09 +0000, RAK wrote
(in article <47d9b574$0$26059$88260bb3@free.teranews.com>):

> I remember this issue of detailed Greek maps being unavailable back around
> 1970.... well, in Greece itself at least. As far as I remember you could buy
> detailed (perhaps out of date) military(?) maps in London, probably at
> Stanfords, but it was not wise to be caught with them in Greece - I think it
> could qualify you as a spy.

Quite possibly. That would have been back in the days of the Colonels' Junta
wouldn't it?

>
> Anyway I never found it hard to find my way around with the ordinary maps
> even in quite remote areas, e.g. along the Albanian border. As you say,
> there are not so many minor roads etc.

I'm not so sure about that. The so-called maps still sold at tourist shops on
the islands amuse me. I think they produce them at the local primary schools,
saying to the kiddies, "Today's task is to draw a nice map of the island.
Don't forget to make the sea nice and blue, the land brown, and draw plenty
of squiggly roads and some towns on it."

--
Mike Lane (UK North Yorkshire)
To contact me replace invalid with mike underscore lane

"RAK" <raknews@> kirjoitti
viestissä:47d9b574$0$26059$88260bb3@free.teranews. com...
>
>>
> I remember this issue of detailed Greek maps being unavailable back around
> 1970.... well, in Greece itself at least. As far as I remember you could
> buy detailed (perhaps out of date) military(?) maps in London, probably at
> Stanfords, but it was not wise to be caught with them in Greece - I think
> it could qualify you as a spy.
>
> Anyway I never found it hard to find my way around with the ordinary maps
> even in quite remote areas, e.g. along the Albanian border. As you say,
> there are not so many minor roads etc.
>
For some reason neither TeleAtlas nor Navteq cover Greece in detail (by
their bulk road maps anyways) but some limited areas like the capital
region. Eastern Europe is improving all the time. I just wonder what's wrong
with Greece.

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:50:55 +0000, steve wrote
(in article
<773e8b2e-9375-47a9-80f3-ce208b02bfde@u72g2000hsf..com>):

> Thanks for the information. This Christmas we used a GPS in Hungary,
> Czech & Slovakia. I would have thought that former Eastern Block
> countries were less likely to have GPS maps. What I really liked about
> using the GPS was that it eliminated the stress of navigation
> especially in cities. It would deliver us right to the door of our
> B&B.

Yes, well as I said you won't be able to search for addresses in the same
way, but I very rarely find that I need to do that in Greece. Apart from
Athens there aren't so many large towns that you need to navigate around.
More than in other countries I find in Greece one tends to find places to
stay more by word of mouth (just asking people) or simply seeing signs by the
roadside. It's one of the things I like about Greece that finding
accommodation and that sort of thing never seems much of a problem as it can
in other countries. You need a reasonable guide book (The Rough Guide is
quite good) and a decent paper map, that's all.

--
Mike Lane (UK North Yorkshire)
To contact me replace invalid with mike underscore lane

On Mar 14, 9:51 am, Mike Lane <inva...@mac.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:04:09 +0000, RAK wrote
> (in article <47d9b574$0$26059$88260...@free.teranews.com>):
>
> > I remember this issue of detailed Greek maps being unavailable back around
> > 1970.... well, in Greece itself at least. As far as I remember you could buy
> > detailed (perhaps out of date) military(?) maps in London, probably at
> > Stanfords, but it was not wise to be caught with them in Greece - I think it
> > could qualify you as a spy.

One source of maps was the mountaineering magazine "KORFES" which
published sanitised military maps of some areas. Otherwise, I once
went to the Geological Survey in Athens for maps - I got geological
maps but I think topo maps were also available.

Nowadays you can buy decent maps in motorway service stations, like
anywhere else :-)

B;